Page 61 of Loathing My Boss
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I amnota good girl.
Crisis
The forty minute long car ride did nothing to lessen my exhaustion. I’m barely functioning by the time Viktor pulls into my driveway and I get the key in the lock of my front door. Stifling a yawn, I toddle toward my guest bedroom, flick on the light and present it valiantly—with half a gesture—then I trudge feebly toward my own bedroom.
“Youreallylike fish,” Viktor—more awake given that he just drove us here—says.
I glance back at him, or past him rather, into mysupergrown up adult person guest room. The lighting ripples from a fish bowl fixture spackled with dark fish outlines, creating an illusion of them swimming across the blue walls. The curtains are a green that match the seaweed bedspread, making sure that my fish room has plants. Since pea puffers require plants. And I’m but a pea puffer in a human body.
Weary, I murmur an intelligent, “Fish.”
Chuckling with very clear ecstasy, Viktor turns toward me, corners of his eyes crinkling. “Where’s Potato?”
“Here.” I shuffle into my room and directly up to my son.
His little bob warms my heart.
“Baby.” I rest my chin on the vanity his tank sits on. “So small. So cute,” I murmur, and then I flop onto my bed. My very own bed. I might actually never leave.
While Viktor hesitates to enter my bedroom—like some kind of gentleman I could have gotten over sharing a bed with for another night in spite of the day’s news—I wrap my entire body around a pillow and await the call of the dreamless dark.
Finally getting over his nerves, Viktor steps up to Potato’s tank. “Hi…” he whispers. “Wow…you really are cute.”
Not even Crimson talks to Potato.
What is happening?
I twist, looking at a man who is obviously putting on a show for me.
He’s already moved on from my adorable fish. Somehow. He’s standing in front of my bookcase, skimming the spines of his own books with a finger.
“Don’t snoop, Viktor.”
He pulls back, finds me all curled up. “Sorry. I like your collection.”
“I keep your books on hand.” My eyes narrow. “Toburn.”
This is a tired-induced lie. I would never burn a book. I used to keep them on hand, to fuel my hate, and also because they’re the best books I’ve ever read, but that serves no real purpose.Theyserve no real purpose, now.
“You’re so sleepy,” Viktor murmurs, smiling.
He’s been smiling alotsince I went back to the ranch. I don’t think I like it, but I especially do not like it when he’s doing it while calmly approaching my bed.
The hair on the back of my neck rises, sticking on end.
“Goodnight, Crisis.” He stops advancing, turns towardmy fish tank. “Goodnight, Potato.”
And, with that, he leaves my room, locking and closing the door behind him.
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We are going to miss our morning motivational thought.Everyonewithin a two-mile radius can tell I find this newsdevastating. And so—while Viktor and I eat a heaping breakfast at Honeycomb—I try my hand at standup.
“You’vesogot this today!” I tell him. “You’re going to write twenty—no—thirtypages.”
Calm smile seeming permanently etched across his face, Viktor cuts into his stack of blueberry pancakes. “That is roughly fifteen thousand words.”
