Page 29 of Loathing My Boss
And the teachers did nothing about it, because mysterious, untraceable things werealwayshappening around me, and I couldn’t try to get the other kids in trouble just because they weren’tvery kind.
That’s not how you make friends, Crisis, one teacher had the gall to say to me.
I didn’t want tomake friends, though. I gave that up so, so early in my childhood. I don’t even remember when I stopped caring about human connection. I didn’t want friends… I just wantedsurvivalto be less…painful.
It is shocking that the streaming service with the movieLuck—a story about a lonely orphan who never had anything good happen to her on account of her bad luck—did not contact me to ask if I was okay for the eight thousand times I watched it the year it came out.
I was a full-grown adult, sobbing over a child’s cartoon,every. day.for nothing short of a full calendar year.
So…what’s wrong with me?
Ha.
What a joke.
I was made broken and whoever’s in charge hates me with a vehemence similar to the one I possess.
I wish I were more lovable. I wish I were still loving.
I used to be.
I used to be so,soloving.
Back when I believed in a world that would care about me if I could just find the people in it who knew how to reach for my hand. If I could just put these bleeding words out into the void, maybe someone would hear them screamI’m here, are you like me, are you alone, just like me?
A cuss slips into my head as tears bead in my eyes. They burn in my throat as I fight them, breathing deep to resist. I don’t know how long Viktor’s morningmotivational thought for the baby writersis going to take. It wasn’t all that long after breakfast yesterday, but who knows what Little Red Riding Hood’s bravery prompted in the other dreamers.
Maybe they’re all crowding him by now, demanding wisdom he seems all too willing to give—to others.
“You are inconsequential,” I whisper as my character’s guardian echoes the words and throws her out into the yard with the chickens and the cattle. Horribly abused, homegirl does not yet know that she’sthe chosen onein this story.
She will, soon, but I’m not there yet. And getting there depends on my mood entirely.
Maybe my writing sucks because I’m willing to spend the first fifteen chapters delineating all the things I’ve had sketched into my skin from the moment I knew what an insult was.
The worlds of Viktor Bachelor kept me alive. Something in them resonated with the deep, bone-chilling loneliness that plagued me as a child. He’s why I wanted to become an author. He’s why I thought there were people like me in this unholy wasteland we call earth.
I believed in him.
I believed in him so much…sometimes…I even found the strength to believe in myself.
And then, in barely four paragraphs, he took all of that away.
Right when I sniffle, the door opens.
My muscles pinch as my fingers freeze.
I feel, with horror, a single unwelcome tear coast down my cheek in the exact same moment Viktor’s eyes lift to find mine.
Swallowing hard, I hold my breath and pray his eyesight is as bad as my comments concerning his age would imply.
I should really know better by now than to ever believe I’d be so lucky.
The door latches behind him as he closes it, then he approaches.
Lightning fast, I remove all evidence of a word document being open without so much as turning my gaze from him.
“Crisis…” he says, voice a low murmur, raking across my skin. “…is everything all right?”
