Chapter Seventeen.

                                    

                                          
"What do you mean I have to leave there?" Demi asked.
                          
"Pastor Stevens was talking about how you have to change your old habits and stuff to do this. You can’t stay with him and expect to be pure until you’re married." Nick remarked. Demi could tell that he was really worried about this.
                          
“Nick, I’m not going to be sleeping with anyone every again, well, until I’m married. We have this whole arrangement planned out. I’m just gonna be sleeping there and then I’m cleaning at your house while Rodney thinks I’m getting screwed by random guys.”
                          
“What if something happens?” Nick paused, thinking of a scenario. “What if he finds out you’re not really sleeping with guys anymore? Or that you have a boyfriend? Or that you’re going to move out? Or-“
                          
Demi cut him off. She held up her hands. “Whoa there, cowboy. Calm down. Rodney has to know that I don’t plan on being a hooker forever. And he won’t find out because we have this perfectly planned.”
                          
Nick shook his head. “I just don’t like it, Demi. Something’s telling me to get you out of there.”
                          
"Nick, where would I stay even if I did move out of there? It’s not like your mom would be jumping at the chance for me to live at your house." Demi stated.
                          
"I’d buy you a whole house if it meant you getting out of there." Nick confessed.
                          
Okay, this was getting ridiculous. Trying to calm down her boyfriend, Demi took his hand in hers. “Everything is going to be okay, alright?” She reassured and gave him a kiss on the cheek. Nick offered a small smile, but Demi could tell that he wasn’t convinced.
                          
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Tears wouldn’t even fill her eyes because she was too in shock. Demi sat in the corner of her room, where the empty coffee can laid on the floor. This coffee can had once contained thousands of dollars that Demi had been saving up to buy her own place. Now everything inside was gone.
                          
"Sweet Charity!" Demi flinched when she heard Rodney call her from the living room. He must have just walked in the door because the house had been vacant when Demi had arrived that morning.
                          
At first Demi had assumed that someone had come in and robbed the place, but then she recalled that everything else in the house looked untouched. The only thing stolen was her money. That’s when she realized who had done it.
                          
She heard her door open but didn’t glance at Rodney when he stepped in to her room. She didn’t want to look at him, not after what he had done.
                          
"Oh, yeah, about that…" Rodney began to say when he noticed Demi kneeling next to her empty coffee can. "I needed to pay off some guys and I didn’t have the cash on me. I’ll pay you back." He promised, but Demi knew he wasn’t serious. And she could tell that the guys he was paying off were his drug dealers. The drugs were a nasty habit that he had just hopped back on these past couple of months and, judging by his eyes, Demi could tell he was high right now.
                          
"How could you?" Demi asked, still avoiding all eye contact with him. She didn’t wait for an answer. "That money was saved up so that I could find my own place! So that I could get away from this life! And now you ruined it!" She screamed; the tears were finally rolling down her cheeks.
                          
Rodney let out a cocky laugh. “What makes you think I’ll let you leave any time soon?”
                          
"You’re lucky I’m still here right now." Demi shot back. She made an attempt to walk past him but Rodney’s arm shot out and his hand connected with the wall perfectly blocking her exit.
                          
"You’re not going anywhere." He hissed through gritted teeth.
                          
Demi swallowed hard and tried to hide her fear. “Not even to the corner?” She asked in an annoyed tone.