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Chapter One
There comesa point when some days one has had enough and want to just quit everything. Where everything that you do, you feel defeated and like you’re just not good enough.
That is me today.
I started my workday out energized and ready to conquer the presentation that would ultimately land me in a promotion position. It would be myself and another guy gunning for the promotion. However, nothing went as planned. I was sidelined immediately and didn’t get my chance to present the work that I spent countless hours on for new copy content and layout looks for revamping our upcoming issues. I stand in the corner of the conference room with my arms crossed with a neutral expression, as the Editor in Chief of the magazine I work for tells us that there will be some personnel changes. But he can’t discuss the matters further. These new personnel changes mean there won’t be any new promotions to the company for the next quarter, and I felt as if everything I’ve been hustling day and night over the past few months was squashed.
Turns out that none of the hard work that I’ve done over the years will be noticed, as well as the presentation that I poured my soul into will be on hold. I’m not in the running for a promotion and I’m still just a measly designer. There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s a great job, and it pays the bills—but that’s not to say that I didn’t want to climb the ladder. Even though this is a minor setback, this isn’t the end. But I’ve been in this position for five years, and I’m ready to move up. I’ve worked hard at trying to prove to Mr. Williams, and everyone else I work with, that I deserve the promotion.
At the end of the day, I’m pretty exhausted.
A gauntlet of emotions is running through my mind from the fact that today has just been a huge let down. Instead of going directly home after work, I stop by a bar just down the block from the office and start drinking.
I’m not sure how long I sit on a barstool taking shots and sipping on my beer, but I enjoy quite a number of them, fended off a few hands, and then eventually go on my way.
I take my seat on the train, lean my head back against the seat, and close my eyes feeling like everything is spinning.
“Is this seat taken?” someone asks stopping and pointing to the empty seat beside me.
I open my eyes and shake my head as a twenty-something man-boy sits down beside me.
“How are you this evening?” he asks politely settling into the seat.
“Shitty, absolutely shitty.” I sit up and turn toward him. He’s kind of cute, blurry and I think that there are two of him, but definitely cute in a nerdy kind of way. “I mean, I worked hard, so hard and all the work was for nothing, can you fucking believe it?” my voice begins to raise with each word.
The guy stands up, with an odd look on his face, and apologizes as he quickly moves away from me.
I shake my head, close my eyes again and take a deep breath.
The train comes to a stop and the doors open. People get on and people get off. Another person comes to the empty space beside me and takes a seat.
The person smells like licorice, and I’m not sure what comes over me, but I begin to laugh, hysterically. I open my eyes and turn to the person sitting beside me. The woman looks at me with her eyebrows raised expecting me to say something.
“Oh, don’t mind me, but you smell so delicious, like I would love to take a bite out of you and see if you taste as good as you smell.”
“Fucking weirdo.” She shakes her head and mutters under her breath as she gets up with disgust.
Another one bites the dust.I think to myself.
“What’s wrong with this seat?” a deep voice asks with a hint of laughter.
I look up at him.
While I may be a little on the drunk side, I can appreciate a fine man when I see one, and boy oh boy, is he fine!
He smirks as he waits for my answer.
“It’s probably my fault, the seat itself is fine.” I shrug.
“Well, here I’ll be the one to judge that.” He takes the seat beside me, and butterflies fill my stomach with his closeness as I get a whiff of his scent. It’s not licorice, but deliciously minty.
He sniffs in the air.
“Well, you don’t smell horribly, just a little bit like a liquor store, but I can appreciate a good drink after a long day of work. So your hygiene couldn’t be the reason.”
“Nope,” I reply. “But I may have told the last person that sat there that I wanted to take a bite out of her.” I hiccup, cover my mouth and widen my eyes while saying excuse me.
“Ahhh, now I can understand that. Confession time, are you a cannibal?”
