new year's day [h.s.]

Eight

"I feel like I'm falling out

Well that's how it seems

I think that I'm falling out

You know what I mean?"

SONG: "YKWIM?" // Yot Club

!! CONTENT WARNING: descriptions of anxiety & a panic attack !!

(A/N: we're testing out split POV in this chap, y'all. If it's shit, I didn't write it <3

Alsoooo, big ups to temptress_ for helping me with the cover revamp and editing the background out of that Harry pic because I was too lazy/dumb to do it myself. If you haven't read any of her work, you're missing outtttttt so read it, read it, read it! xx)

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I don't like feeling rushed. Racing against the clock, its hands tick, tick, ticking and urging that little hamster in my head to run faster on its wheel. Stuck in place, glued to my chair because I couldn't say no, despite having places to be. Auctioneer rambling in gibberish. Realizing that if I can finish up in the next five minutes, I can get down to my car by 6:06, meaning I won't park at Brandon's building until at least 6:36, meaning I won't get up to his apartment until 6:40, meaning I'll only have 35 minutes to get ready before we need to leave since we're meeting everyone for dinner at 7:30.

Time to finish proofing like hell.

A couple of the other writers asked if I could look over their copy. This isn't an uncommon occurrence: the ones I'm most friendly with at our office seem to like having my eyes on their work before actually sending it to their superiors. I'm not an editor here - hell, I hardly get to write the pieces I really want to -, but I was at Berkeley, and that seems to be good enough for them to ask.

I don't mind it, honestly. While I definitely prefer dedicating my time to writing, I've always enjoyed editing. That's mostly because I'm good at it, or at least I've been told so since high school, and I'd like to believe all of my previous supervisors were being truthful. Grammar and spelling have always come naturally to me, and I'm cursed with perfectionist tendencies. It doesn't hurt that I enjoy reading other people's work either, particularly opinion or feature pieces - I like getting to see writers' voices shine through in their pieces.

What I do mind, is that they asked me to check their shit 10 minutes before I was supposed to leave.

I breeze through the last couple paragraphs of the final article, marking a missed capitalization and an unnecessary hyphen before deeming it sufficient. I quickly shuffle back through all the pages of copy, glancing over the notes I made before sorting them by writer. My pen gets tossed into my tote, which gets thrown over my shoulder with my purse as I stand from my desk. Grabbing each set of articles, I buzz around and drop them in the little "mailbox" folders outside the writers' workspaces.