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girlgenius1111 · 1 month

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wavin' from the shore

screaming underwater part 2 r struggles under the weight of it all. her teammates try to help. the circumstances seem hellbent on making it impossible for her, though. tw for allusions to mistreatment from coaches / trainers. nothing specific and nothing graphic. wrote most of this while i was sad. angst ahead 🫡 [some fluff]

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Your teammates were patient people. They sat with you until you stopped crying and collected your thoughts, which took a while. They didn’t rush you, or ask you questions. They just sat with you, squeezing your hands and murmuring comforting words.

When you did speak, finally, your voice was scratchy from all the crying. “I don’t know where to start.”

“Wherever you want, nena. You do not need to tell us anything you do not want to.” Mapi promised, hoping to settle your nerves. She was sitting next to you, but gripped your hand tight in hers, almost as if she needed the stability, too, but she didn’t look at you. Almost as if the look on your face would be too familiar, too painful. Alexia, on the other hand, looked determined, her eyes blazing with anger when she looked at you, though you knew you were not the cause of it.

“What happened to your face?” Alexia asked after a minute, when it was clear you were still unsure where to begin.

Every word that left your mouth was difficult. You had to force every syllable, keep yourself talking, remind yourself that you were safe. That you trusted your teammates. “After the article came out? The coaches were really mad, and they didn’t know who’d talked. So they punished everyone. We had to run the bleachers until we couldn’t go any farther. It was really hot, and I collapsed after 45 minutes. Hit my face on a bench on the way down.”

You told it so emotionlessly, like you were completely detached from the situation. Alexia and Mapi knew it was just you trying to protect yourself, but it was still concerning to see the way you forced your emotions off.

Alexia thought for a moment, trying to figure out how to ask you more without pushing too hard. “Did that happen a lot? Pushing you guys past a healthy level?”

You were silent for too long, and when you finally spoke, it was quietly, shame clear in your tone. “What is a healthy level?”

You weren’t proud to admit that you didn’t know. When you were with the national team, it didn’t seem like there were any boundaries, or the ability to create one. There wasn’t any opportunity to ask for a break. It wasn’t allowed. When you were with Barça, things were obviously different. You took breaks when everyone else did, and occasionally when one of your teammates told you to.

You didn’t know what your limits were, though. All you knew was that you had to keep going, until someone told you to stop. Both girls looked struck at this confession.

Mapi took a deep breath, before she answered you as calmly as she could. “You shouldn’t be collapsing. You shouldn’t be throwing up. I… It’s really important to know your limits, nena. Really important. You have to know, so you know when to stop, when to not push yourself too hard.”

“I didn’t know I was allowed to do that.” You whispered. Mapi’s hands clenched into tight fists, her knuckles turning white. On your other side, Alexia inhaled a deep, shaky breath.

“We can work on that, pequeña.” Alexia paused. “The article said something about one of the recovery specialists…” she trailed off, allowing you to respond if you wanted.

“He was fired.” You told her stiffly.

“Do you want to talk about that?” She asked softly.

“No.” Your answer was firm, and both girls nodded immediately. You’d taken a big step already, calling and asking them to come over. You’d exceeded their expectations when you actually talked to them, even if it was just a little bit.

“That is perfectly fine. Mapi and I will see what we can do, okay? Try not to worry about it. I know that is hard, but we are not going to let you near that camp again unless we know it is safe.”

“Thank you.” You mumbled, sending them each a half smile.

The conversation ended there. You were done talking, clearly. You just weren’t sure what came next, now that you’d admitted there was a problem, and shown your teammates how fragile you were. It wasn’t clear to you where you went from here.

------

The answer was, apparently, Mapi’s house. She and Alexia had decided without a single word exchanged between them that you needed supervision. Mapi had offered, and privately, you thought it must be because she missed Ingrid, and was tired of spending her days talking to her cat.

There was no use arguing, the decision had been made, so within an hour, your bag was packed, and you’d been driven to Mapi and Ingrid’s apartment. After you’d been force fed a meal and sent to lay on the couch with an ice pack on your face, Mapi called her girlfriend. She was in the kitchen, and all you could hear were muffled voices, but you were pretty sure they were discussing you.

Sure enough, a couple minutes later, Mapi entered the room, holding out the phone to you.

“Ingrid wants to say hi.” She threw herself down on the couch next to you, shoving her face close to yours so that both you and her were in view of the screen.

“Hi elskling,” Ingrid greeted softly. You’d always been close with Ingrid. Mapi and Alexia were like your sisters, but neither of them were… great with emotions. Ingrid was a sensitive person, as were you, and you’d talked to her about a lot more in your life than anyone else. The minute she spoke, the minute you saw her looking at you through the screen, you were choking back tears. You wanted a hug from her, absolutely desperately, all of a sudden. Ingrid, though, was in Norway. The international break didn’t seem to care what it took from you, you thought sarcastically.

“Hey.” You said finally, clearing your throat in a way that accidentally told both girls you were upset.

“Oh, honey.” Ingrid sighed, her eyes flitting over you through the camera, lingering on your wounds, before flicking nervously to Mapi. “María caught me up. How are you doing?”

“I’m okay.” You lied.

“Yeah you seem okay.” Mapi grumbled, shrugging when her girlfriend shot her a look.

“No one expects you to be okay. I know you don’t want to talk, but just remember that I’m here whenever you need me okay? I’ll be back soon, and until then, María’s got you, yeah?” You nodded, but shifted somewhat uncomfortably. “No, I know what you think. María wouldn’t have offered to let you stay if she didn’t really want you there. I know she seems like she’s allergic to feelings sometimes, but she gives really good hugs.” Ingrid reminded you, bringing a slight smile to your face.

“Really, nena, I want you here. I’m so bored without Ingrid, I called her 5 times yesterday. Tell her, amor.”

“It’s true. One of the times she only put Bagheera on the screen, and pretended to be the cat for a full 15 minutes.” Ingrid laughed.

Mapi blushed heavily when you sent her a smirk. “Amor, that was private.” She grumbled.

“I know.” Ingrid said gleefully.

“Well, when I walked in the house, Mapi greeted me as Bagheera, and for some reason the cat speaks bad English and has a thick accent.” You commented, a real smile stretching across your face. There really was no better way to cheer you up than to tease Mapi.

“Fine. Bagheera won’t speak to EITHER of you anymore.” Mapi grunted, crossing her arms and pointedly looking away from the camera.

You and Ingrid laughed, and Mapi pouted even more. It took a lot of stifled laughs and ridiculous compliments before she turned back towards the phone, although the teasing didn’t end there.

It was a short phone call, only 20 minutes, but it did wonders in getting your mind off of everything, and by the time Ingrid had to hang up, you were grinning at Mapi, and she was smiling back at you. It didn’t take long for reality to hit again, though, and Mapi watched as your face fell, and you took a deep, shuddering breath.

“It’s all gonna be okay, nena. I promise.” Mapi murmured, pulling you into her side. You wanted to believe her, more than anything. You feared that this problem, though, wasn’t something she or Alexia could solve.

------

It was pure chance that Mapi caught you when she did. She’d twisted her knee a bit in the sheets, and a jolt of pain had roused her. Her clock told her that it was the middle of the night, and she was content to go back to sleep, when she heard noise coming from where you were supposed to be sleeping in the guest room. Something in her told her to check on you, and she quickly got out of bed and headed down the hall.

You were wide awake, fully dressed in running shorts and a shirt, hurriedly throwing your hair up into a ponytail when Mapi walked in. You were still crying, hands still shaking from the nightmare you’d had, and Mapi approached you like a wild animal, her steps slow and measured.

“Hey, nena?” She said softly. Your head snapped up, and when your eyes met hers, Mapi suppressed a shudder at how absolutely terrified you looked. “What is going on?”

“Gonna go for a run.” You said in a monotone, reaching for your shoes to slip them on. Mapi got there first, though, pulling them away before you could reach them, and guiding you to sit on the edge of the bed.

“It’s the middle of the night and you have a concussion, you cannot run right now.” She said firmly.

“Mapi, I can’t,” you whispered, very suddenly seeming to come back into yourself, hands reaching out to grip tightly onto Mapi’s top.

“Hey, shh.” She soothed, pulling you into a tight hug. “Did you have a nightmare?”

“Yeah.” You mumbled, whole body trembling against your teammates.

“What happened in it?” She asked casually, clearly giving you the option of ignoring the question.

You answered before you could convince yourself not to. “Barça hired that one recovery guy the national team fired. He came here. Everyone liked him, and no one would listen to me. No one believed me when I told them what he was like when he was with us, before.”

It was vague, and yet Mapi got the gist. She understood, and it made every cell within her flame with rage.

“That would never happen. We would never hire him, or anyone that treated you wrong. Never. And we will believe whatever you decide to tell us.” Mapi assured you sitting down on the edge of the bed next to you, and taking your hand.

“Will it ever stop?” You asked after a minute.

“Will what ever stop?”

“This feeling. I’m scared all the time. I don’t feel safe anymore, and nothing I do is ever enough, Mapi. They ruined me. I don’t think I can fix it.”

It was a horrible thing to hear, something that made Mapi understandably sad. But what really broke her was that she’d had all the same thoughts before. She didn’t really remember how she survived them. Ingrid, she supposed. You didn’t have an Ingrid, not like she did, but you had her, and you had the team. You weren’t alone, no matter how it felt.

“It stops. It takes some time, but you will feel okay again. You will feel safe again. Whatever you give is enough, pequeña, I promise you that. You are not ruined, just a little broken right now, yes? And maybe you cannot fix it by yourself, but you do not have to. You have every single one of us, and we are not going to stop until you are okay again.”

You couldn’t put into words how much that meant, how much comfort that brought you. You would have tattooed the statement into your skin at that moment, if you could. Just so you could read the words over and over again. Stop blaming yourself, stop hating yourself. For the moment, though, you settled on leaning against Mapi, and running through the words in your head, over and over. Over and over.

-------

Mapi kept herself together until you fell asleep, and until she made it out of the guest room. Her phone was in her hand the second she was walking back into her own room though, instantly beginning to pace as she pressed call, and hoped to god that Ingrid had left her ringer on, no matter how selfish it was.

“Ing?” Mapi asked softly, as soon as the phone was picked up. She almost never called Ingrid that, only when she was really upset, so her girlfriend was instantly on high alert, despite the late hour.

“Hey, baby. What’s wrong?”

All Mapi could do was try to stifle her cries in response.

“María, my love, tell me what’s happening.” Ingrid pressed, starting to pace in her hotel room.

“I was talking to-to pequeña, and it just-just reminded me of everything, and I do not know why I am crying, I just can’t, Ingrid, I can’t, I can’t.”

Ingrid forced herself to remain calm, knowing that panicking wouldn’t help her girlfriend at all.

“María, sit down.” She instructed, hearing some shuffling and assuming Mapi had done as she asked. “Where are you right now?” It was a familiar routine that Ingrid began taking Mapi through, but it worked all the same. She asked Mapi question after question, knowing just how to bring her girl back to her. Where she was, what she was wearing. What lights were on in the room. What she’d had for dinner. Mapi told her that Bagheera was sitting next to her, watching closely, and that you were safely asleep in the room next door. Eventually, when Mapi was calm, Ingrid told her exactly what she needed to hear.

“She’s got you, love. She’s safe, and you’re safe. You’re not going to let anything happen to pequeña, and I am not going to let anything happen to you. I promise you, María, anyone who wants to hurt either of you is going to have to go through me first.”

Mapi let her girlfriend’s words sink in. “Jeg elsker deg,” she said finally, and Ingrid smiled to herself at Mapi’s use of Norwegian.

“Te amo, cariño.” Ingrid whispered back. “Go to sleep. Take care of nena. I’ll be home before you know it.”

And if Ingrid would always protect Mapi, then Mapi would always protect you.

-------

The next day was better, though that was a low bar. The few remaining team members not away on international duty didn’t have training, and your teammates decided their tactic for the day was to keep you inside, keep an eye on your concussion, and distract you. Mapi and Alexia kept you busy watching nations league matches, and playing fifa. Mapi showed you a few sketches she was working on for a new tattoo for Alexia, and Alexia put on her guilty pleasure show, which was, amusingly, below deck. You wouldn’t have picked your captain as one for reality TV, but that assumption was clearly wrong.

They did limit your screen time, though, and they made you take a nap. It was during this nap that you got a phone call. From a reporter.

From the same reporter who had written the article.

He wanted to talk to you about the conditions you’d endured with the national team. What it had been like after the first article had come out, and why you left camp early with a mysterious injury. He wanted to know everything. And he wanted your name on it. Anonymous witnesses could be ignored. Named ones could not, he said.

You hung up pretty quickly, informing him that you needed some time to think. It was a testament to how much you trusted both Mapi and Alexia that you walked back into the living room right after, and told them about the phone call.

They were careful not to tell you what they thought you should do, though you were pretty sure they didn’t agree with each other. Instead, they stuck to a neutral message.

“You need to decide what to do, pequeña, for you and not for anyone else.”

“Ale is right. Your healing needs to be your priority, and you need to figure out how this interview would fit into that.”

You could talk. The team would know exactly who it was. Your teammates and your coaches. Everyone from that team that you hated and everyone that you loved. You could tell the truth. You could be brave. You weren’t sure you could survive the shit storm that would follow, though. You were barely surviving now. Maybe, though, your survival wasn’t the priority. Maybe the wellbeing of your teammates was.

You could be selfless, or selfish. Put yourself first. Treat yourself the way your teammates were convinced you deserved to be treated. You could forfeit your wellbeing for that of your teammates, practically invite a media invasion into your life. You could do the objective right thing, or you could do the right thing for yourself.

You could be selfless or selfish. You weren’t sure which option was better. You weren’t sure which option wouldn’t suffocate you.

--------

hehe.

theres a lot of ways i could take a part 3. do you even want a part 3? do you have ideas? let me know :)

#woso imagine #woso x reader #barcelona femeni x reader #barça femeni x reader #woso one shot #woso fanfics #ingrid engen x mapí leon

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moumouton4 · 6 months

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PLEASE DI THE FREINDS WITH BENEFITS WOTH ADRIAN/CAHT NOIR🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼 IM SO INTERESTED. maybe Adrian and reader like have a thing going on secretly and get give each other longing glances, like a have lidded gaze or something. Please my Curiosity is getting the best of me

Friends With Benefits || Adrien Agreste x reader

A/n : This is something I've been thinkg about since I started writing fics ! I hope y'all will like it 😍 It's gender neutral but I had a female in mind when I wrote

Warnings : no mention of gender for reader, friends with benetifs, slight exhibitionism, shower sex, wall sex, piano sex ?, rough sex, soft sex, mention of erection, 18+ READERS ONLY and wrap it before you tap it

Masterlist ⚜

I don’t give permission to repost my work, if you want to share it just reblogue it

Word count : 910

There is definitely something going on between the two of you. Though no one seems to have noticed for now. There is only Marinette who is suspecting you, but she suspecting everyone so you know she isn’t a threat

He introduced you as a childhood friend but in reality you’ve only known each other for less than a year

You met one day as he was on his way back home as he was still in his Chat Noir outfit. He still had some time when he spotted you, so he decided to try his chance and talk to you

To his surprise you were as interested as he was. And even if at first he was a bit wary about letting you discover his true identity, after some time and because of how horny you were you just couldn't resist but jump each other’s bones

Since that day you’ve been friends with benefits. He’d come to you after a long day as a hero in Paris to release that pent up energy or after whatever the hell he did either it was for school or for his work

He is addicted to you, and you to him. You see each other at least once a week, it’s usually three or four times a week. Either at yours or at his home

Depending on how tired you both are you’re either going to fuck like you’ve never before or cockwarm him. It really depends. Sometimes he is more into making some cocky and teasing jokes, resulting in some giggly sex. But it’s also most of the time so intense it leaves you both breathless

One of his favorite thing is having you nice and slow in his bed, but sometimes fucking you against the tiled wall of his shower is everything he needs to finish his day smoothly

He also takes you on his piano

You’re always careful not to leave any bite or purplish mark on his skin in places that aren’t covered with clothes

He is shameless about leaving some on you though. You’re his and even if people don’t have this detail, they will at least know you’re taken

Poor baby is bad at relationship but he still want you for himself

You guys had had sex in a lot of unusual places. Either on the top of historical monuments like the Eiffel Tower or the Arc de Triomphe but also on the roofs of buildings in the warm summer evenings. He’d set a blanket there and you’d cuddle some time before getting started

The tension between you two when you’re in the same room is unbearable, but since everyone think you’re friends, no one catch it

His eyes are always on you, piercing and following your every move as if he was in his cat costume. There is no part of you that is left unexplored. If your cleavage is in display his eyes are going to drown in between the tender flesh and if your pants leaves no doubt about the curves of your ass and thighs his eyes will be stuck on them too

If your sitting side by side his hand will surely caress your leg under the table

But most of the time - and since then you joined the class - the only thing he can do during those moments is to send you long and ardent gazes. You’re the only thing he is interested and attuned to at the moment

His eyes squint slightly as he gives you another longing glance. He feels so horny right now and the tent in his pants gives it all away. He has 45 more minutes to calm down before the end of the class

At the end of the class you go to your locker. Classes just ended and you just want to go home and lie down while chilling. The room is currently empty but behind you feel a hot breath grazing your neck. Then an arm circles your waist and draw you nearer

The smell of his cologne makes it clear for you that it’s Adrien. You lean against him and his strong arms hold you tighter

“‘missed you a lot in there” his fingers played teasingly with the help of your shirt “What about tonight 21:00 at yours ?” ( 21:00 = 9 pm )

“I’ll be waiting for you then” you whispered, so that if anyone was around they couldn't hear you

“I’ll be looking forward to this princess” he murmured before planting a quick kiss on the corner of your mouth

When you turned around he saw the smirk on your face “What is it about ?”

You pointed at the tent in his blue jeans

“Shoot !” he muttered “J-just get back home safely o-okay. I’ll take care of this” he looked around to be sure no one was in sight

“You sure ? I could lend a hand”

He blushed, shaking his head, he just knew that if you guys were to start something there you wouldn’t be finished at least an hour after the school closes “Yep I’ll be quick. See you later beautiful” he gave you a quick kiss before carefully making his way out and unnoticed of the locker room

At the end of the day ( pun unitented ) he got to your home 30 minutes earlier than intended

But it was all all the thrill of being his friend with benefits after all, a surprise was always hidden behind another

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amhrosina · 1 year

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frank with reader who’s really touchy and loves to touch frank and after a bad mission he snaps at her and she knows it’s because of what happened that night not her but she still feels really bad and distances herself

A/N: hey bestie i got this ask and felt so inspired that i wrote 90% of it in my free time at work today. fastest turn around time ever??? don't get used to it lol i hope you enjoy!!

MASTERLIST // JOIN MY TAG LIST

Frank knew he had fucked up the second the words left his mouth. He watched the words hit you, watched you process the rage induced slip-up that had forced its way out of his mouth – the way you recoiled your hand from his skin and stumbled over yourself to move away from him. It made him sick. Guilt coiled in his stomach, and before he could apologize, or say anything at all, you turned and left the room, mumbling an apology under your breath.

Frank couldn’t figure out where it had gone wrong. He’d never snapped at you before tonight and was almost as shocked as you were when the words tumbled out of his mouth.

“Stop fucking touching me. I said I’m fucking fine.”

Regret gnawed at his stomach, and if he wasn’t bleeding so hard out of the wound on his arm, he would’ve followed you out of the bathroom, dropped to his knees, and begged your forgiveness. But blood was hard to get out of carpet, and he didn’t want you upset about two things tonight.

So he stitched himself up, and wondered where you were in the apartment, and hoped to God you weren’t somewhere crying. The tears, your tears, he realized, were his least favorite thing in the world, especially if he was the cause of them. He’d rip any fucker who made you cry in half, a promise he’d made good on multiple times, but he hadn’t accounted for the tears he, himself would cause. The guilt overwhelming his senses were doing the job for him anyways – the longer he waited to confront you, the more he felt like an absolute asshole.

He tested the durability of the dressing on the wound, winding his arm around until he winced. A sharp pain clanged through the left side of his body, and though it made him grimace, he sat with the pain for a moment – let it ground him so that the stress of the evening could leave him. Pain usually sharpened his senses and made him feel more at home in his body. Tonight, it only unsettled him more.

He wondered if he screwed it up with you for good. You’d worked through a lot of things with Frank, but never this, and the idea of you leaving before he could even try to make things right targeted the urgency in him. He stalked to the door and began his search.

The hard brick dug into your back as you sat down, and for the third time in half a minute, you questioned your decision to clamber out the window and climb to the roof. You didn’t mean to leave so quickly, but the idea of pacing around the apartment listening to Frank grunt his way through stitches made it hard to breathe, so you did the next best thing – aka the roof.

You didn’t even need time to think the encounter with Frank over. You knew why he’d said it and what he’d been through tonight, but that didn’t stop the ache in your chest from blooming. It also didn’t stop the tears from welling up in your eyes. You had tried to blink them away, but the more you tried to ignore them, the more your vision blurred.

You’d always been a touchy person, though it had never been quite as present as it was when you were near Frank. When you first met him, you’d been so drawn to his charming aura that you hadn’t realized you’d been shaking his hand for at least 45 seconds. He hadn’t said anything – just kept watching you watch him with a soft smile on his face.

And the rest was history. You spent the entire first weekend after you met wrapped in each other’s arms, fucking on every available surface in your apartment. You didn’t quite understand why you felt the desire to be constantly touching him, but he didn’t complain and allowed you to give in to your desires as often as you wanted to. You had mentioned to him early on in your relationship that he could tell you to stop if he needed his space, but he’d never asked you to stop.

Until tonight.

And you respected it. You did what he asked. You “stopped fucking touching” him as soon as the words had left his mouth, and maybe it hurt your feelings, but you weren’t going to push that on him. If he wanted you to stop touching him, you would, even if it carved a deep, cavernous hole in your heart.

“Sweetheart?”

Your heart seized, and you jumped at Frank’s sudden appearance.

“Hey.” You mumbled, refusing to meet his gaze. “How’d you find me?”

“I worry about you too much not to be able to find you.” You quirked an eyebrow at him, unable to resist looking at him any longer, and he shrugged. “You left the window to the fire escape open. Can I sit?”

You shuffled to the side, allowing him the space to sit down, though you were careful not to let your skin brush against his. Frank let out a choked scoff and pressed his leg against yours. You turned to him, brows furrowed.

“I thought you didn’t want me touching you.”

And yeah, maybe you threw the words in his face to make him feel a little worse, but he was cracking jokes after snapping at you, and you couldn’t help the bite in your tone - didn’t want to help the bite in your tone.

He shook his head, expression turning grave.

“Baby, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean what I said.”

“You said it, though.”

“I know.” He nodded. “I know.”

You watched him take in your features – the swollen cheeks from the few tears that slipped earlier, the wildness of your hair after one too many run-throughs with your fingers, the way you could barely look at him before turning away again.

“I was just trying to help you.” Your eyes crinkled at the thought of him snapping at you again.

He nodded, cradling your face in his palms.

“I’m an asshole, baby.” His voice cracked, “I never want you to stop touching me. I love it – I love you – and I’m sorry.”

You gaped up at him, at the desperate expression on his face. A fresh wave of tears pricked at the back of your eyes. You gnawed at your bottom lip, unsure what to say.

“Don’t cry, baby.” He shook his head, wiping your tears away with the soft pads of his thumbs, “Please don’t cry. I shouldn’t have snapped at you. You don’t understand how sorry I am.”

You sniffled, nodding. He’d groveled enough, and you weren’t entirely sure you knew how to stay upset with him for longer than 10 minutes.

“Did you tie the stitch off correctly?” you asked, nodding to the injury that was now covered with gauze.

“Of course.” Frank nodded. You narrowed your eyes at his nonchalant tone.

“Are you sure?”

“No.” He huffed a laugh and pressed a sloppy kiss to your cheek.

“Why not?” You giggled, swatting him away.

“Because if this didn’t work, I was going to complain about my awful stitches later and hope my muscles would entice you to forgive me.”

He smirked, and laughter bubbled out of you from deep in your chest. You climbed to your feet, holding your hands out toward him.

“Okay, Mr. Muscles, let me fix it before it really does get uncomfortable.”

He rose to his feet, using the leverage from your hold on his hands to pull you against his chest.

“I’m sorry,” he paused, “again.”

“I know, Frankie.” You murmured, pressing a kiss to his nose.

“I love you.” he added, smiling.

“Shut up and kiss me, muscles.”

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gr1mstar · 3 months

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tea, tissues, and two hearts…

synopsis: after not listening to your boyfriend telling you about the cold weather a few days ago, now you are stuck with a cold right before an event. gojo takes care of you, now being his turn to make yourself his baby.

notes: i had a bad day so i thought writing something sweet would cheer me up. i hope you liked it, i personally do not like this oneshots that mush, i was tired when i wrote this but… well, it is what it is :) requests are opened btw, you can ask me for anything (besides smut)

contains: gojo satoru x f!reader, sick reader, cuddles, sfw, sweet bf satoru, nicknames, swearing (not much)

also i have a masterlist, so check it out here

it was tonight? 8 pm… fuck.

as you lay in bed, wrapped in layers of blankets, the chill of the night seeping through the window pane only intensifies the warmth you seek. The room was dimly lit, casting a soft glow on the tissues scattered around, evidence of the cold that had claimed your night.

the warmth of a cozy blanket cocoon provides some relief, but your body aches, and every shiver is a reminder of the festivities you're going to be missing. The night is silent, just your coughs and sniffles can be heard, punctuated by the occasional sigh as you longingly glance at the clock, realizing that the party you were supposed to attend is in two hours.

‘i can’t not go…’ you thought, looking at nothing.

your head was spinning, you barely ate, and how you had to stay up all night entertaining some old ass man just to make your boyfriend’s family happy.

the gojo clan. at first, you thought that satoru’s parents were nice, but you were proven wrong when you heard them talking about you behind your back, saying that you are not good enough for their ‘perfect’ son.

‘perfect my ass, he can’t even boil an egg without ruining the kitchen’ and so, you left the bed with a long sigh of extenuation and heeded in the direction of your and your boyfriend's shared closet, passing a mirror. as you stand before the mirror, the reflection staring back at you appears both weary and determined. the cold has taken its toll, but tonight, you're determined to transform this sick-looking person into a beautiful lady for celebration. with a gentle touch, you begin to prepare yourself, tying your messy hair into a ponytail.

foundation, blush, contour, hightlist… ‘where was that lipstick again?’

god, you hated it. all you needed was a warm tea and some sleep…

after an hour and a half, you were ready. taking your phone in your hand, you could see that you had some unread messages from gojo.

“baby, don’t forget about the party. don’t wait for me, i will come already ready just to pick you up” - 1:23 pm

“it’s a formal event” - 1:23 pm

“are you ok? this morning you looked off” - 5:55 pm

“i’ll be there in a few” - 7:45 pm

you didn’t dare to tell gojo you were sick. even though you knew he would be very sweet about it, you didn’t want to hear the words ‘i told you’ over and over again.

a few minutes passed by and when a door sound was heard, you knew your boyfriend was home. all you could hope was that he didn’t notice your sick face.

“babe? where are you?”

“livingroom” you shouted, taking your purse and putting it on your shoulder.

“how do i look?” you asked when gojo arrived in front of you, trying to look dignified and alert. “is this outfit okay? you said it was a formal event.”

“wow. you look really beautiful, love… except for, y’know, the red, puffy nose and the bags under your eyes and the sweat in your hair,” gojo said with a rueful smile, already slipping back out of their jacket. “we’re staying home tonight, aren’t we?”

“what? no, no, i’m fine! i can go, it’s not that bad-”

“sorry, let me rephrase- we’re staying home tonight. get back in your pj’s. we’ll have our own party with some blankets and chicken noodle soup.” your boyfriend interrupted you, taking your hands into his, and smiling at you.

“but gojo, your parents?”

“fuck them. there are going to be a lot of other parties at other times. now, do what i said, and let me order the soup. it looks like you need it.”

“really?” you asked unsure, looking at your nail polished nails.

“really.”

and so you gave gojo a little kiss on the cheek, ready to head out to your bathroom to wipe out the makeup.

“i told you you're going to catch a cold”

“oh, shut the fuck up, satoru”

“he did not.” you laughed, looking at the tv in front of you.

the two of you were looking at an old horror movie, but you were finding it a little too funny for a horror one. you and gojo were on the couch, cuddling each other. you complained about how he could catch the cold too, but for him, he was too cool for a cold.

“me? a cold? you insult me, my beautiful girlfriend” was his response, throwing popcorn at you.

as you sink into the plush cushions of the sofa, a soft glow emanates from the muted screen, casting a warm ambiance in the room. your partner, wrapped in a cozy blanket, nestles beside you, their presence a comforting embrace in the dim light. the room is adorned with the scent of chamomile tea and the flicker of a vanilla-scented candle, creating an atmosphere of tranquility. satoru, sensing the shivers that occasionally wrack your body, wraps you in an extra layer of warmth, the blanket becoming a cocoon of shared comfort.

‘what did i do to deserve this man?’ you found yourself asking.

a bowl of hot soup, prepared with love, sits on the coffee table, its steam rising in delicate tendrils. your boyfriend, attuned to every cough and sniffle, extends a spoonful towards you with a gentle smile, their eyes reflecting a mixture of empathy and affection.

“come on, baby. eat as much as you want, today i will take care of you.”

the room may be dimly lit, but the connection between you two radiates a soft, intimate glow that transcends the limitations of the surroundings. wrapped in the warmth of blankets and love, you find solace in the simple act of being together, in the quiet dance of a shared movie night that speaks volumes without the need for words.

“i love you, satoru gojo.”

“i love your sick ass too, now eat all the soup and then we are going to bed, okay?”

“okay.”

the took the image from pinterest - also i do not own jujutsu kaisen and this is simply my imagination.

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vickyyoon · 4 months

Text

Professor!hyunjin

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

Genre: smut

Paring : professor!hyunjin x fem!reader

C/w: smut, unprotected sex, breeding kink, reader is a student, fingering, kind of exhibitionism, nipple play, mentions of getting reader pregnant etc.

Synopsis : after failing his subject, your mother puts you up for extra private sessions with your professor which goes right and wrong...

It's a bit long 😅....

Anyways (pt-2) <- is here

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

Professor hyunjin, he was your litterature teacher and everything that fell out of his mouth was purely majestic, he was the best looking professor out of the whole university maybe even in the world.

Not even younger boys could come close to look this great as him, words aren't enough to describe how beautiful he was, he was literally sculpted by the gods in shorter terms.

His voice was soothing, his eyes held pure emotions, his plump pink lips were soft, his hair was was softer, his nose was perfect, his veins often bulged out of his sculpted arms, his fingers were long and tainted and his body was indescribable.

Everyday when he took your classes and assessment you would spend half of it staring at him, every girl did, who wouldn't but you knew there was no chance to stand out and catch his attention.

You were not that good in his subjects either, it was the day your mum came to see your result and found out you almost failed such an easy subject.

It was just literature , what was so distracting? What was so hard? Little did she know it was your professor himself.

One day she called you and informed you that she personally called your professor to give your private extra lessons. Your heart dropped.

---------------------------------------------------

There you were all dressed up waiting at his office with perfume wrapping your body,.he said he would be free at his office around 8:00pm.

The office was sound proof unlike other offices and it smelled like it was newly installed, the windows were dark tainted and covered with blinds, his floor was a grey funny carpet over the wooden tiled floor, his desk was neat. Almost like he was waiting fir you to arrive.

The door creeked open and your professor came inside, he was wearing his black shirt tucked in his waist hight pants, it wrapped around his body, especially at the waist making it look so small

" Y/n right? From my class, so what's bothering you during my lessons? I thought I clearly explained everything in detail, everyone seems to get a pass."

You were clearly embarrassed, you couldn't tell him what was really the problem, never!

" you don't know? Ok then, why don't you write me a simple minimum 100 word paragraph on yourself under 25 minutes? It's not that hard."

You were sure you could do that but when he sat I front of you, you got distracted again, you were thinking of glancing at him and wasted half of your time, in the end you wrote a paragraph about yourself with just around 45 words with rigged sentences.

" seems like you're really getting distracted, you're English seems to be perfect, how can you fail this? I guess I have to step up my game, stand up and write me another essay about your favorite subject, minimum 100 words again but under 35 minutes."

Now you were bending over with a pen and and a piece of paper, brainstorming about your favorite subject when maybe, just maybe you thought you caught him staring at your cleavage on the tight black dress you wore specially for today.

" we're you planning to go out?"

" I was until I remembered mom set me up for this and I had to run here."

You just couldn't get the thought of him fucking you dumb over his desk out of your head. You ended up writing 56 words under 35 minutes.

" not much improvement, I need to think of something that'll finally steer you right, I think I'm the problem, why don't I stand behind you and observe you from there while you write me another 100 word paragraph on how you're feeling about being here. This time you can waste however long you want but you must complete it. "

" H-how I'm feeling?"

He nodded as he stood up to go behind you. Whatever he just said was too oddly specific, it kind of scared you now but. Atleast he wasn't gonna be in front of you.

While you were writing away, he stared at your arched back, how you were bending over standing over his desk to write the paragraph, the shortness of the dress almost flashed him with your underwear, he was trying hard to get a peak. His intentions weren't any different.

A few moments later you could feel warmth on your thighs, he was extremely close to you, he was even leaning on you, pushing your hair over your shoulder to see what progress you were making.

Then you felt his hand gently lifting the hem of your dress, it didn't take you too long to understand what he was trying to do. He leaned in more his cheek was right next to yours, the contact of his skin on yours send shivers down your spine.

Yet still you didn't budge, acting like you were too focused to notice what he was doing but you were soaking wet down there, his hand traveled up your thigh to your ass, gently squeezing it before pulling your panty down.

You looked at him concerned, " get back to writing, write about what you're going to feel now. I know you want it badly." he whispered against your ear

His fingers gathered your slick and he stuck two digits up your cunt and you clenched around them. You gasped, your hand was shaking with the pen on on your hand as you struggled to write or think about anything other than him.

He pumped his fingers in and out slowly, making sure to find your good spots and having you tremble under his touch.

" will you let me fuck you dumb in this little dress?" his breath brushed against your cheeks as your turned red. You only nodded desparately.

You could hear the sound of his belt falling into the floor, along with his boxers and jeans, you peeped back to look at it.

Gosh it was gorgeous, it was huge and the tip was flush pink leaking precum.

He asked you to spit in his hand and used it as lubricant, he placed himself between your legs, slowly entering.

" you won't get to cum until you properly end that paragraph I told you to write. And if it's great, maybe I'll even fuck my cum in you." he made a deal with you as you frantically write away until he started to penetrate.

He was shaking you, ruining the balance of your pen and paper, you couldn't think anymore other than the thought of how good it felt having him inside.

" you thought It was gonna be easy? Pfft. Let's see if you can even get past 20 words now."

Soft and low grunts escaped past his lips, and you couldn't help but clech every thrust because he hits that spot too well. This was so hard for you to even focus, you were moments away from cumming.

" w-what if I cum without a warning? I've never done this. "

" you'll have to because you don't wanna face the consequences."

Shit he sounded like he meant every word he said, he does give out the cruealest punishments how we're you gonna pass.

" then Pl-please go slow."

" Do you think slowing down will help you? It's just gonna be more worse."

You only realized what he said when he slowed down the agonizing pace was burning your walls, it was even harder for you to focus and you can't even ask for more.

You wrote about what just happened right now you what you plan to do to end this session, heck you even wrote about why you get so distracted and how much you fantasized having him inside. It was like a dream come true for you.

After finishing he checks it out, it felt like the best platonic confession he's ever read, he loved it.

" Princess, you just wrote the best paragraph I've ever read, do you know what that means?"

" y-you get to fuck your cum in me and let me cum too."

He made you sit in his desk spreading your legs your moping cunt begging to be filled up again, since he was pretty tall and the desk was short the edge was around his mid thighs, it wasn't too hard for him to push through

" did I tell you how good you feel? I've been waiting for ir this day for months, got my sound proof walls prepared for this."

That statement shocked you, it was quiet weird as well.

' F-for me? Not anyone else?"you asked as he pushed himself back in with ease,

" Who else? Don't you see the way I always try to sum up your grades, you're my favorite student even if you almost failed, I gave you so many passes, don't you see how much I want you? How much I do for you without you asking for it."

Slowly he thrusted again, you never thought he had feelings for you, you thought he was just too horny at this time of the night and did this just to please his needs. It was very disturbing but at this point you were flustered, your fucked out face turning even redder if possible, staring at his sweat covered face.

" Why don't you take this off so I can see those pretty little tits of yours?" you still had the dress on, he lifted the dress off of you and threw it on the floor.

He then unclipped your bra, latching his lips around your hard nipple while kneading the other, the sensitivity made you whimper as he sucked on them.

" Maybe I'll fuck a baby into you and you'll lactate when I try these out again." he had no mercy on you, shamelessly melting your brain with words you never thought he would ever say, even in your deepest fantasies.

As he kept thrusting his lips marked your chest and neck, if anyone saw you, they would definitely call you a big slut.

" gosh you feel much better than I thought," he groaned against your skin. At this point you couldn't help but moan put loud, thank god he installed those sound proof walls or else the entire department could hear the sinful sound leaving your mouth as he fucked you.

" see, you can actually write a paragraph, it took you only 25 minutes to end that with 110 words. Maybe I should do this more often."

You had to close that paragraph. Or else you wouldnt last any longer. There you were cumming so hard on your professor's dick, you've never came this hard, not even those young ripped jocks in your class could coax this orgasm out of you. You almost knocked yourself out.

And seconds later he came crashing so hard, it was leaking out of your hole while he was still inside, there was no way you didn't get pregnant after that.

" see this what good girls get, if you keep being this good I'll give you whatever you want."

You washed up in his office bathroom when you notice one of your inner garment was missing, mainly your underwear, you leave the bathroom to find it peeking out of his pant's pocket, you smiled to yourself

He was as freaky just as how much handsome he was.

You left his office without saying anything about the underwear, he could keep it as a souvenir to remember what he did tonight.

12:56 am

#Kpop #Hyunjin #Hwang hyunjin #Hyunjin smut #Kpop smut #Straykids #Skz #skz hyunjin #straykids hyunjin #Smut

208 notes · View notes

slutt4ellie · 3 days

Text

Hearts Over Hierarchy

Loser!Ellie x Popular!Reader

Do opposites really attract?

Summery : When you run into a girl who rarely makes acknowledgment she even exists, there’s something that undoubtedly draws you to her..and a spark is created.

Warnings -> / Weed usage / Reader is confused about her feelings? / Ellie’s also confused about her feelings (ig?) / Just full loser Ellie / Really brief Skater!Ellie / eventual smut (probably) / fluff / tension / Little bits of smau / Toxic friendship / (Lmk if I missed anything else!)

WC: 4.8k (longest fic i’ve ever wrote!)

(Not proofread!)

DAILY CLICK 🇵🇸 - (takes like 2 seconds 🩷)

(Ellie)

The loud buzzing of Ellie’s alarm shoots her eyes open and her body halfway up. “F-fuck” She grumbles under her muffled voice. Running her right hand down her face.

Ellie grabs the alarm rested on her left bedside table and she’s finally met with the time 9:36am. “Oh fuck” Ellie says quickly stands up out of her single bed, planted in the corner of her single bedroom dorm. Classes start at 9:45. She has a total of 9 minutes to get dressed, leave her dorm, and run onto campus. Which has her leading to the fact there’s almost 0 fucking way she’s making it on time.

Since Ellie’s already up and out of her bed she runs to her dresser to throw on a pair of boxers and a sports bra which is almost instantly covered by “clean” sweat pants and a nike hoodie. It didn’t smell bad so it was fine!

4 minutes, it only took Ellie 4 minutes to get changed and grabbed her skateboard. She also glances over at the time as it now reads now reads 9:40. So this means her time isn’t “horrible” I mean getting ready in 4 minutes is sorta impressive, at least in her mind? Plus campus shouldn’t take that long, as long as she’s fast.

Ellie grabs her skateboard and leaves her dorm quickly running down the stairs, having basically 0 time to wait around and sit there like a duck for the elevator. And as soon as she’s met with concrete she’s off.

The reason why Ellie being late is such a fucking hassle is because she’s already been late a fair share of times building a reputation for it, when she walks into class and shit it doesn’t go without dirty looks. But it’s a new school year, so she’s tryna live by the corny ass saying “new year new me!” and actually not miss half the classes like last term.

(You)

You’re up early, 8:00 to be exact. You quietly leave your bedroom trying not to wake up the rest of your sorority sisters as you tiptoe through the halls. And just as you thought you were clear, a pair of blue eyes are met with yours.

Emily your best friend since freshman year. You two were like glue through high school, nothing could separate the two of you, sure you had fights and disagreements but nothing seemed like it could break the bond between you two..

As you meet her blue eyes you quickly notice her lips turning into a light smirk. “Why the fuck are you tiptoeing like we’re in a fucking Tom and Jerry episode?” You let out a pity laugh and smile “Oh ha ha…! Maybe because i’m nice and I didn’t wanna wake up all you guys?”

Emily smiles right back at you. “Why are you up so fucking early, thought your class started at 9:45?” You nod your head agreeing with her statement. “It does. I just wanted to be on top of it you know!” Emily shakes her head. “No I don’t fucking know? I don’t wake up a full hour and 45 minutes before my classes.”

You smile, you could ask her why she’s up but you already know her class starts at 8:30 (ew.) so going through more questions seems unethical. “Well!” You trail off then pick back up where you ended. “I need to have a shower sooo” Emily nods and goes back to her room “Yeah yeah!”

꧁✵★✵꧂

The steam fills your bathroom and the air is still warm from your lingering shower.

It was weird today. You don’t usually feel nervous for school, I mean you knew people, people knew you. There was literally nothing for you to feel even the slightest bit of tenseness. Yet it was still just there.?

Your just blaming it on basic nerves, you’re not really “excited” to get back into the grove of school, get a ton of work in before due dates which are are way to fucking fast. But either way you knew you had to suck it up so you pushed yourself out those doors and into your car.

Right on time 9:30. It should only take 10 minutes to drive onto campus and that leaves you with about 5 minutes before the lecture starts. At least that’s what you fucking planned.

But just to your luck. There was an incident, nothing serious. Just ending up backing up the roads. And any fucking other day you wouldn’t have really cared. But you really could not afford to be late on your first day back. You wanted to make sure you’re on top of everything, and the walk of shame into the classroom is probably one of the worst things person could every fucking experience.

Once you make it on campus you speed walk through the halls cutting through people just trying to get to your door. Then everything will be fine and normal, you won’t have to worry about how stup-

A hard thud goes straight into your back

You heard about 3 things fall flat on the ground none of the things being yours. And as shitty as it seems, you were genuinely considering walking away just to get to fucking class..

You’re not a complete dick and you were raised better. So this leads you to reluctantly turn around and your met with? Well you don’t exactly know, she looks familiar but maybe she’s a year younger so you don’t often see her. She has brunet- no, auburn hair, green eyes, and freckles that go all around her face. She looks familiar but you can’t put your finger on it.

You look down and notice a binder, a now slightly cracked phone and skateboard which finally you make the decision to crouch down. The auburn hair girl is mumbling a bunch of sorry’s “F-fuck that’s on me. I-i’m like super late? So I was looking down and sh-“ You cut her off and shake your head picking up her phone and binder as she picks up her skateboard. “You’re good..Fuck I’m late too.” You chuckle looking at her as you stand up, quickly handing her the items she dropped on the ground.

You give out your hand to shake “I’m-“ and as your about to say your name, you’re cut off by her voice “N-no I know you, you sat in front of me last term” You don’t know what really led you to say the next part but what else were you going to say?? You didn’t notice her once, lying seemed like a better approach. “Right! Um what was it…A- no H?” You notices how her eyebrows furrow, the fact you definitely don’t know her name is becoming apparent.

“I-uh Ellie” She shakes your hand.

“Yeah! I was getting there!” You smile looking back at her before talking again.

“We’re you?” She tilts her head talking in a tone laced with a joking sound..just from her demeanour alone you can tell she was kidding.

“I was..” You shift your gaze down to her lips then back up. You weren’t trying to be weird or anything, you just did it on instinct which now on the contrary seems a tad bit creepy since this is literally your first time even talking to her.

Once you meet her eyes again you nervously cleared your throat and starting talking once again. “Well what room are you!”

Ellie notices the quick change of subject and she nervously shakes her head “U-uhh fuck 217 I think…?” You nod and look at her “Fuck, okay shit me too?” Your voice stops then picks back up “Want to walk?”

Ellie perks up and nods. It kept playing in the back of her mind why the fuck you were talking to her. Ellie wasn’t popular, not your level of popularity. Everyone knew you. So the fact you were standing in front of her, talking to her. She was almost confused. Yet she wasn’t complaining..

It only took a few minutes before you reached the classroom door, as you check your phone you see you’re a bit late. Nothing to complain about, it’s only 9:47 so who cares..?

When opening the doors your eyes lock with the seats in the back left corner, there open, and no one is sitting in them. You look at Ellie who seems nervous.

Little do you know in her mind she’s wondering where the fuck she’s going to sit.

The only single seats are in the middle of like 5 fucking people.

Once you notices her eyes are scanning the room and her whole face is plastered with a nervous expression you nudge her lightly.

“Wanna sit over there” You point your finger and her eyes quickly follow it.

She seems confused. Like her brain just did a 360 but she stutters over her words when talking back to you. “Y-you wanna s-sit together?”

“Yeah?” You smile and let out a chuckle.

“R-right! Yeah- Yeah we can sit over there.” She smiles and nods looking at you.

As you sit down your phone buzzes in your left pocket not wasting much time to pull it out. There’s one message Emily. Asking if you made it okay and stuff. Which leads to a mini conversation.

You couldn’t help but feel almost icked out? Emily’s not usually rude so her response was weird, and out of character. You wanted to believe maybe she was making a statement or something but you replied regardless.

She was being so strange, like not her usual self. Which lead your eyebrows to furrow and you were abo-

“You okay?” Ellie’s voice says softly probably noticing the fact your eyebrows are furrowed and your face now showing clear signs of annoyance.

“O-oh yeah!” you reply now embarrassed as you feel blood rush to your cheeks. “Just one of my friends, i’m good though!”

Ellie nods and smiles. “Okay, just wanted to make sure?”

You haven’t really met anyone like Ellie. I guess other then Emily? But it still took months to feel comfortable with her. With Ellie it seems almost easy? Like fast?

Your whole friend group is popular. Which wasn’t horrible? The benefits of being popular is nice? Sorta.. But unfortunately half of your “friend group” is fake.

Talking behind peoples back kinda fake.

You tried not to let it bug you though, you had people in your friend group you obviously loved, so you would just stick in that crowd.

But there was always some anxiety which came with it. Like you didn’t know if things you said would get passed around, so when talking to Ellie, knowing nothing had the chance of somehow going to anyone, else it was refreshing.

The class was finally fucking over and you packed up your laptop and papers.

As you were about to leave you said a quick bye to Ellie trying to be respectful. You didn’t wanna ask for her number because you didn’t want to come across as weird, you two just met? So that could wait?

As you turned around there was a quick “wait!” which was clearly from Ellie.

You just turned around trying to read her expression but as you were she cut off your train of thought. “C-can I uh get your number! I was thinking we could maybe study or something. This math s-shit is like kicking my ass” After her sentence there was a dry awkward chuckle. The fact you didn’t immediately respond worried her

Did she come off as weird?

To pushy?

You’re popular why the fuck-

“Yeah!” You smile walking back over to her.

“Are you busy right now? We can go back to my place and study if you want” You say not breaking eye contact.

Ellie quickly breaks the eye contact handing you her phone before she clears her throat. “W-no! no i’m not busy, right now is good actually” Her voice cracks in the middle of the sentence leading her to clear her throat once again.

You grab her slightly cracked phone and nod..

“K cool, it’s not a long drive and my cars out in the front lot.”

In a car

With you.

Great!

꧁✵★✵꧂

Saying the car ride is awkward is an understatement? Reason number one, you don’t know what to say because you literally just met Ellie.

I mean you’re alright on small talk but what the fuck do you say to someone you met a solid 2 hours ago?

And on the other hand Ellie is Ellie.

She can’t pick up on small talk for the life of her. So when you finally speak it almost feels like a blessing and a curse.

“Sorry about you phone?” You say, both hands still on the steering wheel as you drive.

“Huh?” Fuck this is awkward.

“Your phone, it’s cracked. Sorry?” You say a smile cracking.

“I ran head first into your bag I’m pretty sure that’s on me” Ellie chuckles looking at you as you drive.

“I guess, but maybe if I was walking faster it wouldn’t have happened!” You say glancing over at her before you turn your eyes back to the road.

Ellie’s face turns a light pink as soon as you made split eye contact with her. She’s silently now thanking ever fucking god in the universe that you turned your head before you could notice.

“Maybe but I think that was a sign I shouldn’t walk with my head down” Ellie let’s out a slight laugh.

The silence falls once again neither of you knowing what to says.

“D-“

“Sor-“

Both of speak at the same time a dry chuckle coming from both your lips.

“You go.” Ellie says nodding.

“I was just going to say sorry for not noticing you?” You say clearing your throat anxiously.

“What do you mean?” Ellie says tilting her head still looking at your side profile.

“Like- I sat in front of you for months you know?.. just the fact I didn’t noticed you makes me feel like an egotistical prick?” You say rubbing the back of your neck with your left hand.

Ellie shakes her head at your response. “No! Fuck I barley talked, trust me, you not noticing doesn’t make me have hard feelings” Ellie says quickly, she doesn’t want you to feel guilty for anything.

You just smile at her response and nod. “What we’re you going to say?” She quickly talks “Just gonna ask do you get what the fuck is going on in class”

You quickly laugh and shake your head “Fuck no! I’m actually so ass at math your gonna have to walk me through it.” Ellie smiles and nods. “What makes you think i’m gonna be good at it!” She says with a chuckle.

“Well you have to be good at it because we’re official study partners!” You say before nodding your head. “Official??” Ellie smiles

“Oh yeah, official” You nod and continue nervously. “We’re uh here!” You park the car in front of your sorority.

“I never been to a fucking sorority” Ellie says getting out of the car with her backpack in hand. “No?” You say looking at her. “Nah” She shakes her head “They feel cult-ish?” She laughs causing you to smile and look at her “So you’re joining my cult then?”

“Guess soo” She drags out her ‘so’ dramatically before walking to the two big white doors which leads into the sorority house.

You and Ellie studied for a few hours. Looking outside the sky was now dark. Rather then the bright blue it shined before.

You guys studying was basically just an excuse to talk, you got to know a lot about each other. Ellie opened up to you, you opened up to her.

You haven’t ever had a friendship where you got so comfortable so fast. It’s like the fact you guys met a solid few hours ago, it was completely disregarded. It’s like you connected so fucking fast.

You learned Ellie had two close friends Dina and Jesse. They didn’t go to the same school as you and her, instead they went to one about 30 minutes out. You “learned” she’s painfully shy, which you already got the message as soon as she ran into you.

She let it slip she actually debated talking to you last term but you seemed extremely intimidating which you laughed at. But she was standing her ground, saying like you gave off a bit of scary vibes.

“Okay scary?” You replied laughing

“Scary!” She says looking at you. Both of your guys studying papers are far from filled out, almost completely empty. But to be fair that’s the last thing on your mind.

“I need one fucking example from when I was being ‘scary’” You say defensively looking at her. The two of you are crisscrossed on your queen bed a bit to close considering how much space the both of you had. Both of your knees touching.

“K well- I don’t have a fucking time list of all the times I thought you seemed scary!” Ellie says shaking her head looking at you.

Your hand instinctively falls on her knee “I’m asking for ONE example!” You made sure to emphasize the word one. To point out it was really fucking easy.

Ellie’s whole face heats up and she feels like her body’s on fire causing her to stutter over almost ever other word “I-I d-don’t know l-like one t-time I heard you talking about h-how you were ‘gonna murder him’” She says chuckling to mask the nervousness that’s coursing through her veins.

You try to recall when you said this, it suddenly clicking “Okay wait! No there’s context!” You chuckle and now both of you are closer. It’s like each time a sentence is said, you’re moving further in.

“What fucking context could there be!” Ellie spits out laughing, which causes you to laugh harder.

“I was talking about some dick who used one of my friends!” You laugh your head falling onto Ellie’s shoulder.

“I guess that’s fair?” Ellie’s voice gets quieter. You can her heart beat which to say it’s fast. That’s would be an understatement.

You pull your head off her shoulder and look at her. Her face is pretty pink and you feel like you can ever little detail that revolves around her face. One thing about seeing ever detail, it had a result of your faces being mere inches from each others.

You don’t even know what the fuck led you to do this but you slowly guided your left hand to cuff Ellie’s cheek which now has the both of you to instinctively lean in.

Ellie does the same, manly following your lead as her hand also goes onto your cheek and now your noses brush against each other.

And just as your lips were about to touch a knock hits right against your door.

You and Ellie both quickly flinch back clearing your throat nervously.

You get up faster then her and the person behind the door is no other then Emily. You hadn’t texted her since the whole weird ass messages she sent a few hours ago.

Ellie’s thoughts are now going all over the place. Because you two almost just kissed, a knock breaks it up..and now there’s a girl who in her mind, is way better looking!

Ellie doesn’t wanna think it, but the fact you might have a girlfriend is lurking in the back of her mind. She wouldn’t be surprised to say the least.

“Hey” Emily says eyeing Ellie who is now putting her papers back into her backpack nervously, her hands fumbling over each sheet..

“Hi..?” You say looking at Emily. She’s eyeing Ellie with a look you haven’t noticed before. And as you were going to say something along the lines of “Do you need something” but Emily’s voice talks over your thoughts.

“Can we talk” She says now meeting your eyes.

“I mean I have someone ove-“ But before you can finish your sentence Ellie intervenes. “It’s- It’s fine i’m heading out anyway. You know it’s dark..? So?”

“I- uh, alright. You want me to drive you?” You say looking at Ellie which she almost instantly shakes her head “I’m not tryna be a burden i’ll just skate back, my dorms on campus…so i’ll uh, i’ll be chill..” Ellie says grabbing her skateboard which was planted in your room. Right after Ellie grabs her skateboard she already is almost out of the door. But you quickly talk.

“Just text me when you get to your dorm, so I know you got back safe and shit.” You say softly.

And just like that she’s gone, and your standing awkwardly in a room with Emily. When the front door finally shuts she got the sudden urge to talk. “Ellie?”

You nod confused. “Uh- yeah..? We were just studying…”

Emily nods looking at you. “Why though?”

“Sorry..?” You say now even more confused then you were previously.

“Like why hang out with her?” Emily says looking at you.

You think she’s joking so you laugh sarcastically “Fuck off?”

“I’m being for real, Williams, she’s like weird dude... That’s literally all anyone talked about when she was in my class.” Emily now chuckles and you shake your head.

“She’s not even weird?” You say defensively. “Have you talked to her?”

Emily shakes her head fast “I don’t wanna fucking talk to her?? Like I said she’s weird.”

You’ve never seen Emily act so blatantly rude, like she had her own opinions but she knew whether or not she should announce them. Plus! She’s never even met Ellie yet she’s judging her so easily with no second thought. You tried to push it behind you, trying to end the conversation with a quick “I gotta go to bed so. We can talk later.”

Emily scoffs “Great! Now you’re fucking being weird!”

“Im not even being weird! You’re just being rude, i’m not gonna listen you talk shit about someone you haven’t even had a conversation with!”

Emily just shakes her head “I’m hardly talking shit shit. I’m just saying what I heard, fuck.” The fact she’s trying to justify her shitty behaviour and actions just makes you more annoyed.

“K great talk Emily. I gotta get sleep” You say before shutting the door with a hard slam as Emily gets out of your room.

It’s been a few weeks since that whole situation, Emily’s been okay? She apologized and shit but everything is still a bit tense?.. Like she lets out mini sighs when you say your going to hang out with Ellie.

You assumed this was because maybe she felt left out, but every time you even attempted to ask her she always shook her head and replied with “Eh sorta busy with homework”

So you dropped in, she was clearly going through some weird ass phase with you new friendship and you just wanted her to push through with it. You didn’t feel like guiding Emily through it all.

And then on the other hand

Ellie

neither of you mentioned what happened in your room that night, or what almost happened? It wasn’t relevant, some friends almost kiss! You two almost kissed…? And it was nothing important.

Not something to jeopardize your new friendship. So you dropped it. And you internally prayed she would too.

Ellie on the other hand. She was thinking about the moment constantly, like it was a virus infiltrating every single free fucking thought she had. She doesn’t know if the blue eyed girl was your girlfriend, but at the end of the day she didn’t wanna push the subject. You hadn’t talked about it so it wasn’t something she was willing to bring up. Seemed better to drop it!

And here you are, laying down on your bed extremely bored with nothing to fucking do. Your mind was just wondering, thinking about class, school, Elli-

There’s buzzing coming from your bedside table and you quickly grab you phone.

Ellie.

You laughed at your phone. Ellie’s jokes were actually so bad it made them funny. You kept texting her no plan of stopping, but then she tells you she has a little something!

You smile at her messages quickly following up by closing your phone. You didn’t waste time to grab you car keys quickly leaving your sorority house.

꧁✵★✵꧂

The car ride wasn’t all that bad, it was nice knowing that you’ll get to be with Ellie again. Plus it was literally only 10 minutes so when you get there you quickly park and rush to the campus dorms.

As you go into the building you take the left to the elevators, shortly entering before you click floor 2.

As it stops and the doors open and you lead yourself to Ellie’s dorm which you’ve now been in a few times.

After knocking it literally doesn’t take long before she answers..her hairs messy, a few strands down her face and she gives you a quick smile. One thing you instantly noticed was the strong scent of weed that exits her room. “You’ve been busy” you say sarcastically giving her a quick smile.

Her eyes are red and she’s clearly faded. “Soooo busy!” She says sarcastically before it’s followed by yet another smile.

You go into her room and sit on her little single bed that’s planted right in the corner of her bedroom.

She passes you an already lit joint which you take a drag from.

“I wanna ask you something?” Ellie says as she takes the joint back.

You nod letting out a short “hm?”

“You obviously don’t have to say yes” she starts dragging her words a mix of nervousness and being high.

“Okay..?” You say nodding, you don’t know what she’s gonna ask but either way you’re nervous.

“Jesse and Dina, they rent cabin every year. And like my not tryna really third wheel so I was wondering…if maybe like-?” Ellie says shifting her gaze down into her lap.

“When is it?” You ask looking at her.

Ellie’s almost surprised you didn’t immediately turn it down so she quickly clears her throat. “Fuck sorry- It’s in a week. You don’t have to com-“

“Yeah I’ll come?” You say, the high now finally clicking in. Ellie’s heart is skipping right now but she quickly pushes it down.

You two are fucking friends. Just friends.

“Sick. O-okay cool. I’ll just like text you everything you’ll need and shit. And it’s like an hour drive so me, you, Jesse and Dina can all just like fucking drive together.”

“Okay cool!” You smile.

You and Ellie. Are going to a cabin together.

Nothing to be nervous about…!

———————————————————

A/N -> Hii! I hope you enjoyed this chapter! I already have a full plot layout for the second one.

This might only be two parts simply because I might be able to fit everything I want with enough detail in just a singular part.

I plan on adding some angst in the next chapter ☹️ (so ig be ready for that!)

I also wanna really emphasize Emily is not homophobic! 😭

I was reading some of this chapter and it sorta seemed implied she was at least a little homophobic, calling Ellie “Weird” and shit, but it’s not because Ellie gay! I’m pretty sure most people might be able to clue on why she’s not to fond of Reader and Ellie’s ‘friendship’ but that’ll be for the next chapter.

I hope you enjoyed!

Taglist : @bready101 @onlinelesbo @amberputh @seraphicsentences @a-little-bit-of-everybody @zoehxnji @cyb3rd0nguh @graviewaviee

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w1hzz · 5 months

Text

— reaching your word count goal

these are the tips that help me with the word count it also explains exactly how i wrote 5 whole novels in the past 3 years

— 1k - 2k alternative method:

so this was actually something i was introduced to by a close friend of mine. the method is simple you just have to alternate your daily word count.

mon/wed/fri/sunday: 1k word count

tue/thu/saturday: 2k word count

by the end of the week your total is 10k, it’s great especially for your first and second draft

— timing yourself:

mind you, this works for people who are good under the clock if not you may get the nerves and not be able to write at all. now when you first write time yourself how long you take for a specific amount of words, eg: i take about 60 mins for 1k, so i set a 45 min timer to get it completed.

— peak writing hours:

whether you are best writing early morning or late night, set your time between those periods. like i set aside 1-2hrs for writing at night before prepping for bed.

— outlining:

now frankly speaking, i don’t care if you’re a “plotter” or a “pantser” or whatever else idk— but if you’re serious about writing outline your book. i’d suggest using the 7 act structure to help with the overall outline.

1. backstory

2. the catalyst

3. the big event

4. the mid-point

5. the crisis

6. the climax

7. the resolution

[@thewritingumbrellas on tumblr]

and also before writing a chapter spend 15 minutes making key highlist of what happens in the chapter of course if your find out you have to add or remove something as you right you may do so, but have an outline.

@iieir.i on instagram @1eiri on pinterest

#writing writing writing #writing #writing advice #books #writing prompts #writers of tumblr #writing tips #writing community #literature #wattpad #book

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hyperfixiation-station · 2 months

Note

Hi Sun, could I please request some Alejandro whump headcanons? How does this man react to being taken care of? I love your writing 💜

CW: Sickness, Injuries, Canon-Typical Violence thank youuu anon!!! also sorry for the wait😭😅 I did ramble a bit, so sorry if it doesn't make sense or things get repeated Also I wrote this at 2 veeeery different times so sorry again😭 as always, no beta read, and feel free to ask for clarification on anything :))

My dude is man-cold kinda guy It has nothing to do with the fact that he doesn’t know how to ask for affection and you always cuddle with him when he’s sick

But only for unimportant things. A cold or a sprained ankle?

He's dying, needing you to cater to his every need

But if he's seriously sick or injured he will push himself till he passes out

You have threatened to tie him down if he does not obey his medical leave

Case in point:

He had some lung issues after pulling Rudy from the fire during the whole Hassan fiasco

He got pneumonia because he didn’t rest and exposed himself to cold, wet environments

Oh and he had fracturedbruised ribs from his time with teh Shadows

Of course he didn’t go to the doctor, and you were out of town and couldn't force him to

You walked in on him coughing so hard he couldn't breathe

Blood was splattered on the floor as the coughing aggravated his ribs which aggravated his lungs which made him cough and then it'd start all over

You watched in horror as he choked, as he tried to inhale something other than his saliva

The 12 minutes and 47 seconds it took for Rudy to get to your house were the longest of your life

He was confused when he woke up in the hospital two days later, until he saw you sitting next to his bed, your hand in his, head lolled to the side as you slept.

You gave him a reaming of a life time

"Do you not care Alejo? About yourself? About Rudy? About me? Do you not care what we would feel if you died because you're too Godsdammed stubborn to ask for help? You made this-"

"Ay Cariño, you are beautiful when you cry."

"Don't try to flirt you're way out of this Vargas, I am so worriedmad at you right now."

"I am sorry Amo-"

"Don't do this again Alejo,. I don't think I could handle walking in to find you...because you didn't take care of yourself, okay?"

He hit a wall at that point in your tirade, and you could see it

You climbed into the bed with, curled up so your head was on his chest and fell asleep, the first peaceful night you'd had since coming home and finding him

Things were different after that

It was slow going, but you could see him making an effort to tell you when things were bothering him, to not deflect his emotions and issues

You make him chicken noodle soup when he's sick

And then you'll climb in bed with him and watch Disney movies until he falls asleep

You don't kiss him when he's sick because, ew, germs

But you'll cuddle and run your fingers through his hair

Your dialogue when he's actually hurt vs. when he's exaggerating is drastically different

"Sick" days look like: "Ay, you'll feel better baby." "You're no' gonna die, it's just a sprained ankle." "Do not kiss me Alejo." "Yes baby, we can watch a movie."

Sick sick days look like: "Alejandro sit your ass down!" "Do not make me call Rudy over here." "What do you think you're doing? Alejandro!" "Alejo, baby, why won't you let me help you?"

He got sick 2 weeks after you moved in with him

Like really, actually, sick(he had the flu)

Your first clue something was wrong was when you woke before him

The man had woken up at 6:45 am on the dot your whole relationship, so you knew something was up.

The heat you could feel radiating under the covers was the second

You were fully prepared for over-dramatic, whiny, clinginess, just like he'd acted when he got the cold a couple of months ago

So you were surprised when he got out of bed and started getting ready for work

Your third clue something was up was the fact that he didn't notice you watching him lean against the door for support as he pulled his pants on

"Alejo?" He spun around to face you, honest to god swaying on his feet

"Alejo, baby, you can't go to work like that."

"Like what?" His voice had just the slightest quaver to it

You looked his flushes face, his trembling hands, the way he was leaning against the door and sighed

The only reason you even got him back to bed was because he had the day off, he had just wanted to train

It hurt a little, how he didn't ask you for anything. He didn't beg you to cuddle or hold him, in fact it didn't seem like he wanted you there at all

Not because he wasn't being loving or because you felt unwanted

But because you knew it came from a childhood of misplaced trust and neglect.

He made it clear he didn't want to be touched, but you still hesitantly placed your hand on his forehead to check his temperature

The way he pressed into your palm and the small, shuddering sigh he gave broke your heart.

In the end you had Rudy pull him from the schedule, and spent the next week curled up with him in bed

You got into a very heated argument on day 3, which ended with you in tears and him coughing so hard he can't breathe

When you stayed with him, rubbing his back even after everything, things got better

He still doesn't like being a burden, but it's a start

He didn't/doesn't like your desire to care for him, not because he didn’t want it, but because he didn't know what to do with it/doesn't understand it

He’s spent his whole life in a warzone. He’s never had the opportunity/ability to sit back and let someone take care of him.

It wasn't that people didn't love him as a child, but in-between the drug-trades, gang fights, the cartels push for power and the subsequent war launched by the government, the struggle to survive outweighed any of his problems.

"Alejandro, we can't afford a doctors visit right now, you'll just have to drink some water." "Ay mijo, you have to be more careful, I can't afford the hospital bill to fix your arm, we'll just have to wrap it up at home." "Alejandro I already told you, we can't make it to the ceremony." "I can't, we can't, you can't..."

He’s used to patching himself up, used to people not having time or resources to care when he’s injured. It why he over plays the little things, because he didn't worry anyone when or take up precious time when his ailments could be fixed with a band-aid

His family was too busy making sure they survived to give him the attention a child required. It's why him and Rudy are such good friends.

They spent more time with each other than with their own flesh and blood.

My man does not like being open, and Valeria's betray

He deflects, much in the same way he did as a kid, by overplaying the little things so no one notices the big things.

For the longest time you had to have Rudy text you when Alejandro got injured, because he wouldn't tell you

Anyways hope you enjoyed my rambling!! I tried out a new format so lmk how you like it! Oh and reqs are open :3

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sexhaver · 2 months

Note

I read once that people should find wine recommendations by looking at prominent sommeliers who already like profiles you like, not because they're objectively correct at wine, but their tastes align with yours and they will likely speak to other wines you would like. I just listened to Tarot Sport by Fuck Buttons because you mentioned it and I really like it, do you have any other music recs in general

oh man this is the nicest compliment ive gotten on my musical taste in a minute! if you like the polyrhythmic aspect of Fuck Buttons where they layer sounds on top of each other until it sound like white noise but if you listen from the beginning with headphones you can still pick out every individual layer, check out Lauren Bousfield. her entire discography is good but Avalon Vales and Palimpsest are my personal favs. if you really like those and need more you can check out some of her earlier work under Nero's Day At Disneyland, specifically From Rotting Fantasylands

if you like having Fuck Buttons on in the background as study music, start looking into old Boiler Room sets on Soundcloud. these don't inherently have much in common other than being good background music but you asked me for recs in general so here are some of my fav sets:

Baauer B2B RL Grime at Ray-Ban x Boiler Room SXSW (warning: this set has the best music but also worst hype woman of all time)

Bonobo Boiler Room DJ Mix (this one was playing as i wrote most of my essays in college)

Purity Ring 45 Minute Mix Boiler Room Montreal (please please please skip to 22 minutes in if you listen to nothing else here, that segment singlehandedly gave me so much more respect for Purity Ring than actually seeing them live in 2012 did)

XXYYXX 60 Minute Set Boiler Room Los Angeles (whole thing is good but skip to 24 minutes in lol)

okay this last one isn't Boiler Room at all but uh. umru ♭⒉♭ fraxiom at Lavapalooza is Umru and Fraxiom doing Minecraft parody covers of hyperpop songs at a concert that happened in Minecraft itself. but it's unironically kind of good at certain points if you have the same kind of brain damage i do where you enjoy Fuck Buttons

#thank u again for the compliment anon <3

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dirtybitfic · 1 month

Text

so wrong yet so right part 2

contains~ strong language, fight during lecture, punishment , dirty talk , slight touching.

y/n pov-

I woke up this morning exhausted i've been working on this god damn story for class the entire weekend . I couldn't figure out a feeling to portray in my writing , Saturday I spent sitting in my bed thinking about Professor sturniolo then I went out with friends got shit face drunk to try and distract myself from my thoughts then woke up on Sunday with a pounding head ache and spent most of my day rotting in bed . Sunday night it finally clicked what feeling to portray would be and that was confusion. Confusion with the way i'm feeling about my professor . Given I couldn't write my story about my thoughts about him because we're sharing these ones with the class too .

I grabbed all my shit for class and made my 8 minute drive to campus blasting desire by meg Myers.

After parking I made my way into the building and into the lecture hall. Walking into the quiet room joining the other early students deciding to sit closer to the front not because really want to but I feel its best after my conversation with professor sturniolo last week .

I sit down in the fifth row and take out my computer and the printed pages to my story for today .

As i'm reading something a friend texted me the rest of the students enter the lecture hall and take their seats and professor sturniolo comes in ... my jaw almost drops . He's wearing a white button down shirt with the sleeves rolled up showing off the tattoos he has on one arm and the veins that run from his large hands to his elbows the top two buttons open showing his chain . His black pants fitting perfectly around his slim waist and his black shoes looking clean and sleek ... but the rings I notice on his fingers make me think things I shouldn't .

I follow his every move with my eyes as he walks to the front of the class to his desk setting his bad down and looking up at all of us seated around the room.

Good evening everyone I hope you all had a good weekend . Lets get started with the rest of the story left from last class and then well move onto the story you've all written over the weekend.

he looks at me with a hard stare that has my breathe catching . I maintain eye contact until he breaks it to call up the first student to read their story.

after about 45 minutes we finish the stories that were left from last week and I take a quick break for the restroom then come back in as one of the students is reading their story , His feeling was jealousy .

Not gonna lie from what I heard of his story it was about an ex girlfriend who has a new boyfriend I couldn't help but laugh when his voice broke as he said something along the lines of " remember all the things you and I did first" all I couldn't hear in my head was want you back by Cher loyd .

his eyes snapped up to me and I froze in my seat .

are you laughing at my story he asks as he angrily looks at me

I guess I didn't laugh under my breathe like I thought I did .

yeah sorry ... I mean where did you get these line Cher loyd I say as I look at him with a smile on my face .

girls behind me laughed knowing what im talking about .

your a fucking bitch you think your better than me

I gasp making him think I was offended by his words before a smirk appeared on my face .

no I just think its embarrassing you wrote a dramatic fucking story about an ex girlfriend who has obviously moves on from you

he throws his papers on the ground storming up to where i'm seated but before he can reach me professor sturniolo interrupts .

James your excused from the rest of class you need to calm down... he snaps his eyes to me and my smile drops as his eyes pierce through me so harshly I feel it in my Bones . And ms y/l/n I don't know what has gotten into you today but you'll be staying after class to talk am I understood ?.

I roll my eyes and nod my head .

I asked you a question ms y/l/n he says making me look back up at him .

I narrow my eyes before answering him.

yes sir

good and since you want to shit on other peoples story how about we hear yours I obviously upset him with my outburst which in hind site I probably shouldn't have said that to James but i'm not sorry about it .

sure I say with an attitude as I garb my story and step up in front of the class and stand at the podium getting my pages situated .

whenever your ready he says making me sigh before I start reading

I stand In the garden as my mind runs wild with the memories of my interactions with mr braves earlier this evening. The breeze is blowing through the tress that surround me as the sweet smell of summer rain invades my nose. I cant get the feeling of his hand on my shoulder out of my head . His touch felt like lava burning through my skin touching my soul . His words like honey as he calls me things that he shouldn't , things that make me feel what others would deem immoral in society . The way mr braves is older than me should throw me off but it only makes my attraction to him stronger , I could go for any guy my age wether its at the bars Saturday night or in the coffee shop but ... the only man that occupies my mind is mr braves. Ive tried everything I can to get him out of my mind but my methods only seem to make it worse . As these weeks have gone by the connection has grown stronger , I tried distancing myself from spaces I know he occupies on a regular bases like this garden i'm standing in right now but I just cant seem to stay away for too long . I see the way he looks at me when I sit only a few feet away from him and I know he is feeling the same but we both know this relationship can never be . So why do I want him so bad , why does he invade my every thought .The rain starts pouring down on me as I tilt my head back to let the rain fall upon my face as I wish it would just wash away my sinful thoughts and feeling for this man I know I cant have but all i'm left with on my run home is confusion .

I finish reading as I look up at the other students in the class who seem to have been interested in my story as the nod at me . I look over to Professor Sturniolo as he looks at me with a expression I cant seem to place .

That was very well written y/n I could understand throughout the whole story that your feeling was confusion . Your vocabulary you used throughout set the scene of the garden and the time period it could have been set in. I think you did a great job at keeping the reader interested as well good gob

thank you I say with a small smile before grabbing my pages and sitting back down at my seat

After a couple more stories class was over and the students packed up and left leaving me and Professor Sturniolo in the room.

He leans back on his desk closing his arms over his chest as he looks at me sternly .

now would you like to explain what the fuck your little outburst was about he says tilting his head as I mirror his actions .

I don't know guess I was just feeling a little ... on edge

mmm well I thought after our last conversation you would know to behave yourself but I guess I was wrong

yeah guess so I bite back not enjoying him scolding me .

y/n ... he says as he takes a deep breathe to calm himself . fix your attitude before I fix it for you

I gulp as I try and keep my thighs from clenching not trying to show any reaction to his threat

oh yeah and how would you do that I ask which a smile seeing how much I can test him before he breaks.

he smiles and shakes his head as he looks down before he brings his eyes up to me .

trust me sweetheart you wouldn't like my methods ... now lets talk about your story a bit. Was that based off real life or did you makes it up

I look down at the ground as my face gets red .

it... I made it up

mmm okay he says as he walks over to me .

he stands in front of me and I look up at him as I swallow thickly trying to keep my composure .

he smirks down at me as he walks around the back of my chair and he places his hand on my shoulder . I sigh softly as I feel heat build in between my thighs from his touch.

he leans down and I feel his breathe on my neck and ear causing me to shiver.

does my touch feel like lava y/n he whispers in my ear causing me to let a small whimper out .

I - n-no I try and lie but my stuttering gives away my true feelings.

he chuckles before his hand slithers over my shoulder to my neck and he squeezes softly and I cant help the moan that slips out .

yeah ... I think you wrote that story thinking about me didn't you

I swallow against his hand as I shake my head but we both know he's right.

try to deny it all you want but you and I both know ... im your mr braves

I sigh expecting the fact I cant hide it.

even if your right you my presser its not right

isn't that just so upsetting he sighs as he takes his hand off me .

I drop my head looking at the desk not wanting to meet his eyes as he walks back in front of me .

now next class are you gonna be my good girl ... his hand moves to my thigh and I look up at him with widened eyes in shock of what he's doing. or are you gonna act like brat again

I- ill be good

no... I wanna hear you say you'll be my good girl he says as he squeezes my inner thigh making me whine and drop my head back .

ill be your good girl I breathe out as his hand moves dangerously close to my heat.

good girl now go home and start a new story ... maybe write it about mr.braves he says with a knowing smirk .

I sigh when his hands leaves my thigh and he makes his way back to his desk packing up his stuff .

I grab my stuff and makes my way out of the room but stop when he calls my name.

oh and y/n

yes

make sure to throw in some degrading and bondage in your next story I hear mr braves is more of the dominant type

my jaw drops as my pussy flutters . he smirks at me as he makes his way to the other door at the bottom of the room

I quickly exit as my thoughts run wild . He quite literally just referred to himself as mr braves and told me something he definitely shouldn't have but Jesus Christ does knowing that information drive me wild.

I race home and immediately got too writing my next story and after finishing my 6 page story felt with the most horny story I think i've ever written I send it to him and close my laptop.

I hop in the shower then get ready for bed when my phone rings as I got to turn off my bed side lamp .

it's an unknown number but I decide to pick it up .

hello ?

Hello ms y/l/n

its him ... how the fuck did he get my number

professor sturniolo... how did you get my number?

We have your emails and numbers on a sheet when your in our classes

oh... well what can I do for you

you can get in your car and drive to the address I just sent you

w-what are you... its 2 am right now

y/n ... you better be in your fucking car in the next 5 minutes or you'll stay after for the next 6 classes

what - why i'm in bed in my pajamas right now you think I can get ready in 5 minutes I say frantically freaking out .

I don't care what you look like all I know is that if I don't see your car pull up in the next 30 minutes I will be angry... you don't want to make me angry do you

n-no sir

good then get your ass out of bed and start driving here

then he hangs up leaving me confused and intrigued .

I know if I get in the car there will be no going back from anything that happens tonight… but I want it more than anything .

As my keys turn and the engine roars a smile breaks upon my face …

Professor sturniolo here I come

Tags-

@blahbel668 , @sturnsjtop @skyslondon

#matt sturniolo #fanfiction #smut #spotify

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colsonlin · 2 years

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“Cape Cod”: a good old-fashioned short story (a 45-minute read)

“Cape Cod” is an analysis of our society’s tendency to produce narcissism, sociopathy, and casual dehumanization. It felt so good to get all of this off my chest! —Nina

A lot of how we talk about middle school in America is something I take issue with—like, for instance, that it’s somehow not the most formative experience of our lives. (It is.) A lot of people say “college,” but I had already cycled into an idea of who I was going to be as an adult by then—an A student, a talker, a birdwatcher, a take-no-prisoners observer of human social life. I studied sociology at the University of Maryland. At my retail job now—I work at a Nordstrom in Connecticut—I interact with a dying breed: old rich white women who still buy their cashmeres at the mall. At my old retail job in Farmington I was a cashier. At Nordstrom I’m more of a saleswoman—I don’t hand my customers their purchases after I’m done folding their clothes into the bag, I walk around the counter to deliver their parcels to them personally. I work six nights a week until the mall closes at 11 and on Sundays, Mondays, and Thursdays I drive to my second job at a call center in Southington. I earn enough money to pay for my Hyundai and an apartment above the laundromat, have coffee on the weekends, keep up with my student loans, and map out what the next step will be.

College feels like a million years ago.

Middle school still feels like yesterday.

“Brenda” (not her real name), my supervisor at my old department store in Farmington, was the portrait of managerial incompetence. She was fat and unmarried and all of the associates who weren’t actively helping a customer used to crowd into the stock room whenever she came out of her office, usually to berate one of us for misplacing a store key. We all know a Brenda from middle school. Everything you say is wrong, and everything she says can’t be improved upon. Three of us quit within the first ten months of Brenda’s arrival, and at least one of us later wrote an anonymous email to the district manager about her obvious drinking problem.

My old department store—I don’t want to get into any trouble here so let’s just call them “Not-Quite Sephora”—was in a strip mall. I never knew who to feel more sorry for during the day, myself or the customers who came in. I once explained to my boyfriend that we were kind of like Wal-Mart’s “more youthful older sister”—a high school varsity cheerleader perhaps, but still stuck in the past all the same.

There were ten of us on the first floor—the second floor, “Men’s,” might as well have been a different planet entirely. Brenda acted like she was better than all of us, because she has a master’s degree in “Global Business Administration,” whatever the fuck that was. Brenda didn’t seem to understand that all her master’s degree did was make her look both underqualified and overqualified for her job at the same time. (Her main role, from what I could tell, was assigning holiday bonuses and amplifying customer complaints.)

Not-Quite Sephora has a dying business model, but we were kept artificially alive by a steady stream of suburban glum as the principal anchor of a once-iconic strip mall. The first floor was perpetually understaffed—our Google reviews under Brenda’s mismanagement decayed from 4.2 to 2.8 stars (and this coming from a woman who tends to take “American public opinion” with a grain of salt). The turnover rate among everyone except me, Ashley, and Gabby seemed to be such that a new Chris, Brian, or Andy was being fired every three months. Good riddance, I always thought.

Men don’t understand how to take orders from a woman, and the ones who say they do are liars from the black lagoon.

I understand Brenda.

I really do.

Brenda’s most direct feature was that you couldn’t get a direct answer out of her, ever—it was either caustic sarcasm or happy-peppy self-deprecation. Everything she said was either designed to suppress or to charm. She was intelligent, which was the problem—quick-witted even—she prized competence, prided herself on being everything everywhere all at once (with self-pity), once complained to me in the break room that she was an ex-spelling-bee champion. Appearance-wise, what once made me jolt awake at night was that she tries, she actually tries. Not doing anything to set Brenda off had become something of an obsession of mine by her third month there. I applied to other jobs, but only in non-retail.

Trying to go non-retail—my life in a nutshell.

Brenda took over at a precarious time. Inflation was rising. Covid was either over or about to be over, but either way, brick-and-mortar seemed to be one of its death tolls. Brenda had mousy blond hair, wore black trousers to work, and used to tramp around the store carrying an inventory clipboard whenever she was upset about something. I didn’t think it was possible for anyone to take fashion-merchandising so seriously. Her first day at Not-Quite Sephora, Brenda compared our fitting rooms favorably to the fitting rooms at her old Kohl’s in Florida, now shuttered (“So coming back up here was kind of like coming home for me, y’know?”). Brenda grew up in a trailer park in New Jersey and you can tell.

You can guess what her politics are.

I think what appealed to me most about the Cape Cod trip, if I were to be honest, was the right to tell Brenda that I’d have to take a few days off in mid-September because my boyfriend had invited me on a trip to “the Cape.”

Here was a woman in her late forties or early fifties who had located the profundity of her self-esteem in “competence”—and yet it never finally occurred to her that the only way to be “competent” in your everyday life is to command the trust of those around you. Trust is earned, Brenda, and it’s lost with unreliability. I could never really trust that woman not to not trap me inside a rule without being able to explain to me the reasons—not to not be imperious and self-certain and in self-protection mode at all times—and not to not explode all of her emotional wreckage on me, drenching me in the black mist of her self-absorption. Brenda was always right. Brenda is never to be questioned. (Brenda’s real name is “Karen,” which is why I didn’t want to say it at the time.)

It felt so good to able to tell Brenda that—all of her anxieties about the back-to-school rush aside—I’m going to have to take three days off in mid-September because my boyfriend has invited me on a trip with his three friends to the Cape. (I met my boyfriend a year ago on Opal.) It pained me to be so petty—no, not the reference to Cape Cod, which was just a kiss on the lips, but the reference to having a boyfriend, which was my primary poison. I wore more eyeliner to work, not less, the longer the weeks went by trying to circumnavigate Brenda’s imperialism. I enjoyed looking like a magazine cover while supplicating to her at the makeup counter.

We worked at a department store.

(“—so that’s my life, okay?”)

I could see it already. I love how Brenda, with her master’s degree in Global Business Studies or whatever the fuck she majored in, has to flinch every time who I really was blinked in front of her. I bet you flinched every time you saw me shrug into your office, Brenda, no matter what you called me into your office for, because I know about the Us Weeklies you stole from the front stands—I told Accounting about them!—I know how responsive you are to young women with movie-star looks who had won the genetic lottery. I smile at you, Brenda, precisely because I know how my angelic dimples make you feel. It makes you feel like you want to protect me.

It makes you feel you need to defend your true queen.

Beauty was my one and only power over Brenda, but I can assure you I only used it sparingly (all it took was sparingly with a woman so obsessed with appearances). We don’t talk about being pretty enough, which is another way of saying we don’t talk about seeing only the appearances enough. Seeing only the appearances was how I, prior to this weekend, once saw Cape Cod. What do you know about Cape Cod anyway? What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you mentally google it? I want to leave you now with an image of seagulls.

I matched with my boyfriend last September on Opal.

Now I know what you might be thinking—this whole story basically amounts to one long humblebrag about how I have an account on Opal, lol. No. First of all, I deleted that account six months ago. My boyfriend and I both did, on the same day—that was how we agreed to be serious.

Opal’s cornered the market on young attractive people who like to paraglide to remote destinations—the one and only trick it has up its sleeves is “exclusivity,” which in America is a royal flush. I’ll tell you real quick how I landed an account on Opal. A hedge-fund apparatchik I had gone on two dates with wrote me a recommendation letter after I told him I didn’t think it was going to work out between us, but did he still want to be friends? (And what do friends do?) It was his fault. He was the one who’d bragged to me about having an account on Opal in the first place. He even helped me pick out my profile pictures.

I left the Alma Mater field blank.

Opal’s about what you’d expect—videos of narcissist after narcissist who summer in Thailand. I swiped past all of the alpha males, which took days. Men who were earnest or men who were silly were the only men I could take seriously.

My boyfriend’s in that five percent of men just below the top ten percent that most women don’t know to circle the ocean for. You know the type. He’d be unstoppable if just one or two more things had gone right for him, but as it were, the wrong job, the wrong company, the wrong alma mater, had kept a handsome face trapped beneath a monthly gym membership. You’ll recognize these five-percenters from their personality—pure souls who’d lucked out facially, two sevens on the slot machine, but whose unambiguous victory had been stunted by some existential lemon. Some of them have eating disorders. Some google “male plastic surgery” in the dead of night. In my boyfriend’s case, he’s pansexual. Open-minded women have rejected him, which gives him a chip on his shoulder, and now he thinks he understands what it’s like being a minority. My boyfriend’s the type to care a lot about social issues. I’m not sure he even knows we’re interracial.

His parents have a house in Cape Cod.

His dad’s a federal judge and his mom’s an immigration attorney. Until we met and he started showing me pictures on his phone of his childhood vacation home, I had never really thought a lot about Cape Cod. I only knew it as the brand of a potato chip one step up the class ladder from Lay’s, and as a cultural metonym for white-sand beaches, old stone lighthouses, and the Kennedys. Brenda grew up in a trailer park in New Jersey, but I’m sure she must have learned at her master’s program what Cape Cod was.

Cape Cod was where she wanted to be.

And as it so happens, Brenda?

Cape Cod is me.

I wanted so desperately to tell her but I couldn’t.

I wanted so badly to inform Brenda that I had more important things to worry about than making sure the lipsticks were alphabetized, or that the powders were arranged in alternating shades of rouge and beige: namely, that a splitting image of one of the stars you read about in Us Weekly had a life to live, and she was going to enjoy the fruits of her beauty—fruits that Brenda could only live vicariously through (I tallied six missing issues of Us Weekly over the course of a year; no other magazine had gone unaccounted for during the same period except for a single issue of Better Homes & Gardens, which I found one night crumpled on top of Brenda’s desk).

The way Brenda’s eyes lit up whenever she talked about Mackenzie Davis—I just needed Brenda to recognize my own beauty in the same way! It flipped around, you see, like a head trip—sometimes Brenda bowed to her true queen, and sometimes she said mean things to me. I wasn’t thought of as “intelligent” by Brenda, and I could never tell if it was because of my race or my beauty—the two possibilities flickered around in my head like a dueling candlelight until one night I decided, “It’s both,” and just let it die.

Resentment was brewing between me and Brenda.

Ever since I realized I would have to lie to her about my Cape Cod trip, because September would be the back-to-school rush, and there was no way Brenda was okaying me those vacation days. At Not-Quite Sephora, Brenda’s first rule was: “Just be honest. I want to know everything.”

But do you, Brenda?

Do you want to know how I plan to get out of work during the back-to-school rush, because I’ll be with my boyfriend and his three Yale Law classmates traipsing across Cape Cod? Do you really want to read about a beautiful woman’s life in Us Weekly? (Just steal my diary.) I’ll call in sick. I’ll lie and cough right to your face over the phone, Brenda, and I’m telling you it’s corona. I don’t have to be honest with you about anything because you rule by fear, not trust, and in a world of fear without trust anything goes.

Fear without trust is the animal kingdom.

And Not-Quite Sephora is the animal world.

The night before my last day at Not-Quite Sephora, Brenda humiliated Ashley in the stock room. (Ashley had made the mistake of asking her for paid time off for a wedding in December.) I didn’t overhear it, but I heard about it, which was enough. I have always had a way with words, and I gave Brenda some direct evidence of it by way of a resignation letter I wrote to the district manager—only it wasn’t really a resignation letter, it was more like a record of how Karen McHiggins was a terrible supervisor, sent to Corporate and cc-ed to the entire floor. (What mattered wasn’t that I had cc-ed the entire floor, but that the next morning, every single person on the floor congratulated me.) The group chat I’m in with Ashley and Gabby pops off more than ever now ever since I quit, only I didn’t mean to quit.

I only wanted to take a truthful temperature.

Brenda showed all of her cards when I showed up to my shift the next day. “Nina? My office. Now.”

I made eye contact with Ashley, who was already in her uniform, and we both smiled.

She kind of gave me an eye hug.

I wore nude lipstick that day.

The email I had sent Corporate was subject-lined “Management’s Mismanagement,” and it listed six bullet points about Brenda’s bad behavior (one involved throwing a purse at a mannequin; the last five were instances of emotional abuse). It ended with a paragraph about Brenda’s encounter with Ashley in the stock room (Brenda had called Ashley “unlikable,” “self-absorbed,” “a fucking dipshit”).

I laid out the case like the lawyer I couldn’t afford to be (I had other interests, hobbies, and pursuits in middle school, like not killing myself). Brenda was probably shocked I could write. She was probably shocked I could read, but I wield words as weapons—that’s the only thing you ever have to know about me. (In third grade, I won the spelling bee too.)

How did I dress for work the day after I wrote “Management’s Mismanagement” (and really I should say the morning after, because I sent the email at 4 a.m. and had to wake up three hours to let an exterminator in)?

I looked like a star.

I had even spent the last six months of my life casually coaxing Brenda toward the mixed-race celebrities I wanted her to subliminally see me as. Cape Cod would smile. I’d fit in well there, because in my late forties or early fifties I’d have the sort of personality that everybody at Beach Road would know to be impressed by—I could lift my life up to heights that the bourgeois rabble couldn’t even see. Not a single one of my applications to a white-collar job had ended in a palatable offer. Not-Quite Sephora, founded in Vermont, has a labor-friendly CEO. My benefits were good—I even had vision and dental. “One way or another, I’m bringing up my Cape Cod trip,” was the last clear thought I had before knocking on Brenda’s door.

“Come in,” a harsh voice gruffed.

I opened the door.

“Close that please,” was the first thing I heard Brenda say before she and I even made eye contact.

I closed the door dutifully.

Karen McHiggins was standing next to her desk in red pants and a black blazer. She had tied her hair into pigtails that day for some reason, although her hair was so short that they ended up looking more like ringlets, and her eyes behind her glasses were blue and pixel-like. Brenda made a quick gesture at the floor with her hands, almost like she was trying to say “Enough!”, and then said: “What is going on, Nina—what is going on, because I do not understand you.”

Her voice was hoarse.

I couldn’t take my eyes off her red pants—but your blazer is black?—so I just said, “I—” while panning my gaze to her desk, waiting for her to continue.

Brenda’s desk was a mess.

Just like her thought processes.

“If you have ever had a problem with me, you could have come to me directly. What have I always told you, Nina—” Brenda was now screaming.

Brenda thinks screaming has an effect on me.

She’s right—loud noises do have an effect on me. Elevated decibels have an effect on every animal that evolves through nature. How much do I hate Brenda right now? My eyes are staring into hers—but I don’t see a human.

I see an animal.

The power of volume is that it throbs the ear—and ears desire music. Ears desire harmony. Wild animals make me forget poetry as I bolt into the jungle—how much do I hate the woman screaming into my ears right now? Well, there’s a simple formula for that, and all of us are making it, even if we don’t know that we’re making it. We take how much anxiety we experience from being around a person, and then we multiply it by a factor.

My factor is 1 when that person is equal to me.

My factor is a fraction of 1 when that person is homeless.

My factor is greater than 1 when that person is greater than me.

And for Brenda my factor was 42,137—that’s 1 for every dollar that the winds of Brenda’s turbulence lorded over me, granting me vision and dental.

The ensuing number is a hatred.

How much anxiety was Brenda creating in me? Well, for starters—how much did I distrust Brenda? (And how much did I secretly want Brenda to like me?) All the eyeliner I wore to work every day—it wasn’t for mall patrol, it wasn’t for Ashley, and Lord knows it wasn’t for Gabby.

It was for me.

But maybe a little bit of it was for Brenda.

And how much taller does Brenda tower over me right now?

And how much taller does Brenda tower over me right now? Well, let’s see—I submitted 42 job applications, all non-retail. Interviewed at 11. Final-rounded at 7. Received an offer at two—both in New York, which I couldn’t afford. A young white boy at a social media marketing firm told me during the interview that I was “obviously brilliant” before offering me an internship. By July, Brenda towered over me like a god. I fell asleep at night fantasizing about her supervillain origin story. Brenda complained so much about Americans who weren’t vaccinated that I once asked her if she was a childhood polio survivor. “Where in the world did you get that idea?” Brenda laughed, and I laughed too. “Oh, I was just curious.”“How many times have I told you, Nina…”

My expenses have been going up, thanks to my new boyfriend. (As a matter of fact, I am the type of girl to go Dutch!) Taking over Brenda’s position would mean a four-percent raise. To my surprise, Brenda took off her glasses, put them on top of a crinkled magazine on her desk, and started crying. Like, actually crying.

Two actual teardrops leaked out of her eyes.

Self-pity makes me uncomfortable. It makes me uncomfortable when the powerless do it, because now I have to do something, and it makes me uncomfortable when the powerful do it, because now I have to eat them. When somebody more powerful than me expresses self-pity, I can’t help it: I want to guillotine them. I want to take away their right to exist, but I want to watch them suffer first. If I were God, I’d invent Hell just for Brenda. It satisfied me that Brenda would most likely die without children or a partner. I want all capitalists in the First World to die without children or a partner, but to have afterlives that go on forever.

It still doesn’t seem enough though.

Brenda’s office has a desk, no windows, and a door that leads to the loading dock. A poster on the wall behind her desk, and I was just noticing this about her office now for the first time, was of a lighthouse in Cape Cod. “—the back-to-school rush—” Brenda was saying, dabbing her eyes with a tissue.

The ceiling light was fluorescent, and the walls were built of the same beige bricks that made up my elementary school. I once applied to a master’s program in sociology at Johns Hopkins University.

I got in, too.

I hate it here in America—doesn’t anybody else? Is this really that much better than the Soviet Union?

Sympathy for Brenda?

Brenda who lorded over my vision and dental like a bureaucratic algorithm—my boss Brenda?

I did good work.

I was Brenda’s star employee! (I left that part out because I’m not the bragging type.) The only work I couldn’t charge for was the work I didn’t want to do—navigating around the runes and mysteries of Brenda’s uncharted sensitivities like Leif Erikson. The truth was, I hated Brenda for not being able to see me as a beautiful woman just because I wasn’t a beautiful white woman like the pin-up girls she’d gone to school with in New Jersey. Brenda bleeds white guilt, but she rarely ever let me massage any of it toward my favor, except superficially (and you can guess by now how I feel about superficiality). Brenda’s insincerity dehumanized her to me. We humanize each other first as leaps of faith, and then through trust—and nothing about Brenda’s way of existing suggested she could be trusted by me. Not her white guilt. Not her New Jersey liberalism.

Not even her tears.

In fact the longer Brenda cried, the more intensely I wanted to punish her—the phrase “white bitch tears” comes to mind. I wondered if Brenda sincerely didn’t understand that if I could push a button to keep her trapped inside a hole for the rest of her life, I would, and her tears only made me want to push harder. Still, it gave me a start to see—this woman who could take away my ability to not go into debt like checking “Buy Now” on Amazon—reduced before me into a person now trying to trick me into believing she has a soul.

Don’t the workers of the world understand?

Powerful people don’t have souls.

Brenda having a soul would have meant taking my ideas about the BOPUS orders seriously, and not dismissing them out of hand because how could any good ideas come from Nina, the pretty one, if Brenda’s even not-racist enough to see me as pretty (BOPUS is industry slang for “buy online, pick up in store,” and it’s basically brought Not-Quite Sephora to its knees—that and Brenda’s mismanagement). I could divide my hatred of Brenda by a factor to account for the fact that she was fat and unmarried—but whose fault was that, Krispy Kreme? Do you think I actually like exercising?

Are you ready for some real talk now?

I can tell you about the runner’s high until I’m blue in the face, but I’m not built inside like a runner—I’m built inside like a girl who understands that nothing tastes as good as being pretty feels. I don’t know how American society decayed to this point—my Ph.D. dissertation in sociology at Johns Hopkins would have been about the link between an artificial society and the importance placed on appearances, but I couldn’t afford to go, I had actual work to do in middle school (like not killing myself) so I never bothered thinking very long and hard about anything. “Quitting would mean losing my gym membership,” I suddenly remembered.

A new recognition suddenly dawned over me—no gym membership would mean no Cape Cod. It takes a couple hundred months and a couple thousands steps to get there, but trust me, I’ve worked out the odds.

(I make my brain work for me.)

I looked at the lighthouse poster behind Brenda’s desk and said: “Brenda, it’s just—how you treated Ashley last night in the stock room…”

“You weren’t even there!” was what a clear-headed Brenda would’ve said, but Brenda the Tender said nothing.

“I heard about it from Gabby,” I continued. “You know, we’ve talked about this so many times.”

“I know, I know,” Brenda whispered.

“You don’t know how to create a functional work environment sometimes. Groups are held together by trust, not fear.”

I wasn’t quitting.

I was saving everyone at Not-Quite Sephora from Brenda’s bad temper. Brenda’s boss Charles would understand—he’d say, Nina made some good points in this email, but it sounds like you guys have everything worked out, so get back to work—and everyone would move on.

Only Brenda would now be moving into the light.

She would see how her anxieties about Not-Quite Sephora’s declining sales figures were spilling into her paranoias about job security (“And what will I do with all of my competence now that I can’t find a job because I’m old, fat, and ugly?”) and have been spilling into us as sarcasm and curt dismissals ever since her second day on the job. (Her first day was lovely—I was obsessed with Brenda! I even nicknamed her “cool Mom” to Gabby and Ashley.)

How Brenda appeared to me that first day was how Cape Cod once appeared to me too, before this weekend—white-sand beaches, old stone lighthouses, the Kennedys.

Cape Cod had told me a story—and so had Brenda when she first took over Kristi’s post at Not-Quite Sephora (Kristi got pregnant and never came back). Cape Cod’s story was Yale Law, benevolence, intellectualism. Brenda’s story was that she was loud and earthy and understood how to make an entrance—if she’d been honest, she would’ve just said: “I can use my power to make you feel however I want you to feel about yourself. I’m an emotional abuser.”

But the story I heard, because I’m a gullible sweetheart, was “Fun Mom.”

I laughed along amiably to “stressed-out Mom,” bopped along bewilderedly to “not everything is functional upstairs Mom,” and—how do I put this?

I didn’t like the mother who had a master’s degree.

Self-protection was Brenda’s middle name, and nothing I said using the tools of reason or logic could penetrate the fortress of Brenda’s first impressions—that’s the definition of “closed-minded,” by the way (Brenda has a lot to say about closed-minded people—that’s the crazy part).

How we look is the first story we tell each other about who we are. It’s our audiovisual accompaniment to the words that make up the second half of our story—the “spoken half”—and everyone understands that this isn’t fair, everyone understands and then does nothing. Brenda isn’t the only person who learned how to survive in America by going to an American middle school. She’s only lost her temper at me a couple of times, but I’ve been tracking all of them.

I’ve been watching you like a falcon, Brenda.

I’ve been watching you like a true A student.

True A students are out of favor in America for a reason. We’re only mortal, but we’re a little bit supermortal too. Because what I really didn’t like about Brenda was her insincerity—“When have I ever said no to you, Nina?” Brenda was now drying her eyes with a tissue and screaming.

It was a change in the air—a subtle bit of misdirection that she probably thought I was too stupid to catch (I’m not).

I was the powerful one now.

And Brenda McHiggins was now “the victim.”

“You threatened to fire me right after Easter for being late on a BOPUS order,” I treaded carefully.

“Nina, ninety-nine percent of our Google ratings come down to the BOPUS orders—”

“Which is why I said you needed a better system for assigning roles for when people aren’t .”

“Which is why I said you needed a better system for assigning roles for when people aren’t here.”

“But I never threatened to fire you.”

“You told me you’d have my name forwarded to Charles!"

“Exactly!”

“Which is the same as getting fired!”

“That isn’t true, Nina—I would have protected you.”

This statement was so stupid that it almost broke my brain. “Wha—protected me: do you not understand how Charles operates?” Brenda turned her back to me, waved her hand in the air, and said: “I’m not going to go into this with you again” as she looked for her glasses.

“It’s right there,” I said. “On top of Better Homes & Gardens.”

“Oh,” Brenda said without acknowledging me.

Brenda put on her glasses and then sat down into the chair, which made a sound like it was about to snap in half.

This was how she always liked to berate us—from her chair. I had seen that painting of the lighthouse behind Brenda’s desk so many times—it just never occurred to me that it was Cape Cod. Sometimes, I’d overhear Brenda berating Gabby on my way to the restroom and I’d think, “Well, she isn’t wrong—Gabby is kind of stupid—but that’s still not the way you talk to her. You have to incentivize her to trust you first.” (Gabby was the one who first changed Brenda’s nickname from “Fun Mom” to that cunt with a stick up her ass.) Ashley and I burst out laughing. (What else is there to do inside a dying country?)

“Everyone here is so short-tempered with each other because you set the tone. I’ve been too afraid to ask you for three days off in September to go on a trip with my boyfriend for our one-year anniversary because I knew you weren’t going to say yes, so I was just going to take them off as sick days—and that’s not a functional work environment if people are constantly doing things like that all the time, because what you really need to do is go to Charles and ask for more staff.”

“This September—oh, Nina, you got to be kidding me!”

It was the first honest thing I ever heard Brenda say.

I thought about my naïve dream from earlier—how I thought I was going to turn Brenda around.

How I thought I was going to save the store. “The problem is we’re under_staffed_” was what I should’ve said—I get that now, I do, and I don’t know why I couldn’t wear it in my mouth even as it was trying to form in my subconscious. Because other forms were rising in me now too, forms like: “Brenda is a world-class manipulator. She butters you up just to brine you.” (I couldn’t even trust her tears, and if you can’t trust someone’s tears, you can’t trust them to ever find help.) I don’t know how I’d fare if it were just me and Brenda on a deserted island—I could see her killing a cougar for us with her own bare hands, but I could also see her killing me. “I never said that, I just told you I’d have to forward your name to Charles”—Brenda the liar. Brenda who could probably play dead about as well as she could play stupid—any falcon worth its weight in bird could see through it.

“I’ve been having issues with my boyfriend,” I suddenly blurted out.

Where had I learned this from?

Middle school.

“The anniversary trip means a lot to him, and I can’t even say yes or say no—it just hangs there over us, because he knows about the back-to-school rush. And he’s not even someone I—even feel fully comfortable with in some ways. But I’m also scared to lose him, I’m scared every time I come into work on Tuesday because I don’t know how you’re going to change my hours. Everything we do revolves around my not having enough time—I’d have issues building a perfect relationship with him if we had the rest of our lives to ourselves on a deserted island, but every weekend until closing? He works a normal job! He’s tired all the time too, but he makes time to see me and I can’t—I can’t come to you about anything.”

I didn’t cry.

But I did smile in my head:

“Wanna play victim, bitch?”

I could see Cape Cod now—I could see its lighthouse drawing my boyfriend and I closer and closer, I could see us dancing now to The Strokes at midnight like we were back in middle school because I didn’t want this to be the rest of my life, I don’t want retail, I don’t want resumes and cover letters and I don’t want to meet any more Brendas—what I want is for the Brendas of the world to collapse at my feet, but all I can see are the Brendas of the world closing in on me until death and so I need a release, I need to go back to middle school (I was popular in middle school, I can admit that now, I had bee-stung lips, and a bee-stinger too)—I need The Strokes (haven’t you ever made out with a boy in a hot tub while stroking your nails across his abs, parting the hair where his lower back begins?)—“Is this it? … Is this it?”—(my boyfriend and I swimming in the stars of our liberation, and I’ll give him all the vision and dental that he likes)—prey: always just a one-click order away (and we’ll eat lobster, because lobsters hold harms forever)—I the warm body and he the warm arms, holding me in his lanky-panky forever (and if Connor ever got a gym membership I would die—I don’t need a perfect 10, I can settle for an 8.9)—my captors: do they know? Do they understanding I’m not living my one true life? Wearing Ray-Bans while gazing out at the Atlantic from a yacht, because Comfort is my one true God—I’m ready, Mr. DeMille, for my one true closeup to begin. How am I still in Brenda’s office? I’m twenty-seven years old—how am I twenty-seven years old and still smoldering in Brenda’s office? In middle school I listened to The Strokes while everyone else listened to pop hip-hop—another Universe has been calling to me all my life. And all it would take was just a few more thousand steps to get there.

I’ve been running every day since I was thirteen. I don’t even eat my desserts correctly—I just spit and chew.

Ashley and Gabby remind me of who I was back in middle school. I had power over everyone back then except Abercrombie Couture (not her real name). Abercrombie was the class favorite—it’s hard to explain, but among the very-outgoing girls, Abercrombie was Frivolity Personified. And when only the people who needed to see it could see it, Abercrombie was the cruelest human you’ve ever met—she’d ignore you so subtly you’d drive yourself crazy for days asking the other girls if she was mad at you. Back then I had already begun telling myself I was too cool to care—but I still have nightmares about Abercrombie sometimes, about the way she’d say hi to everybody else at the party except me. “I just can’t deal with your emotional up and downs anymore, Brenda! Like I’m sorry—I’ve defended you to Ashley and Gabby so many times! I’m sick of having these conversations with them.”

Abercrombie, I later realized during college, must have been unsettled by how candidly I could talk about her behind her back. That was my little power over her, and I’d like to think I wielded it gracefully. (Abercrombie was dethroned by a lurid sex scandal involving a used condom in eighth grade, and I’d like to believe I led our class to a more open and inclusive place after her dismissal.)

“Three days—where you trying to go, Wuhan?”

“No. The Cod.”

“The what?”

“The Cod.”

“Where’s that?”

“In Massachusetts.”

“You mean Cape Cod?”

That was how quickly I realized I had fumbled the ball—that was the speed at which I realized I had fumbled the fuck-you—the one thing I needed to do correctly and I had fumbled the ball trying to cross the finish line. “It’s the Cape, not the Cod sweetie,” Brenda was already huffing to me by the time I realized my mistake, with a smile on her face. She’ll deny it to this day, and in absolute candor I can’t really say it was a “physical” smile—I don’t remember what it looked like, I don’t remember if Brenda actually huffed or if she even moved her mouth all that much at all, it was more in the eyes, but that bitch smiled.

I grew up in Nevada.

My boyfriend graduated from Yale Law and with him I can see a way out of my life—and I really don’t understand why that’s such a terrible thing to say. And I’m about to lose him—it’s in between the lines, but I can just feel it, I have him wrapped around my little finger because that’s the only way I’d ever have any man who loomed so tall over me, with him it’d be Cape Cod until the end of my days and nobody would ever laugh at me for calling it the Cod again—I’ll just rename it.

My hatred of Brenda in that moment was rivaled only by my childhood hatred of Abercrombie Couture.

But I knew I had to proceed gingerly.

I began to feel like Leif Erikson again—what other uncharted sensitivities do you have, Brenda?

Do white people really have white guilt?

Verbalizing the subconscious is like navigating by stars—Pequod knows where it’s trying to go, it just needs the conscious mind to plot out the steps to get there first—only I couldn’t verbalize any of this, all I could do was feel the mind for throbs like the twitches of a rat’s tail inside the forest below—and I was throbbing for a release, I was throbbing all my middle-school embarrassments, I was throbbing Cape Cod. A woman who understood nothing but appearances stood in front of me, utterly preoccupied with her own self-preservation—neither wise, open-minded, nor beautiful—but who could mean the difference between me and my income, between me and my livelihood, between me and my boyfriend breaking up (which would mean the difference between me and Cape Cod)—and I couldn’t even get anyone on the second floor to take her magazine theft seriously. How do I even begin to tabulate all her subtle knife-wounds to the psyche?

My favorite song by The Strokes?

“Hard to Explain.”

“You can correct the way I say things all you’d like, but it doesn’t change the fact that I live in fear of you—okay? I go home every night and cry. You bully Ashley and Gabby every day but I’m not Ashley or Gabby—okay? You have not created an emotionally safe environment in the workplace and it’s affecting my life—okay? I’m sorry you take yourself so seriously, and I’m sure it has nothing to do with your fear that all the girls who thought you’d never amount to anything in middle school might be right, but if you have to terrorize other people just to feel better about yourself, that’s not how I roll—okay? That’s not me. The way you talk to Ashley, Gabby, Mike, Chris—it’s un-ac-cep-ta-ble, Brenda.”

And this is where my ship was trying to go:

“I don’t think you belong in your position. So that’s what I told Charles.”

I’d set fire to Cape Cod if I could.

I’d set fire to my boyfriend’s lake house, I’d set fire to Brenda’s Us Weeklies, and I’d certainly set fire to the poster of the lighthouse with seagulls behind Brenda’s desk.

“I don’t work here anymore. Not until you apologize to Ashley,” I added quickly.

My speech was now outpacing my life decisions.

“And I’m not going to be manipulated by you anymore, okay? Because you know how hard I work, you know how much I give to this store every day but Wannabe-Nordstrom isn’t my life, okay? I am not living the life I want to live every single day—so that’s my life, okay?”

Were ordinary people in the Soviet Union this unhappy? Has anyone ever bothered to ask them?

The only thing I ever knew how to do around Brenda was say whatever I needed to say to make her feel comfortable.

Like seagulls exploding out of a cove, that was the only thing Brenda ever seemed to value: her personal comfort. I don’t remember how Brenda looked in that moment. She kept darting her eyes between Better Homes & Gardens and the floor, and her glasses were foggy. I gazed at Brenda with a falcon’s stare and said:

“Think of last night as my last straw.”

It’d be worth it, you know.

It’d be worth it to suspend my gym membership for a few months to see Brenda have to swallow the fruits of her own disorder. I hadn’t coaxed Brenda into reacting the way she did to Ashley’s request—I had only coaxed Ashley into talking to her, and that was a sincere act of friendship: “You have to stand up for yourself with people like that, Ashley.”

“That’s easy for you to say, Brenda and you are like best friends.”

“We are not.”

“You have her wrapped around your little finger, Nina.”

“No I don’t,” I said, and then I hit Ashley’s face with a big fat pillow until feathers fell out, which of course never happened because Ashley and I don’t have open and honest conversations about anything. All Ashley said was “You’re probably right,” and I could sense in Ashley’s eyes that she was perceptive enough to understand I was probably wrong—but even I couldn’t pick that up, at least not consciously, so in a way, Ashley doomed herself by failing to correct me.

I was Brenda’s star employee and everybody knew it.

I’ve been an A student all my life.

I’m the picture of good anger management.

Management hates it when you quit. That’s the one thing you can still lord over them, even during a recession (and July 2022 in America was anything but)—replacing an employee costs time, and time is money. Every store manager knows that—even Brenda (her management woes don’t source back to her inability to optimize).

And then Brenda said something so stupid that for a second I almost thought she was parodying Gabby.

“I thought you and I could speak openly to each other.”

Brenda.

Girl.

Just because you tell me about the medications you take for your back problems doesn’t mean we’re friends.

Was this really happening right now?

“I don’t know what you expect me to say,” I told Brenda. “I did speak openly in the email.”

Was Brenda really buying into Ashley’s delusion that management and workers can be just friends?

Or was she just calculating that I—because I’m pretty—was stupid enough to buy into it too?

“Actually, no—the way you engage with others doesn’t seem intended to provide a pathway for sincere and open conversations. You have a ‘No Assholes’ policy that seems intended to make other people suppress their true feelings around you at all times, because anybody who contradicts you is automatically an asshole.”

I didn’t say that.

I just said: “It can be intimidating to speak to you sometimes.”

Even when you try to laugh with me about your muscle relaxants, I laugh back, but what I really want to say is “Brenda, a certain percentage of the population is going to have back problems, and you have given me no particular reason to care about yours.” I think again now about if Brenda and I were stuck on a deserted island. I’d probably have to save her life from the elements from time to time, and that’d build trust between us. “What we’d need to do is charter a plane somewhere, and have the plane crash. That’s the only way to resuscitate this relationship.”

“How many times have I told you, Nina, you can come to me about anything…” and before I could even respond, Brenda began comparing our dynamics to a mother-daughter relationship and I was one second away from saying, “Bitch, that’s your problem,” but I caught myself and said calmly:

“Brenda, that’s the problem.”

Brenda looked at me earnestly.

“Just, that right there—the word you used. I don’t think you really understand other people’s boundaries? I tell you obligatory anecdotes from my personal life because you specifically ask to hear them, not because I want to volunteer them—again, that’s how afraid I am of you, Brenda, because I don’t even feel like I have the right to tell you that my dating history is, actually, now that I think about it, none of your business. And then you lecture me about how I talk to my boyfriend? Again, because you asked to hear the details, and you actually make it so that now I’m thinking about my boyfriend at work instead of focusing on my job, which you then get mad at me for? I don’t think you really understand, Brenda, how your friendliness comes off when it’s mixed with so much—neediness, I don’t know, this need to control everything all the time—to make everything perfect.”

The first time I ever met Brenda, we got along so well that after our shift we went to a Red Lobster on the other side of the strip mall, where she bought me three milkshakes. I told her about growing up with my mom in a trailer park in Nevada and she told me about growing up with her mom in a trailer park in New Jersey—we laughed a lot that night. I don’t even remember what we laughed about, but we were both talkers, Brenda and I, we were both tellers, and we were both showers. I could tell after my first milkshake that Brenda must have floated in the margins of the sub-popular crowd in middle school, and she all but confirmed it on the second (she just had one of those I’ve seen it all energies).

“So how does it feel being back in the Northeast?”

“Honestly?” Brenda said, grabbing a French fry. “I’m ready.”

You couldn’t hear the ocean from where we were sitting, but you could hear a highway.

I understand Brenda.

I really do.

Sometimes at night, while I fantasized about quitting a company whose Corporate was famous for giving their employees vision and dental (and anyway, what else would I do besides marketing or retail? In what other way might I be called upon to serve the good people of America?), I’d climax with an image of Brenda sitting alone at home on a Thursday night (that was Brenda’s day off), crocheting to Fleetwood Mac, with a cat rubbing up against her ankle. The only mystery was how many paintings of beaches dotted her apartment.

I know Brenda doesn’t talk to her mother anymore (“Neither do I!” was probably one of our first laughs), and I’d fantasize about how much she probably secretly admired me—because I was pretty—because I could always talk my way into classes and parties she could only stare through the curtains of (I once helped Brenda create an account on Plenty of Fish), and now it was too late for her because she was already in her late forties or early fifties—and I?

I was bound for Cape Cod.

“What are the locals there like,” all summer long I used to wonder. I work at a Nordstrom now.

And I no longer wonder.

“Oh, sweetie—it’s called the Cape, not the Cod.”

Wasn’t that how she had said it?

Even in her most helpless moment, she was still so condescending—she was still just so frivolously condescending—I mean think about the stakes here, girl, you’re about to lose your star employee right before the back-to-school rush—was the poison dart worth it?

Was the poison tip worth it, Brenda?

“I don’t think it’s healthy for me to work here anymore,” I suddenly blurted out. “You’re not a good influence on me.”

“What can I say to make you stay just through September?”

It was so quick and direct that it snapped me instantly out of my sympathy spell.

Brenda.

There’s the Brenda I knew—Brenda, you’re back!

And you’re still holding onto threads in the air.

This store will dissipate, Brenda. Your job will dissipate, and then you’ll have to go right back out there again and sell your competence at another round on the roulette wheel. (Just don’t end up at another store that sells beauty supplies, Brenda—I don’t think you quite understand what they’re really telling the world.) “I don’t think there’s anything you can say, Brenda. I know how hard the last few months have been for you, and I thought very long and hard about doing this to you. But I have to prioritize my own mental health.”

“You know Charles is only giving me a year.”

Brenda said this with a vulnerability I had never heard from her before.

Her voice was like a child’s.

Guilt—it’s impossible to summon it for a person you’ve already dehumanized. Cockroaches die every day.

My subconscious was churning again—I would have a child with my boyfriend someday, and I would protect her from people like you, Karen McHiggins. “Brenda, you have the mental age of a child,” was what I really wanted to say to her. “When I fuck up at work, who do you think I go to? Nobody—do you understand that, Brenda, because adults take responsibility for their shit.”

But I would have to sugarcoat it, because someone with the mental age of an Abercrombie would be unable to understand that the powerful can’t be friends with the powerless, no matter how hard they tried—and someone with the mental age of an Abercrombie would also need everything sugarcoated for them.

“Brenda, I don’t know how to break this to you but there isn’t going to be any back-to-school rush! It’s not 2019 anymore—Covid killed retail. We don’t know whether we want to be bargain basement or high-end and the middle class is dead, everyone wants either a bargain or an experience! What did they teach you in that master’s program?”

Only I couldn’t say that either, because Brenda would somehow spin it into me losing my cool, which is the one thing I never do—I’ve been one thing and one thing only all my life, and that’s an A student.

“You’ve given your life to a dinosaur, Brenda—move on. Department stores are dead—this isn’t the ’80s anymore. Your image of America—it’s a façade, and I can prove it. It’s that picture of the lighthouse you keep behind your desk that you pilfered from returned merchandise, and I can prove that too. We’re like explorers in an uncharted land. Things are going to fall apart for us in ways we have no templates for, just like they did for all of the generations before us—only they weren’t as trapped inside the façade of returned merchandise as we are! Settled mores are changing. This century could still look like anything—it’s all up for grabs, and more and more people are just beginning to wake up to this new dawn. Maybe what you really need to do is start a YouTube channel. You have the voice for it, you have the charisma, and you have the storytelling abilities—we could all profit from hearing from your perspective, only nobody will because you’re not young, thin, or beautiful, but hey—it’s worth a shot! You’ll have a better chance there at the lighthouse than you do in retail.”

Only I didn’t say any of this either, because I knew Brenda couldn’t hear a word I was saying. Brenda was dead between the eyes—her soul died in middle school, and she’s been dragging the corpses of would-be lives ever since.

“You’re not a particularly smart or competent person, Brenda, and what’s happening right now speaks for itself. You didn’t just get unlucky, Brenda.”

Brenda once whistled to me when she saw me change into a sundress as I was leaving my afternoon shift—“Whose heart are you breaking tonight, Nina?”

“None of your business!” was what I wanted to tell her, but I wanted to let Brenda live vicariously through me—it was the only gentleness I could ever offer her.

“You know Charles is only giving me the year,” Brenda had said, and she was staring into the void now. I could feel her back pain. She had given her whole entire life to Not-Quite-Sephora, six days a week, and on most nights on my way to the restroom I could hear “Dreams” by Fleetwood Mac playing from a small Bluetooth speaker. I looked at Brenda and said: “I have no idea what you want from me. It’s not my job to make you look any better than you are at your job. And I don’t know what your agreement with Charlie has to do with anything—in fact, I had lunch with him the other day.”

Brenda lifted her eyes.

“What?” she said stupidly.

“Oh, I’m sorry—I was trying to get a vacation approved. No, Brenda. I needed to talk to him about a few things.”

“What things?”

And then, before I could offer an answer, “What are you trying to say, Nina? Just spit it out!”

“You have a problem, okay? I’ve seen the way you’ve unraveled in the last few months—Gabby and Ashley are afraid of you, Chris is about to quit, literally nobody can handle your emotional volatility anymore. Everybody’s so short-tempered with each other all the time and coming to me for help, and it’s not my job to help them—that’s your job! You’ve created a situation where nobody can even talk to you. We just smile at you out of fear. You don’t command anybody’s respect—you know that, right? So we basically have to operate without a supervisor—you understand that, don’t you?”

It feels good to eat.

I no longer have a gym membership anymore. Instead, I jog every Tuesday and Friday at the public park.

“So yeah—so I guess I just thought it was about time Charlie heard all of this. He’s actually very reasonable if you talk to him in a reasonable way. He said he’d look into opening one or two more positions for us to cover the weekends. But you probably won’t be there to oversee it.”

Not-Quite Sephora was founded as a regional competitor to J.C. Penney in 1991. It never expanded beyond the Northeast, Minnesota, and California, and it’s about to die—it’s only a matter of time. Unless if maybe Corporate in Burlington saw the light and hired someone like me and actually listened to her ideas for turning all of their stores into “experiences,” which is what I’ve been trying to tell Brenda every time she questioned one of my lipstick arrangements. A lot of what I miss about middle school is the taste-test of freedoms I enjoy every day now as an adult: you build a friendship with the highest person who’ll take you in.

That’s how you climb a hierarchy.

Brenda looked at me like a wounded animal.

There really isn’t ambiguity, is there, about which one of us would survive if it were just you and me on a deserted island. A new recognition was forming inside of Brenda, and I didn’t want to be there to watch it settle in—you can’t treat people like you treated Ashley the other night in the stock room, this isn’t the ’80s anymore. Of course, Brenda was too obtuse to work out that I was only bluffing. The truth was, I had talked to Charlie briefly on the second floor, but he just told me to “put it all in an email,” and I knew he was never going to speak to Brenda long enough to ever contradict anything I had just said—Charlie’s not exactly the open type. Besides, Charlie did agree to look into hiring more part-timers, the way Charlie ever agrees to anything—by pretending it was his idea all along. “It’s the unreliability of when customers come in, that’s the problem,” Charlie had explained to me. (“Yes, that’s true. Unreliability is always the problem,” I told Charlie.)

You can’t rely on other people’s testimony when you ask them about Abercrombie Couture.

You have to come to me.

I’ve seen sides of Abercrombie that nobody else has.

“So what’s the dating scene like out here?” Brenda had asked me that first night at Red Lobster, while popping a French fry. I remember trying not to look at Brenda like she was serious. “It’s just men!” I remember laughing to Brenda in front of two tall glasses of milkshake. “It’s just a bunch of men—that’s the only way I know how to put it!”

And then Brenda in her black blazer and black pants laughed too.

Like we were girlfriends.

“I would’ve given you those vacation days, Nina,” Brenda finally said in a whisper. “If I had just understood that you knew what you were doing when you took them—what you were doing to the store—I would’ve given them to you.”

A new sincerity is trying to grow in the air all around us—I can hear its infant-screams, can’t you? (Couldn’t Brenda?) “Oh my God, Brenda. This is about so much more than whether or not I can go on one trip to Cape Cod.”

“That is all this is about to you, Nina, and don’t you pretend otherwise—”

“No, it isn’t.”

“—because you have a fancy boyfriend now.”

“Leave Connor out of this.”

I don’t really know where my life’s going to go after Cape Cod. Colson’s mental health—it causes collateral damage to people (Colson was one of Connor’s three friends that had stayed with us at the lake house). I don’t really think he understands that his actions have consequences on other people. He thinks I’m one of the popular kids who terrorized him in middle school, but the truth is—I’m just a little bit higher or lower on the pecking order than he is. All of us are—all of us down here. I can’t really bring myself to fully hate him for what he did, but then I remember what his life is and I do—I hate him by several orders of magnitude more than I ever hated Brenda. And what Colson and Brenda both have in common, of course, is their dripping self-pity: they’re both absolutely lacquered in it (what is it about competitive social environments that produces so much self-pity anyway, dripping like honey?). I didn’t have too much compassion for Colson when he asked me to feed some of his honey back to him with my fingers. “Money,” I wanted to tell him.

“How much money you have is an easy way to tabulate what your self-pity is worth to me.”

But to be honest, I couldn’t even lift a finger to care.

Cape Cod was only four days ago, but it’s already just another memory now—that’s how all of our weekends are bound to end. Several hundred more of these and then it’s lights out. Connor and I listened to the first season of Serial on the way up, and as we walked through Martha’s Vineyard later that afternoon, we saw fifty migrants from South America file onto a bus bound for a military installation.

There were cameras and cake everywhere.

We’re all participants in this gladiatorial contest to see who ends up in Cape Cod as the sun sets over our lives.

Colson recently wrote a book called A Stick of Dynamite in the American Elite.

I wish him luck.

I have plans for him, you know.

No matter what his next chess move is—I have a plan to stop him. I left Brenda alone in her office that day. I never learned where she went after she was dismissed from Not-Quite Sephora, all I remember is Ashley and Gabby coming over to hug me as I grabbed my purse from the break room, and they both quit two days later. It was because there’s something in my soul that doesn’t like to see other people are in pain—even people without souls like Brenda (Colson doesn’t count because he’s not really a human in my eyes, he’s more like a bad anecdote you shake off)—that I found myself hugging Brenda right before I said goodbye, holding her as she kept saying to me that I’d been like a daughter to her: “Brenda—Brenda, listen to me. My boyfriend has an ex-boyfriend whose stepmom also has a drinking problem, okay? Brenda—are you listening to me? They live in Westport…”

Cape Cod will die.

It’s only a matter of time before it collapses under the weight of its own contradictions. I sail America’s values like Leif Erikson now—other people have built their homes and comforts here, but I don’t mind. I wonder sometimes what Abercrombie Couture anesthetizes her listlessness to these days—HBO? Unsubtle affairs with younger men? “How long before mundane dehumanization bears fruit?” I smile to myself every day at Nordstrom, as I walk around the counter to deliver my customer’s parcels to them personally.

I see Abercrombie sometimes in the eyes of the women I help at Nordstrom. They’re all moms, and if that’s the final meaning of our lives—then yes, I agree.

Let’s all be moms.

You don’t know the Hell I’ll reign over America’s guilty class in the twenty-first century, but you will soon: I will mother the destruction of America’s guilded gilts into existence. I broke up with Connor this morning. Something about his reaction to Colson’s breakdown in Cape Cod just didn’t sit well with me—he couldn’t see through Colson’s insincerity, and that makes me think he might not have what it takes in this life to go where I’m trying to go. At my new job at the mall, I nibble on old memories like a woman who hasn’t eaten now in years. The last person I ate was my narcissistic mother in Nevada—she ruined my childhood—she was the Leif Erikson of my formative years—but then again?

So was my middle school.

College feels like a million years ago. My sorority sisters are all married with kids now. Mothers will do anything to protect their young.

#MeToo.

2022

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