Page 52 of Loathing My Boss
It makes me nauseous to think about, but it has nothing to do with his action and everything to do with my existence. There’s no justification to be found here.
So my body is shutting down.
There’s no way he genuinely likes me for who I am after all I’ve done, so what is it about me that compelled him to press his mouth against mine while I was more disgusting than average?
Not knowing that is terrifying.
Is there such a thing as being attracted to ugly girls?
Is he a perverted weirdo?
Have I been sharing a bed with a perverted weirdo?
What sorts of thoughts has he subjected the idea of me to?
You are beautiful. Always.
Or is this a prank twisted up in blatant lies? A specific, intentional retaliation against everything I’ve done.
Swallowing acid, I turn into town, intending to head home—where I’m safe, where I have my fish—but I find myself heading toward the Bachelor mansion instead.
“I’m average, aren’t I?” I ask Crimson, voice thin and reedy.
“Average?”
“My appearance, I mean. Everyone growing up said I was ugly, and fat, and gross. I’ve tried to outgrow those statements and come to believe that I’m normal. A normal, boring person. Bland. Regular.Average.”
“You’re beautiful, Cris,” she says, plainly. And I knowshewouldn’t lie to me. “It wouldn’t surprise me if those insults came from people who were jealous of you.”
“But…I don’t have a great figure. I know I don’t.” I close my eyes at a red light, take a breath, and continue moving with the traffic in the busiest part of town, on my way toward the outskirts where the Bachelor palace rises from the rolling gardens. “I know fat doesn’t mean what the kids who used to bully me meant, but my weight does sit low. I know that means I’m not conventionally attractive.”
Crimson murmurs, “Maybe not conventionally, but you’re still pretty, and I’m almost positive where your weight sits is not a deterrent to any man who likes hips. The children you could bear. My, my.”
I laugh, because it’s such an insane thing to say, even as it heals something. Crimson heals something inside me that’s been broken for a long time. Everything she says, everything she does, itscreamsthat I’m enough for her, when I have never ever been enough for anyone before in my life.
I’m scared.
At the root of everything I have ever felt…is fear.
I don’t know what to do or where to go, because change is inevitable no matter what path I choose. There is no going back to a world where I’m comfortable that the hatred I harbor leaves me like toxic broccoli peanut butter sludge.
Viktor has upset my peace over being an inconsequential, unworthy disgrace, because—if he really does like me—he has come to that conclusion without pretense. If he really does like me, it can’t be because I’ve tricked him.
It would be like when I met Crimson.
Coffee-covered. Raw. Me, at my worst.
Chosen all the same.
“I don’t know what to do.” I park in front of thestaircase and double doors leading into the Bachelor manor that sprawls before me, three stories high, crawling with ivy and flowers. The peaks of the towers circling the fountain centering the cul-de-sac provide formidable airs, like appearing in the presence of royalty.
In so many ways, that’s what the Bachelors are.
Formidable, impenetrable royalty.
I’m thehelp.
The inconsequential help.
