Re: The Assistant

Chapter 1

     Pain.
It wasn't something I was fond of but it was something I found myself enduring often.

My mother passed away when I was young, and then shortly after my father abandoned my siblings and I.

Leaving us to be raised by various family members.
Aunts, uncles, friends of aunts and uncles. School in one state, summer in another.

We're off to an amazing start aren't we?

Abandonment at a young age is an irreversible curse, it plants the seed that grows the poisonous vines that soon destroy every relationship it can wrap itself around.

At least for me.

Donovan, 10th grade. He was tall, on the basketball team. Sometimes ordered me to hold his sneakers when we walked together to his locker after a game. We exchanged very few words when we were around each other but his eyes said enough. Nonetheless through enough naivety and insecurity I believed I was experiencing love. Until he broke up with me before my science test and acquired a new personal sneaker holder to service him the very next day.

Then there was Reggie, I was more mature this time around. I had walls built. But the smoothness in his voice and toughness of his exterior broke each and every one of them down. That's how they get you though, the walls may not be visible to you. But they sure as hell are to them, and the pain can not commence without the complete and utter destruction of your self esteem.

The stories of my past experiences aren't a sympathy ploy, they're merely a prequel that sets up the story of how continuously and utterly stupid a person could be
for the right person.

Present day, 22. My excuse to become a legal alcoholic. That was a joke I've never drank, where was I going with this?

I guess I mean to say, I've recovered. I would say healed but we never do really heal from pain like this. The deep kind that changes who you are as a person. You take the hit and get up. Everyday you walk around with the hypothetical wound with a big bandaid over it just trying your best to hope it isn't too noticeable.  So you add some nice patterns to it, maybe try a hello kitty themed one for a day, a polka dotted one the next. But underneath is still that giant gaping wound that can never close.

I've done pretty well swearing off guys. It helps when your boobs start to fill in and you gain the confidence to start rejecting people. Red flags had become impossible for me to ignore these last 2 years. Mostly because it manifested itself into me rejecting every single guy who spoke to me because somehow everything they did or said had become a red flag.
But it worked, it stopped me from continuing a life of pain.

I was able to sleep at night and do well in school. Even land a couple of internships. I really wanted to take my future seriously, I'd already felt like I wasted so many years and I finally had the control now to decide what life was going to be like for me.

I woke up earlier, planned meetings, got things done, went to bed just as it got dark. Everything was supposed to be perfect.

But then there are those days that remind you that it isn't, and it'll never be. Because at the end of the day you are human. And I'd fall back into bed and sometimes stay there for longer than I'd ever like to admit.

Working was the only way for me to put on a mask and pretend I had my life together. Play grown up enough to distract myself for a while. I've worked under many companies in advertising, even landed a couple jobs through them.

As an assistant...

Sure it isn't my dream job, but it was a recurring one. Imagine how dreadful it is that no matter how hard you work towards your life goals there will still be that person to say, I think you'd make a great assistant.