Episode 1

My name is Luna, I am the youngest daughter of the Carpio family. Today I turn 19. Today, like every day, I leave my house late for work, trying not to be seen by anyone. My stepsister arrived a month ago and everything has become hell for me. It was easier to avoid my stepmother, but now I have to avoid both of them.

In the living room are my stepmother and her daughter talking as they do every day.

"Mother, I have many marriage proposals."

"I'll give Fernando a week, if he doesn't send you the proposal, you'll have to marry one of those who have already sent a proposal," my stepmother replies.

"No, I won't leave the way clear for another with Fernando. If I marry someone else, I won't be able to marry Fernando," my stepsister says.

"It won't happen, you are the most beautiful of all the powerful families. The ladies are fighting for you to be in their families."

"I know, today in the recordings the views went up since I will be the protagonist. I've just returned and people surround me, I won't waste my beauty on someone like Limber, he's a bitter man who doesn't go out and I won't stay locked up in that house, and if I did, it would only be so Luna could see how the love of her childhood proposed to me and not to her," my stepsister says.

"You always were and always will be more beautiful than her," my stepmother says.

"Thank you, Mother. With Fernando I will have everything, money and that man by my side. I want them to envy me for being next to someone like him, and if all this time he didn't marry it was because he was waiting for me," my stepsister says.

I hear them talking and it hurts because Limber has always been my neighbor. But now that he has graduated he has become very influential and is a person with a lot of money, he always does what his parents order him to do. I go down the stairs cautiously but they manage to see me.

"Luna, where are you going?" my stepmother asks.

"I'm just going out, stepmother," I reply.

"Look, Mother, at the clothes she's wearing," my stepsister says when she sees me in pants, a long-sleeved blouse and sneakers.

"Change, you're not leaving my house like that," my stepmother says, looking at me badly since according to them society ladies only wear elegant dresses.

"With which of all the clothes you've bought me?" I say to her and she gets up annoyed walking towards me.

"I tolerate you only for the love I had for your father, if it were up to me I would have kicked you out onto the street from the first day I set foot in this house," my stepmother says.

"Is that it, or because I haven't reached the required age and my father's will can't be read until I do," I say to her.

"How insolent, I have fed you, clothed you and is this how you repay me?" my stepmother says.

"We both know perfectly well that neither I want to be here nor you want me to be, so we have to continue avoiding each other as in the last year, and what food? What clothes? I work for myself, I have never depended on you even though you spend my father's money on your daughter," I say to her.

She tries to grab me but I break free from her grip.

"Mother, let her go, she's just getting in the way here," my stepsister says.

I ignore what she says and don't think twice about leaving, I walk along the sidewalk arriving at the double gate which I partially open so that I can leave. When I was a child I loved to see how the gates opened automatically, I chose them. It has been exactly a year since my father died of a heart attack, the bad thing is that he left me with those two vipers he brought home and although I say no, the truth is that I resent him for leaving me with them, although now he is in heaven next to my mother.

I walk a few blocks to catch a bus and arrive at work, late because the conversation with my stepmother delayed me. I enter the club from the back and change, putting on the uniform along with the apron and knock on the door of one of the private rooms that they indicate.

"Good afternoon, gentlemen. I am the waitress Lulu and I will attend to you tonight," I say.

No one here gives their real name, customers don't need to know our name, Lulu was the only name I thought of when for a moment I would say my real name and I had to improvise.

They tell me the bottles they require and I write everything down, leaving where I run into the companionship women, they only take care of keeping the clients company, when it is business they call them almost at the end as now that they will celebrate. I go to the bar and ask for the bottles, I sigh before entering and leave them on the table, I place the glasses and my colleagues dedicate themselves to serving, I leave and for the moment that's all from my part, I continue to the most common area where the tables are outdoors, first, second and third floor.

Dawn comes, the club closes and the boss calls us for the meeting, here the payment is weekly and he gives me an envelope with more money than my salary.

"Why is there more money?" I ask.

"The same client as always left it for you, he says you served him well," my boss replies.

"Lulu, why don't you change positions? You will earn more and if you don't want to be touched you just say it, it is not mandatory to get involved with the clients, it is only to keep them company, you are very pretty, they always ask for you but they are explained that you only serve the drinks," says one of my colleagues.

"Thank you and I will continue like this," I say to my colleague, who always brings up the same topic.

I go to change and leave with the clothes I came in, I walk along the sidewalk and as always I deviate to a park a block away. I sit on a bench and as if the weather knew how I feel, it starts to rain, I stay sitting alone with my thoughts.

I remember when I read Cinderella and said how someone can be cruel to someone else's daughter and yes there are. A year ago I went out to look for work since I couldn't stand being at home with my stepmother. While Estrella went to study theater abroad I looked for work in the afternoon and it paid for the last year of high school, I found it in the club and the pay is very good, I save up for when I turn 20 and the will is determined I have somewhere to go, while I can't leave the house and if I do they will keep everything and I'm not willing to let that happen.

"Oh, Father! I sigh, marrying was the biggest mistake you made, giving your last name to the daughter of my mother's sister was even worse, I know that according to you you supported them for being a single mother, but you only made it more complicated for me, now I am the one who has to put up with them, according to you, I needed a maternal figure but I would have preferred not to have one, I remember when my aunt arrived asking for asylum, her husband abandoned them and my mother had just died was sick, she left me when I was only 4 years old and I barely remember her, at one point I thought my aunt would take my mother's place but it wasn't like that, it will never be like that.

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