Page 24 of Loathing My Boss
This woman…
This is a woman who keeps a catalog of all my least favorite foods in order to make sure I’m guilted into eating one at least every other day becauseit’s good for me. I don’t believeit’s good for meto fight my way through the slimy, awful consistency of okra in order to obtain, what? Vitamin K?
Almost all green vegetables possess that stuff.
So I’m pretty sure I am hyped up on more K than anyone ever needs after forcing down whatever she shoves into my smoothies each morning.
She doesn’tcareabout me. But I do what I’m toldbecause I am hardwired to appease people whopretendto care about me even when I know they don’t. There’s no avoiding the horrible way my brain works now; the insanity is in my blood, written directly into my genetic code.
A small, sleepy noise drifts from my bedmate, and my heart rams itself into my esophagus.
She moves; the bed shifts; I die, just a little.
Viktor.
Viktor, Viktor, Viktor.
She has said my name one glorious time, and I cannot begin to comprehend the way my whole being is responding with violent elation.
I need to commence my plans of wooing. That’s the whole point of this retreat. Having time to woo outside technical working hours.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I plant my palms to my face and free a tight breath.
So…how…how does onewoo, exactly?
This is really a territory only Kaleb has ever touched upon, but even after the seven years he’s spent back home, he’s never quite felt close enough to ask any favors of. Probably because he’s never once asked any favors of us. He left, and now even though he’s back, he’s still as independent as when he went away. I can’t bring myself to rely on him. I wish he could rely on me.
I wish I didn’t feel like I failed him growing up.
He never did squeeze himself into the mold our parents laid out for us. So he always seemed to get the brunt of their wrath—both verbal and physical—and there was nothing I could do so many times.
So many times, I was helpless to protect my family from the monsters whose cells made us.
My finger finds the scar I got the one time I was able to throw myself in front of Kaleb. It runs across my rightbrow, a constant reminder of how helpless we all once were. My father blamed Kaleb for the scar that was meant for him, and then…he made me watch the resulting punishment.
At one point or another, I have failed to protect all of my brothers.
But I failed to protect Kaleb so badly, heleftatfifteen. As a child, he just…walked away one day, and we didn’t hear from him until after the accident that took our parents’ lives. I spared no expense in hunting him down to tell him the nightmare was over—permanently—and I was sorry…endlessly.
I learned that he’d become an escort.
The contact I’d hired to hunt him down found him with his arm around the waist of a woman he barely knew who had paid him to accompany her to a wedding.
I failed my little brother so intensely he fled home and sold himself just short of prostitution.
I still can’t explain the relief I felt when he agreed to come back. I still can’t process the guilt I feel every time he disappears for a few days to do ajob, then several grand hits the bank account all of us contribute to and I oversee for the purpose of maintaining our home and Sunset itself.
Seven years Kaleb spent alone, pawning off his companionship to make a living.
Seven years he’s been back, gardening, at arm’s length from the rest of us.
Fifteen years he spent suffering.
Twenty-nine years I’ve failed him.
Maybe I’m not good enough to love.
Forgetwooing, I need to know why Crisis hates me and if it’s something I can fix—because right now? She’s more distant than Kaleb. And if I don’t know how to bridge that gap with a brother, what hope do I possibly have with her?
