Page 18 of Loathing My Boss
When I asked Kyran if he would help me put this wholewriter’s retreattogether so I could spend some obligatory off-work time with Crisis in a setting not entirelywork related, but still work related enough that she’d agree, he looked me square in the eye and said,Why don’t you just have a conversation with her about your feelings? Like an adult.
I thought I’d already explainedwhythat wasn’t my first inclination.
Because she hates me!
She. Hates. Me.
She plots my demise in her sleep and has Canva murderboards dedicated to my misery. I don’t knowwhyshe hates me, but I know what calculation, manipulation, and toxicity look like. She’s good at masking the animosity beneath the innocence of her big brown eyes and cute little nose, but the woman is skilled, slipping venom into her words with explicit underlying intent.
She’s spent the past two years passive aggressively chipping away at my self-esteem with casual comments about my age, my character, my abilities.
I know it.
I see it.
I’m used to it.
Ihatedit when it came from my parents.
But I adore her.
I. Adore. Her.
She hates me. But Iseeher. I see the dedication she puts into her work. I see the results she gets. I see how perfectly kind and gentle andlovingtoward my brothers she is when she doesn’t even know I’m around. She hates me. I don’t know why, but I assume it’s within reason, because Crisis?
Crisis is precious, and sweet, and reasonable—most of the time.Most of the timebeinganytime that doesn’t include me.
My brothers love her almost as much as I do. On her own time, she jumps in to help them whenever possible. She practically planned half of Lukas’s world tour, editing over his PR team’s schedule and making everything about it so much better via Canva Whiteboard witchcraft. She spends time in the gardens with Kaleb, mostly obsessing over his koi pond, but also including him in ways that he seems to have all but stepped back from ever since he came home.
It’s pure insanity the way my feelings have entangled themselves in wanting her when she is in no way kind to me at a genuine level. I don’t know if my twisted history has left me broken beyond sensibility or if I amdesperateto taste the gentleness she gives so freely to everyone else. All I know is that I choked on my heartbeat when she knelt on the carpet, looked up at me with those big eyes, and smiled just hours ago.
Knowing she’s feet away from me right now, cozy and content in the big bed all alone, is torture.
Her lavender scent thickens in the room, congealing in my lungs, cloying in my head, and I know I’ll dream of her if I dare to close my eyes, assuming I can even fall asleep on this hard floor.
Geriatric.
She’s so unbelievably rude…
I’m notold. I’msix four.
Back pain started during my first high school growth spurt and hasn’t stopped since.
I am going to hate being alive in the morning, and I’m going todespisemy baby brother even more.
When Kyran was born, I was ten, and I held him in my arms, and I swore I’d protect him.
Yetthisis the thanks I get for not throwing that tiny wrinkly bundle across the parlor?
What an ingrate.
My eyes close, and I seeher.
I see her in her slippers coming up the hall from the main bathroom in the barn. I see her in the shorts and camisole she’s wearing right now, in bed, one bad decision away from me. I see that birthmark of hers on her shoulder. I see the shape of her bare wing bones peeking past the straps of her top.
I see her, and hope she is merciful to me in the morning.
?
