Page 20 of Loathing My Boss
The only thing I have ever, in twenty-three novels, enjoyed writing is more like a collection of fantasies than a book. Mydon’t do that with your assistantjournal feels like therapy. It’s healing in ways I can’t begin to explain.
Everything else, I have tolerated.
Because that’s the job.
And no writing retreat needs to babysit me into it.
Crisis scowls while I sit on the floor in front of her, crooked.
Then she moves.
Pained, my gaze follows her as she seats herself behind me. Her hands flatten against my muscles—siphoning heat through the thin fabric of my cotton t-shirt—and a panicked chill rattles through my bones. Those perfect small hands of hers move, and I collapse in on myself.
“Crisis, what ar—” I cuss when her elbow hits me, and her nails bite into my shoulder.
My spine cracks as she straightens it.
The sore muscles in my neck constrict as breath hisses from my lips. Her fingers settle and grind into the tendons of my shoulders.
“Ow, ow, ow.” I gasp for air as my vision spots.
“Quit being a baby,” she says, kneading into a knot as though her vendetta against me rests solely upon it. “I’ll research a stretch routine that will help over breakfast. I get stiff necks a lot from sitting for so long, so Crimson had a physical therapist send me a few exercises that help. I’ll forward them to you.”
The heel of her hand presses into my muscles as her ruthless attacks unwind my body. My eyes squeeze shut.
“This is why you should listen to me,” she whispers, as the pain ebbs into something far worse—utter seduction. Her fingers run up through the long strands of my hair as she carries a massage from my shoulders, to my neck, to my head. “I knew this would happen.”
There she goes again, attacking my self-esteem, suggesting herself as the authority in my life, acting like I’m unreliable.
My eyes close.
It’s probably really sad for her that I can’t find it in myself to care. Compared to what my parents said and did, her efforts are adorable, harmless to such a point that she’s actually experiencing remorse at believing she’s physically harmed me with her schemes.
My head angles slightly to the left as I utter a swear.
“How far can you turn your head now?” she murmurs.
I test the waters of my mobility, mutter, “Enough to maybe get up.”
She pats my shoulder and distances herself, standing in front of me and offering her hand. “Need help?”
I look at her hand, which was just touching me…doing miraculous things to my muscles, threading into my hair… ThenI remember how she flinched when I touched her cheek.
Swallowing hard, I grip the bed post instead and creak as I rise. “Shut up,” I mutter before she can say a word. I swallow again. “That was the bed.”
Wetting her lips, Crisis tucks her hands behind her back. “You’re delusional. Maybe I should call that ambulance.”
“Let’s just get breakfast.” I sag, defeated. “And some pillows for a…purity wall.”
Chapter 7
?
I am useless without my morning affirmations.
Crisis
I suck.
