Page 46 of Loathing My Boss
It’s all so painfully clear right in this moment.
Ten years ago, I wasn’t singled out.
Viktor doesn’t care about writing. He’s not trying to spare any feelings, because there aren’t any feelings involved in this. He knows that the most outrageous, poorly written book can still sell. It’s not that he’s trying to crush dreams. It’s just that nothing, not even his own work, is evergoodenough.
He doesn’t care. So his advice leads toward sale. His critiques suggest that there’s marketability, or there isn’t.
The best compliment he has for even his own work is that it’sdone.
Functional. Sellable. Imperfect.
But not his problem anymore.
?
After workshop, Viktor and I return to our room, where I find my way to the bed, shed my shoes, and drop face-first into my pillow. I’d scream if it wouldn’t frighten the horse companions sandwiching us in this bedroom stall. Since I can’t, I just breathe through the polyester, feeling my lungs shrink and cry in the absence of fresh air.
It is far less than I deserve.
Not even a swift kick in the head would be sufficient retribution, yet I still wonder if either of our closest hall-mates would oblige.
“Crisis?” Viktor’s voice reaches me in the abyss. “Are you okay?”
“My life is a lie,” I muffle. My life is a lie, and I am insane, and I genuinely do not know how to fix the broken things inside me when they are this severely impaired.
I’ve spent the past decade hating someone who alreadyhates himself.
I burnt my nice, mild-mannered, somewhat mentally-stable dreams in favor of being a spiteful lunatic.
I took one, brief, private critique and imploded—whileOdessalooked Viktor in the eye before we left the main hall and said she was going to teach herself grammar, rewrite the scene, and petition his opinionagainat the second workshop.
Viktor literally said,That’s in five days.
And she replied,I know.
You know, like anormalperson.
A normal person who is about to have commas spilling out of her ears, but a normal person all the same.
In stark contrast, I made a several hundred step plan, takingfulladvantage of the infinite qualities afforded me via Canva Whiteboard. My Canva Whiteboard scheme against Viktor issohefty the sucker crashes my phone app. Instead of taking a deep breath, responding back to ask for clarification or tips on how tonurture a style, I made a Canva Whiteboard that crashes my phone.
Why am I like this?
How does someone even become likethis?
And what am I supposed to do now?
Repent? Confess? Drown myself in a lake?
My flesh crawls when Viktor’s hand settles on my shoulder and his weight plants itself on the bed beside me.
Pushing myself up on my arms, hair falling in my face, I look at him, search him, guarded.
He hesitates, then he tucks the curtain of my hair back, murmuring lowly, “Do you want to talk about it? I’ll listen.”
My eyes narrow, and a different sort of hatred for this man bubbles up in the pit of my chest. It, unlike the last kind, burns. I know, fully, I can’t justify this feeling nomatter how hard I try. There is nothingrightin it. This hate stems solely from the fact I’ve beenwrong, and terrible, and unkind—to someone gentle, and genuine, andgood.
It’s the hatred that comes from looking in a mirror and seeing a disgusting monster beside the angelic beauty of a person you can never hope to emulate.
