Page 35 of Loathing My Boss
“What if it isn’t?” Viktor asks.
“Trust me.” My eyes roll. “It is.”
I’ve had plenty of “love letters” in my life. I remember the first one. How flattered I felt. I went home, kissing the envelope, cradling it in my arms, crying.
Someone likedme. Someone wantedme.
Even though everyone called me a hazard, someone was willing to brave the storm that just being around me often wrought.
Heartbreak isn’t the right word for what happened when I showed up in the appointed place at the appointed time and found myself surrounded by laughing girls.
No.
Furyis.
But who got in trouble? The gang who sewed hope into the very fibers of my sobbing, lonely soul—then ripped it away, taking the bleeding scraps with them? Or the bawling girl who hit the monster who was laughing the loudest?
Justice is such an illusion.
And I’m sick and tired of leaving it in other people’s hands.
As I gather my clothes for the day, I find Viktor unmoved on his side of the bed, staring at the trashcan as though I just ripped up a puppy and chucked its limbs inside.
The despondent horror riddled with speckles of unease strike me funny, so I hedge, “Viktor?”
His back straightens, and he looks at me, eyes wide.
“Everything okay, sir?”
Swiftly, he drops his gaze and gathers his bathroom necessities. “It’s just…” His eyes close. A moment passes. He opens them again, staring down at his toothbrush kit. “You’re a pulchritudinous woman, Crisis. I don’t find it hard at all to believe that a love letter to you would be genuine.”
Beggeth thy pardon?Pulchritudinous?Okay, Mr. Writer Vocab. Let’s calm down.
Since when is taciturn Viktor Bachelor asappyromantic? He’s more of aI’d kill for this obsessed love bordering on psychopathicromantic in his books. That’s part of the reason I loved them so much. His characters cared at a depth I once dreamed I could have.
No matter what struggles they faced or what theirworlds did to try and keep them apart, they always pulled through. For each other. And—in the end—their love would be blood-stained but unbreakable.
Side note: what part of me—exactly—isphysicallybeautiful?
Viktor can’t possibly find me—mouse-brown hair, boring brown eyes, frumpy pear-shaped me—to be the kind of beautiful that would possess a man to send me a genuine love letter. Maybe he’s ill. Only mentally ill people use words likepulchritudinousin casual conversation.
“Do I need to drive you to the doctor?” I ask, setting my clothes down and circling the bed to check his temperature.
He reels back as I reach, but my fingers connect with his forehead anyway since he has nowhere to run in this small room.
My eyes narrow. “Your face is looking a little red, but you don’t seem to have a fever.” What a perfect time to plug my magical, delicious, and probably-not-toxic battery acid smoothies. “I was planning to head into town today during that writing class scheduled after lunch to check on some business and see Potato. I can pick up the ingredients for your morning juice while I’m there.”
He shudders.
I beam. “I know you’ve missed it a lot if your body’s going into withdrawals without it.”
This is excellent. I desperately need the morale afforded me by watching him gag on every swallow early in the morning. I should add a spoonful of peanut butter again. The only other time I did, he nearly threw up, so I dialed it back, but right now I’ll have the excuse of trying to jumpstart his poor body back to where it was before he took three days off.
“Crisis, please,” he whispers.
I like the way that sounds on his lips.Please. It’s almost as though he’s not my boss at all and he must petition my mercy. I grin, merrily, forgetting stupid love letters of all kinds for the time being. “What? It makes a lot of sense. Missing your morning routine is probably why you’re still not sleeping well, too. Don’t worry. We’ll get you back to normal in no time.”
“If the letter were genuine, how would you reply?”
