Page 33 of Loathing My Boss
“Great. Go away.”
He flees before I can manage a real inhale.
She’s just so…wow.
Yep. Real articulate for an author, I am.
“Thank you so much,” the redhead—whose name I never caught or bothered to remember—murmurs once Crisis turns to her. “I…I didn’t expect that here. I had no idea what to do. A-and he just kept getting closer.” She sniffles, scrubbing a hand beneath her glasses across her speckled face.
Crisis winces, turning on her heel to head back toward our lane. “Don’t mention it. Some men act like children. Just take them by the ear and show them you’re better suited to being their mother than their lover, then send them to their rooms without dinner.”
Yes, Mommy.
Frick.
I cough and bleach that thought out of my brain, clamping a hand to my mouth.
No. Very muchno. Just all around absolutely not. That wasn’t even a funny joke, and I’m sure Ihavemommy issues, so just all around completely no, no,no.
Crisis finds me mid breakdown, scans me, and lifts a brow. “You good, Viktor?”
That’s the third time she’s said my name. I wonder if I’ll ever stop counting, or if I’d sooner ask Zakery to tattoo tally marks on my skin.
Hoarse, I croak, “Yep.”
She straightens, alert, and her hand flies to my forehead. “Are you coming down with something? I bet it’s because you haven’t been having your smoothies. The nutrients here arenotbalanced, and to make matters worse, you chose white bread over whole grain to have with your oatmeal this morning. Those kinds of carbs hit your system like pure sugar. And you know what pure sugar does?Deletes your immune system.”
“I’m not sick,” I grumble, carefully—shakingly—guiding her hand away from my flesh with two fingers. “I just had something in my throat.”
Faux worry creases her brows as she eases. “If you’re sure.”
“I’m sure.”
“Okay…” She doesn’t smile. She hasn’t been smiling. Not since I saw her crying.
She’s always a little…intense…for lack of a better word right now, but she normally smiles quite a bit, especially when she’s tormenting me “for my own good.” Today, however, she just seems sad. Like she’s going through the motions. Trying to survive.
I wish I knew how to cheer her up. I wish I knew why I’m the last person she’d want encouragement from.
Turning toward the targets, I nock an arrow and try to remember the advice Crisis was whispering to herself before. It’s hard when my thoughts are spiraling.
Should I call Crimson, spill my guts, and hope that whatever I did to deserve Crisis’s wrath wasn’t so heinous Crimson would turn around and tell Crisis everything, causing her to leave me forever?
Crimson’s always been kind, refined, and a decent confidant concerning the struggles of living in our social class. She knows the injustices that mark the hallowed grounds of our bloodlines. Money comes with corruption, after all. And the power hungry abuse whatever they feel like, including their children.
It’s been a while since Crimson and I have been stuck at an event together, discussing troubles over flutes of wine, though. And if there’s one thing Crimson is, it’s loyal. More so to Crisis than to me, by a somewhat significant margin, so maybe taking a chance on showingmy feelings to her isn’t a good idea.
I don’t like the idea of letting whatever’s wrong sit, either.
Yet I’m almost positive calling her out on her lie is a bad idea, too.
I’m cornered on all sides by poor options. I don’t know how to make progress here without risking everything.
I wish things with Crisis were as simple as things with business. Business is always cold, calculated, clear. Even writing isn’t this hard, and especially not when I’m scrawling delusions about Crisis into a book that no one will ever read.
Writing, for me, has always been a way to cope. Structuring plots to sell and putting myself before the public eye was the price I paid in order to maintain my place in our messed up family. Therealstuff isn’t anything I ever saved before my book about “Catastrophe,” because my real feelings couldn’t belong in places my parents watched. And they watched everything. I used to get the feelings out, then delete anything that wouldn’t meet some portion of their approval.
Because they didn’t wanthumans with feelingsfor children.
