Secret Identity

Sorry, I Thought I Was Done with the Prologue, but I Wasn't

I'm not sorry. I got one more thing to say to all of you: That #NPClife tho.

Before I met him, I was a real-life NPC. I worked at a bookstore. Had been a bottom-rung bookseller since I was 20. I had just turned 32 before my life changed. Maybe I should've been a manager or even a store owner by this point, but I just didn't feel like it. I've never really known what I wanted to do with my life. Retail definitely wasn't it, but I didn't know what else to do. My degree was a piece of paper I didn't even want to follow through on. I realized psychology wasn't something that I was interested in about my third year of college, but I finished it because it seemed like such a hassle to declare a new major. I was just a bored NPC bookseller with thousands of dollars in school loans and defaulted payments, floating on life's current and choosing to stay in the background of everyone else's life.

My parents named me Merry Su. Merry Su Watson, but I go by Merry. Please drop the Su and do not touch it again. I'm begging you. I know Texas was home, double names are a Southern staple, but I don't think I could ever forgive my parents for all the times I've been asked about my tragic backstory. I don't have one. In fact, my name is probably the most tragic thing about me. I lived an unremarkable, normal childhood with two average parents who lived unremarkable lives themselves. No, they're not dead. They're two very healthy people in their mid-to-late sixties and they really enjoy Caribbean cruises and pickleball like every other white boomer couple in their social circle. Yes, they do nag me about grandchildren. By the time this story begins, I'd started avoiding dating just to spite them.

Before I met Blue, my life was just work, eat, sleep, relax on my odd days off. I was happy with this existence. I thought I was anyway. I got along with my coworkers, my family loved me, and while I didn't really have friends, I did have "people I was friendly with." Turned out that I didn't even know what actually made me happy until that goddamned car upgraded me from NPC to support character. Absolutely against my will.