Sarah: body so fragile, small and pale, her long black hair no longer shines, it’s more like a gray color now. She walks the streets with her head held high, even though she struggles to maintain her balance in those ridiculous heels. She walks the streets as if she’s proud of herself. She remembers wearing Prada, but now she doesn’t realize that her stretchy skirt has a run on it. She remembers wearing Mac but she doesn’t realize that her one dollar eye liner is smudged all over her face now. She remembers wearing Dior but she doesn’t realize she reeks of alcohol now. Nothing’s the same, but in her eyes she’s still the princess she used to be.
Officer Church spends his Friday night shifts looking for Sarah. Sometimes he find her in a dark alley by 25th and Roosevelt, sometimes he finds her in the back of a diner, sometimes he finds her running out of a bar cussing everyone out. Sarah’s so unpredictable, it drives him crazy.
Today she was leaving the local Walgreens, which would be completely normal except for its 3 in the morning and Walgreens closes at 11. Officer Church stops her and asks her what she was doing in Walgreens if it had been closed for hours. She runs up to him and hugs him, she replies by saying “you’re not going to arrest me are you? I wasn’t doing anything wrong” Which they both know is a lie, just like they both know that Officer Church doesn’t want to ask her what she was doing at Walgreens; he wants to ask her the same question he asks her every time he has the night shift and finds her.
Church hugs her back and looks her in the eyes wondering how a girl like her can stoop so low. He sees the potential in her; he knows she’s better than what she’s doing. He’s arrested her countless of times for prostitution, for possession of all different types of drugs, and it breaks his heart every time, but he’d rather have her sitting in a cell than out in the streets.
“Run away with me Sarah, please”, How could a girl so beautiful inside and out, with so much potential do what she’s doing? She’s not your regular prostitute; she’s not your regular druggy who’s high all the time. She’s an intelligent girl, she graduated high school with honors and was accepted into one of the best universities in the country; but it all went downhill when she lost her parents. At first prostitution was just a way to pay off the rest of her tuition, but then she found herself lost, and trapped and with no way out.
“Sarah please, we can be happy. You can have a fresh start- a new beginning in a town where no one knows who you are; you can be anyone you want to be. You can be the old you, you can be a new you. It doesn’t matter, but you can leave this- you can leave these dirty streets and these dirty people…with me. Sarah I miss the old you”
Sarah rolls her eyes, she’s heard him say this to her millions of times. “Rick, I just can’t. I can’t leave this; you know how much trouble I’ll be in if I try to run away?! If they ever find us, they’ll kill us. Running away is not as easy as you make it seem.”
Rick has been in love with Sarah since they were juniors in high school, and ever since he’s been trying to win her heart over.
“Sarah, we’ll run AWAY! We’ll go somewhere far away, another country if you want! You can change your name, I can change my name. You can be that lawyer you always wanted to be, and I can get another job as a cop wherever we go. As long as we’re together…”
Sarah lights a cigarette, and looks him in the eye for a long time. He can never tell what she’s thinking.
“Rick you dream a lot, you’ve always been a dreamer, nothing could ever get in the way of what you wanted. You were the star athlete in high school, you got the highest grades, every girl dreamed of dating you-“
“I never got you”
“And you never will Officer Church. You’re just as blind as I am, I can’t leave, I’m not ready… You’ve always been stubborn ya know? You don’t know how to take no for an answer, you can’t change everyone, you can’t save everyone. “