Chapter 1: I don't want you near me

  The cold steel of the knife scratched crisply along the surface of Evan’s skin with a subtle metallic clink as he lightly grazed the edge over the veins of his wrist. Sitting with his legs curled up to his chest, back pressed to his bedroom door he lifted the knife up to eye level. Its stainless steel surface glinted in the moonlight that filtered in through his window. It was a kitchen knife, a chef’s knife to be precise. A versatile tool for the preparation of food, the belly of the blade was hefty enough for chopping without needing to weigh as much as a dedicated clever, while the edge of the blade was sharp enough to cut cleanly through even the softest tomato with no effort. His parents had gotten this knife for him as a birthday present when he turned sixteen, and he had maintained it diligently throughout the years. He even bought his own wet stone to sharpen it himself.

  “I use this to make food,” he said between shuddering breaths. “I use this for feeding my family, and I’m about to…” his voice caught in his throat. He couldn’t bring himself to let those words escape. The moment he let them out they would be real. The thing that he was thinking about doing would be real. And he couldn’t let that happen. He just couldn’t.

  “I need to stop,” he said to himself, “I need to get a grip.” He put the knife down on the floor and reached for his phone. He opened the web browser and started looking up the number for the crisis hotline. He found it quickly and was about to thumb the number on the screen to dial-in but stopped himself. The most likely scenario of what would happen if he dialed that number played through his mind. If he called and told the operator that he was having a mental health crisis and that he had a knife, they would likely send a squad car out to his house. The image of the neighborhood flashing with siren lights, his parents having to give statements and him getting put on suicide watch all quickly encouraged him to close the page.

  “I don’t want to cause a scene,” he thought to himself.

  “Good call bro. Just cause you’re fucked up in the head isn’t an excuse for you to make that someone else’s problem. Besides last thing your mom needs is for her loser son to be the subject of the neighbor’s gossip.” he also thought to himself.

  A text flashed on his phone. It was from his mother.

  ‘Sweetie. Come have something to eat.’

  He quickly typed back. ‘Is dad still in a mood?’

  ‘It’s fine. He’s stable. Watching the game. No one is going to bother you. Just come down. Have a quick bite to eat then you can go back to your room. No problem.’

  ‘Can’t I just eat in my room?’

  ‘You know the rule about bringing food upstairs.’

  ‘Seriously!?! Even now!?! You seriously won’t relax that stupid fucking rule even now!?!’ He started to type furiously, his words carrying venom with every letter he wrote but then he stopped himself and took a breath. His mom didn’t deserve that. She had already just been through the ringer getting his dad to calm down. He didn’t need to be adding to her stress.

  “My mom has the patience of a freaking saint,” he grumbled, “least I could do is not be another thing that tests that patience. I owe her that much.”

  Deleting what he was about to write instead he sent, ‘Alright I’ll come down. But if he says anything to me I’m gone. I mean it mom. I will literally pack a suitcase and leave tonight. I don’t care if I have to sleep in my car. I can’t deal with him anymore. I just can’t.’

  ‘I understand baby. Just please come down. I promise everything will be ok.’

  ‘That’s what you say every time he gets like this. It’s never ok. It just gets brushed under the rug and forgotten about until the next thing happens to kick all the crap back up again.’ He stopped himself again before hitting send. Taking another deep breath, he quickly erased the text and sent back a simple, ‘ok.’

  He took a moment to breathe deep and collect himself and then got up and put the knife back in the leather sleeve he bought specially for it. He didn’t want his mom asking any awkward questions about why he took it out of the kitchen so he scanned his room for a place to hide it until he could sneak back downstairs. His bedroom was cozy and neat. His queen sized bed took up most of the floor space. Right next to it was his gaming station the desk of which, in sharp contrast to the typical pc gamer stereotype was immaculate. He hated clutter and tried to reduce it as much as possible. On the opposite end of the room was a five tiered bookshelf, packed end to end with fantasy novels and rulebooks for his favorite ttrpgs. He kneeled down to the second tier shelf. This shelf was special. The second shelf was below eye level just above the first shelf where he kept his glossy eye catching game books. A casual observer giving his collection a glance would pass right over it. That made it the perfect spot to put his “guilty pleasure” books. The spicy romantasy novels that he would never admit to liking out loud, especially where other book people might hear.

  He ran a finger across the spines of the novels on that shelf. He had all the usual suspects. ‘Farlander’, ‘An Uncovering of Witches’, ‘Meat Monger and the Raven’, ‘A Cloister of Hawthorns,’ and of course his guiltiest pleasure every novel in the Draconic Love series, starting with ‘First Tail’ through to ‘Hurricane of Flint,’ the last of which was the special pre-order edition with the limited edition alternate cover and signed by the author on the inside.

  “Yeah, yeah I know. Generic romantasy trash. But dammit it has all my favorite things. Dragons, magic, swords, great character chemistry, and red hot spice. Yes its tropey as fuck. And yeah the worldbuilding and geopolitics is a bit questionable, but dammit no novel is perfect,” he said out loud to the empty room.

  “Who the fuck are you trying to justify your taste in literature to? There’s no one else here weirdo.”

  He pulled the three books from Draconic Love off and stashed the knife all the way to the back of the shelf before replacing the books. He stopped by the bathroom to give his face a rinse before heading downstairs.

  The tv was on full blast when he got to the living room. His dad sat quietly on the couch, square jaw set like stone in an unflinching grimace. His gaze bore a hole into the widescreen as he watched the Bengals slam into the Bears. Being a die hard Giant’s fan, his dad had no personal investment in this game whatsoever. But football relaxed his dad in kind of the same way books and video games did for Evan. His father had tried to expose him to sports as a kid but he just never took to it. Despite his father’s best, or more accurately worst efforts, Evan was not a natural athlete. He neither found sports interesting nor fun. And despite growing up in a devoted Giant’s household, to this day he couldn’t tell you jack shit about football other than ‘the funny suppository shaped ball goes to the end of the field.’

  “Sweetie?” his mom called from the dinner table. She gave him a soft smile and motioned to a plate of rice, chicken, and beans. He gave her a quick hug before taking a seat.

  His mom’s cooking was like her hugs. Simple, but always warm and full of love and care.

  “Chickens always dry though.”

  He tried to shake that thought. Sure he could have made better chicken himself, but he also knew how much extra effort it took to get chicken right every time. When cooking for himself he used a food thermometer to make sure he got exactly the right internal temperature to get chicken cooked all the way through without overcooking and drying it out. It was unreasonable to expect that same level of fastidiousness out of his mom.

  “There’s lots of people all over the world who are hungry right now and have no idea where their next meal is coming from. There are people on food stamps who traded their assistance for enough cash to keep the heat on. What do I have to complain about?”

  As he ate, he kept his eyes fixed on the bald spot at the back of his dad’s head. The whole time he ate the old man sat still. Unnervingly still. Like he was coiled up ready to lash out at the slightest provocation. Evan was twenty-five years old. And his dad still had the ability to make him feel like a scared powerless little boy.

  Evan ate in silence. Too nervous to pop his headphones in and prop up his phone. His father gave no signs he intended to shift from his spot, but he remained hyper vigilant all the same. He wanted to be ready just in case.

  “In case of what though? You know you’re not going to do anything besides sit there and take it if the old man decides to start screaming again.”

  He finished his meal then quietly excused himself as he went back upstairs. His father didn’t acknowledge him to even say good night as he left. After brushing his teeth and getting changed his eyes fell on the stack of books on his nightstand. He had a back log that he kept telling himself he intended to read before going to bed. Though he had failed to actually crack the first book in the stack open for weeks now.

  “Maybe tonight I can actually try.” He got cozy and reached over for the book at the top of his stack, ‘Looks Like You got Dragon’s’ written by the same guy who wrote the ‘First Unicorn’. It was a good book. A shorty too. When he was teenager, before the age of smartphones, he could have flown through the pages of a small novel like this in less than three days. Now with so many things constantly pulling at his attention and a whole universe of dopamine inducing distractions at his fingertips he was lucky if he managed to get through a few pages in one night. He tried to focus on reading. It was a good book. Witty dialogue. Fun worldbuilding. Sympathetic characters.

  “More sympathetic than you that’s for sure.”

  He couldn’t focus though. Tension over what happened with him and his father earlier was snapped tight in his brain like a knot in his muscles that he couldn’t rub out. The harder he tried not to think about it, the more his mind kept drifting back to his father’s shouting reverberating in his head. He needed something to take the pressure off. His eyes drifted to his phone on his night stand. He looked at the clock. It was ten-thirty.

  “Fifteen, thirty minutes tops. I get a little stress relief out of the way and then go back to reading.” He stuck a bookmark in the novel and put it back in its place at the top of the stack. He then reached over to his phone and opened a web browser.

  Three hours later. Evan looked down at himself in disgust. Unbelieving but unsurprised at just how much time he had wasted with self-medicating.

  “Dumbass. Did you seriously think you’d be done in thirty minutes? A depraved junkie like you. You know how long it takes you to finish and you still tried to kid yourself into thinking you’d be done in a reasonable amount of time.”

  He got out of bed and quietly tip toed to the bathroom to clean himself up. This late at night only he was awake. His mom was a light sleeper though and if he wasn’t careful she’d know he was still up. Once inside the bathroom he proceeded to wash his hands and towel himself off. He would have liked to have taken a full shower but he didn’t want to risk the noise waking anybody up.

  “Not like you’ll ever really be clean anyway.”

  “For fucks sake just shut up!” he shouted as he clutched his head. The invasive thoughts came as they pleased. Most of the time he could ignore them or keep them contained. But eventually he always hit a breaking point. Luckily he always managed to make sure he was by himself when he did. He began sinking to the floor. Once again curled into himself, face buried into his knees as his fingers pulled at his hair like reigns. The feelings he had been trying to keep locked in broke as once again years of built-up anger, resentment, and shame came flooding out. He could feel the urge to shout coming on. Seconds away from losing it, he managed to hold on to the last dregs of his presence of mind to grab the towel and wad it between his knees and his face as he began to scream.

  Time seemed to evaporate as he sat there. The towel absorbing all his pain as he continued to let it out in a muffled stream of tears and agony. . By the time he was done his throat was scoured and his face felt hot. Pulling himself up by the edge of the sink he stared at his reflection in the mirror. His normally pale skin was flushed red again, auburn hair an absolute tangled mess, and dark brown eyes swollen and puffy. He ran the tap and quickly splashed some cold water on his face trying to get himself back to some level of normal. The water’s sting actually helped to ground him a bit as he came back to himself as his face cooled down. He looked at himself in the mirror and tried to force a smile. He tried to stretch it as far as he could, pushing his dimples to their upper most limit. The smile never reached his eyes though. He’d never be able to fool anyone with it. Especially not himself.

  He stared his reflection down, and one refrain repeated over and over again. “I hate you,” he said to the man in the mirror. “I. Hate. You.”

  ________________________________________________________________

  He woke up the next morning. Barely more than three hours of sleep under his belt. He thought about calling in sick today. But then that would mean staying home where his dad was. And right now he wanted to be literally anywhere that his dad wasn’t.

  Sleep deprivation always made his eyes feel like they were being pressed through a lemon squeezer. His head would feel like a throbbing mess all day. But his adderall would at least help him stay functional. The time on his phone had seven-thirty. He had to be at work at eight and his commute was forty-five minutes long. That meant he didn’t have time to take a shower, just brush his teeth and put on fresh clothes. Clean clothes helped but he still felt sticky from the night before.

  “Technically it was only a few hours ago seeing as how you didn’t fall asleep until four AM.”

  He went downstairs. His mom was there to greet him with a warm smile and a hot mug of coffee in hand. He gave her a hug then spotted his dad sitting up on the couch. He looked almost like he hadn’t moved from his spot since last night. Tentatively Evan approached him. The old man didn’t even seem to notice his presence until Evan reached over to try to give his dad a hug as well. His father startled at the contact and immediately turned.

  “Who? What?” He flipped as Evan immediately backed up.

  “It’s just me dad. I just wanted to give you a hug before I left for work.”

  "No," his father said. "I don’t want you near me."

  Blood drained from Evan’s face. There were some things in the world a parent should never ever say to their child no matter what. Things that once said could never be unsaid. Things that once said meant there was truly nothing left to say. His father had just said one of those things.

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  “Ok.” Evan left without saying another word.

  His mom was already waiting for him outside. She was in the process of wiping down the morning dew from the windows and side mirrors of his car. She was always doing that. Taking extra little steps that he didn’t ask for. He knew he should have been grateful but it honestly just made him feel guilty that she was doing extra work on his part that he didn’t ask for, and a little bit annoyed at how it ate into his precious commute time when he was already running late. But how could he complain when she was doing something that was objectively kind and helpful?

  “That’s the trap isn’t it? She creates a cage made of kindness and love. The bars feel so comfortable to rest against that you’re able to forget for a few minutes that you’re locked inside with the beast that is your old man. And if you have the audacity to complain about it to other people you just look like an ungrateful prick.”

  He approached his mom.

  “I put your bag and your laptop case in the backseat,” she said smiling at him. She had a full cheeked smile with big dimples. The same kind that he had inherited.

  “Thanks mom,” he said before giving her a hug. “I tried to give dad a hug before leaving but he pushed me away.”

  “Give it time sweetie. You know it takes a few days for your father to calm down when he gets like this.”

  “Yeah, and we’re the ones who have to walk on egg shells every time he does. It’s bulllshit. Why do we have to always be the ones stepping lightly when he’s in the wrong?”

  “Sweetie don’t be that way. Your father loves you. You know that. He just has trouble balancing his emotions.”

  “Exactly, he’s the one who has the problem. Why do the rest of us have to always balance around him?”

  “It’s not as straightforward as that. And you’re not blameless either, you flew off the handle too last night.”

  “I didn’t start getting angry until he started pressing my buttons. I was minding my own damn business. I was trying to make guacamole for Christ’s sake. I was minding my own damn business and he started with me.”

  “You can’t control him, you can only control yourself sweetie.”

  “Why do I always have to be the responsible one huh? He’s a grown man. He should know by now to just leave me alone when I say leave me alone.”

  “He just wanted to share some good news with you.”

  “He wanted me to join him in celebrating Joey’s first W4 coming in the mail. It was fu…freaking tax document. Not a fu…freaking trophy.”

  “He likes to celebrate the little things. He does the same for you too.”

  “But I don’t ask for that. I don’t ask for any of this. I just wanted to be left alone with my headphones in and enjoy my audiobook while I had a nice snack of chips and guac after a long day at the office. He’s the one who had to pick a fight over me not having the energy for his nonsense. I can’t be expected to pretend to care about every single ridiculous thing you guys care about.”

  “Baby that’s what being a family is all about.”

  “Right. Because everything is about the family isn’t it? It’s all about keeping the family together isn’t it mom? Forget what I need. Forget that I’m the person who got hurt. Nope its all ok as long as the family stays together.”

  “Baby don’t think like that. Think about how hard it would be if you were living on your own. Think about all the money you save on rent. You don’t have to worry about food or laundry or keeping up with utility bills. You don’t have to work a job that makes you work long hours and you can have an actual life outside of work. Just think about all the stuff you do. You have time for writing, you have time for acting classes, the gym, karate. If you were living on your own you wouldn’t have time or money for any of that.”

  “Do you know why I fill up my evenings with so much stuff mom? I’m trying to make sure I have reasons not to be home so I don’t have to deal with the two of you.”

  “Sweetie, don’t talk like that. You love us. And we love you. We’re a family no matter what.”

  “Well maybe I don’t want to be part of this family anymore.”

  “You don’t mean that,” she said softly, “Now get going you’re already late.”

  “I don’t care, I hate my job anyway.”

  “Don’t say that. Having a stable job with good benefits is a blessing especially in this economy.”

  “Whatever,” he opened the driver side door of his car and got inside. He pressed the ignition button and his hybrid sedan thrummed to life. He glanced over to his left and saw his mom looking at him through the window. As he shifted into reverse he couldn’t resist the urge to get one last barb in before leaving. “You know mom. Just once. Just for one freaking time in my life. I wish you would just take my side.”

  ____________________________________________________________________

  It was eight forty-five when he finally got to the office. Usually he got in around eight-thirty, which was still pretty late but not quite as egregious as being almost an hour late like he was today. His boss and his coworkers were all perpetually annoyed with him for that. It wasn’t as if he intended for it to be a habit though. Mornings were rough for him on a good day, and after the events of last night with his dad, today was probably one of his worst days in awhile.

  “Seriously, getting up in the morning is fucking hard. I don’t know what gland other people have in their body’s that allows them to get out of bed and be on time consistently but I was born without it.”

  “Other people are usually not up until four AM looking at…”

  “Hey Evan,” came the voice of his manager Dick. Evan looked up from his monitor to meet the middle-aged man with kindly blue eyes. He had a concerned expression on his face like he had to say something unpalatable. Evan knew that face, it was the expression that always preceded his receipt of another lecture.

  “Hey Dick,” Evan answered back, “sorry about being late I was having some problems at home.”

  “You really need to start getting in closer to eight. Phil is getting seriously pissed,” he kept his voice low, just barely above a whisper to avoid his words getting picked up by prying ears. The office was small, and the walls insulated about as much sound as rice paper. It was one of those tiny office environments that was essentially polar opposite to a modern corporate space. Whereas at a large company everything was too big and there were too many people for everyone to know who was who and what did what. The Reginald County Utilities Authority was essentially a tiny office staffed by about fifteen people, most of whom were long time pensioners who had opted out of the rat race for the quiet stability of government work and had essentially nothing better to do with their time other than poke their noses into other people’s business. More often than not, that business was his. And his frequent tardiness was a known sore spot for the Chief Financial Officer Phil who believed that the way things looked was the way things were. And his being frequently late into the office with ostensible no repercussions was a very bad look.

  “I know,” Evan said quietly, “I’m sorry it’s just getting going in the morning is really tough for me.”

  “You gotta make it work man. I can’t keep him off your case forever.”

  “I know. I’m sorry Dick. I’ll do better.” And he meant it. Dick despite the unfortunate connotations of his name was a really nice guy. He kept Evan shielded from the worst of Phil’s tirades and manic panic sprees in which every tiny thing no matter how small suddenly became a major crisis.

  Dick left his office with a nod and left Evan to his own devices. He downed what was left of the coffee that his mom prepped for him, then reached into his bag to pull out his adderall. On days when he was well rested the medicine helped keep at bay his constant need for distraction and stimulation giving him near god like levels of focus. However, on days like today when he had barely three hours of sleep in him, the medicine had to pull double duty so instead of being his most productive hustle and grind self he was a drone with just minimum levels of functionality.

  Just as he downed the tablet, he heard another set of heavy footsteps approaching his door. His heart pulsed as he felt the stirrings of an aneurism at those footsteps he had gotten to know uncomfortable well over the past five years.

  “Ah crap, what’s he gonna yell at me for this time?” Evan wondered as the man in question appeared at his door.

  Tall, bald, and with a hooked nose upon which rested a pair of coke bottle spectacles, Phil McCallister evoked the image of a featherless parrot. And like a parrot he said the same set of lines every time he showed up at Evan’s office.

  “Is he gonna yell at me for being late, or did I miss another e-mail?”

  “Hey good morning,” Phil said in a tone that was all smiles as if he hadn’t just been complaining to Dick a few minutes before about Evan being late. “Did you see the e-mail?”

  “I just got in I haven’t had the chance to open them yet.” Evan answered.

  “You’re work phone didn’t go off?”

  “I haven’t pulled it out yet.”

  A frustrated grimace twisted on Phil’s face, “ok seriously we need to log in a ticket with IT to get your alerts working you keep missing e-mails.”

  “My alerts work just fine. Your problem is that I’m not checking my e-mails every sixty seconds like you do you bald parrot,” Evan fumed internally, though on the surface he kept his mouth shut. He knew talking back to Phil would just cause more problems. Instead he just sat there and took it as Phil launched into yet another one of his diatribes. about missing critical e-mails, time sensitive items, and how if he had missed e-mails to the degree that Evan did he would be fired.

  “I don’t miss e-mails old man. Your problem is that I don’t respond to them in sixty seconds.”

  When Evan said nothing in response after Phil’s tirade the CFO finally decided get to the point. “Anyway a requisition request just came in from Enerco. Need you to take care of that ASAP.”

  “That’s what you’re haranguing me over? Seriously? A bloody requisition request. You just spent ten minutes verbally abusing me over something like this? Ten minutes that I could have spent getting the job done if you hadn’t been berating me!?”

  “Yeah, no problem. I’ll take care of it,” Evan said hoping that would be enough and Phil would leave. A hope that was quickly dashed when Phil transitioned into the next phase of his unskippable cutscene.

  “Great so like always I need you to print it out, check the invoices, check the totals of the receipts, , update the tracking control sheet, fill out the cover letter and scan it. f?” He said meandering his way through the same unskippable lines of dialogue he went through every single time one of these req requests came through.

  “Yup, don’t worry I’ll take care of it,” Evan said nodding along while keeping his voice in an even monotone.

  “Right, sorry to repeat I know you’ve done this dozens of times before.”

  “Thirty-four times to be exact. This request marks the thirty-fifth request.”

  “Right, you’re a pro at this. Sorry I don’t mean to talk down to you.”

  “Then why do you keep doing it ? Every single time this or another rote repetitive task that I’ve been doing for years at this point comes through you have to take it upon yourself to mansplain it to me like it’s my first time doing it.”

  “Not like you’d ever have the balls to say that to his face. Just remember the job pays for your adderall.”

  “Not a problem, I’ll take care of it,” Evan repeated again trying to keep his expression neutral. “Take the hint already you bald bastard.”

  “Great,” Phil continued moving on to the next part of his script, “and you’ll let me know…”

  Evan snapped, “There should be roughly about three point five mill left in the bond fund after this req. Each req is usually between three-hundred and five-hundred k. I’ll let you know after I’ve updated the sheet,” Evan said before Phil could even finish the question.

  Annoyance flashed in Phil’s eyes for a second before he was all smiles again. “Great let me know as soon as you’re done.”

  “Oooh, he’s annoyed now. Bad call buddy. Should have let him finish his cutscene.”

  “God everytime he talks I wish a press circle to skip notification would just appear.”

  Evan settled into his desk and got to work. Putting the awkward encounter with Phil from his mind. Most people would probably be worried about their jobs after an interaction with their boss like that. But one of the upsides of working in a small government agency with limited staff was that one person often did the job of five people. Evan himself handled payroll, bank record filing, onboarding new employees, building financial statements, answering people’s paycheck questions, preparing audit reports, and because he was the youngest person in an office of boomers who barely understood how to do a google search he was also the closest thing they had on hand to an IT guy. Replacing him would have brought them more headaches than simply putting up with his occasional tardiness and what they considered to be a ‘bad’ attitude.

  “Of course I have a bad attitude about being here. I work a dead end government job that barely pays me enough to cover my bills, with no hope of ever being able to move out of my parents house. And its main upside is that it pays for my addi and they won’t fire me even though on most days I wish they would.”

  “And yet you still digest the crap anyway. No matter how much you hate being here you won’t even bother looking for a different job. Because you know deep down, that if you worked in the private sector you’d get chewed up and spat out like the little bitch that you are.”

  Logically he knew that he shouldn’t be thinking like that. He knew that objectively this was a really good job that a lot of people would kill for. The salary wasn’t big, but the hours were consistent from eight to four. He was never asked to stay late or work weekends. The health benefits were great, he never paid a dime out of pocket for his adderall. And his job was pensioned too. Phil was annoying, but objectively not that demanding overall. And yeah, though it was a struggle for him personally, being expected to show up to work on time was not an unreasonable expectation. Logically, he knew that all things considered he had no right to complain and that lots of people were worse off than him right now.

  “There are people worse off than me. There are people worse off than me.”

  That was the mantra he kept repeating as the day wore on. It was what he said to himself every time Phil came over to make a mountain out of the next molehill. It was what he repeated through every excel sheet that he spent hours pouring through despite his eyes feeling like lead weights. It was what he wrote down on sticky notes and attached to the bottom of his monitor when he discovered how stiff and sore his back and ass were from hours spent sitting in that cheap office chair with no lumbar support. It was what he said every time he had to refresh his eyes with artificial tears. And it was what he said when the throbbing in his head got bad enough for him to pull his bottle of emergency ibuprofen from his desk.

  “There are people worse off than me. There are people who would gladly like to have this job. And you know what?...I’d be more than happy to let someone else have it if I didn’t need the health benefits. No matter how objective I try to be. I can’t get over the fact that I hate being here.

  I hate how stiff my back gets sitting in this crappy chair. I hate having to put in eye drops every hour because of how the screentime dries them out. I hate how Phil constantly makes me paranoid about checking my e-mails. I hate the daily commute. I hate the way this place always reeks of mildew and old people. I hate how every single day that I’m in here I feel completely drained mentally and emotionally with nothing of value to show for it. And worst of all I hate feeling like I’ve just wasted another day of my life.”

  “It’s not just a feeling, it’s a fact. You are wasting your life. You know you’re better than this job. But you don’t have the stones to actually act on that because you’re afraid of the consequences if you fail. You’re afraid of getting yelled at again by people who don’t know you if you go somewhere else. Remember how much Phil used to berate you when you first started working here before Dick showed up? Remember your first job out of college? You didn’t even make it a full year there because you sucked so bad at it. You, being the screwup that you are, know that if you worked someplace else where the stakes were even just marginally higher, you’d be out of a job in a few weeks and then you’d be right back where you started before the pandemic.”

  Somehow he managed to get through the rest of the day. Phil had only caught him off guard two more times. Once about spending too much time in the bathroom and another about not responding within five minutes to an e-mail he had sent only three minutes prior. “Seriously does he expect me to do my job or just stare at my inbox all day?”

  As he made it back to his car he took stock of the gym bag in the backseat. He tried to make it to the gym at least 3 times a week. Today was wednesday, pull day, that meant he got to do his favorite today. Dumbbell curls. He double checked the bag to make sure it had a change of clothes plus his water and protein powder. He’d gotten into the habit of prepping his gym bag ahead of time so that he wouldn’t have to stop by home and lose time making niceties with his parents. Still, he was certifiable exhausted right now. The cocktail of caffeine and adderall he had imbibed to try to keep his sleep deprived brain functional throughout the day was already stretched to its limit.

  “No, I can’t use that as an excuse. I have sleepless nights all the time. If I start using lack of sleep as a reason not to go workout pretty soon I’ll be skipping workouts regularly. Next thing I know I’ll be backsliding back into my bad eating habits and I’ll be right back where I was two years ago at two-hundred sixty pounds and diagnosed pre-diabetic at twenty-three.”

  He nodded to himself as he found his resolve. “The moment you use a good excuse not to be there, it won’t be long until you start using bad ones.”