Total pages in book: 61
Estimated words: 57270 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 286(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 191(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57270 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 286(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 191(@300wpm)
I take a deep breath and start eating. It’s more mechanical than pleasurable, and I can only take small bites. Swallowing too much at once makes me gag, and I have to concentrate so that the food goes down at the right time. Thinking of food as fuel for my body and brain rather than the enemy has helped, but I still don’t like eating. From within her box, that nasty part of me whispers how disgusting and shameful I am the whole time, and how I deserve to fade away to nothing.
Forty-five minutes later I’m finally done, and I snap the lid back on my lunchbox and go to my desk.
Over the next few hours, I work steadily through my to-do list for the exhibition, trying to ignore the way the food feels in my belly. At three I go back to the stairwell and eat a muesli bar. That takes fifteen minutes, and I pray that Mr. Blomqvist doesn’t think this is too long to be away from my desk. Hopefully he thinks I’m down in the café or something. I’ve seen lots of the other museum workers chatting away in there.
By four in the afternoon, the air-conditioning seems to be struggling. There’s a skylight in the middle of the room and the temperature is steadily climbing as the sun beats down. In between emails, I fan myself with my notebook.
Just after five, Mr. Blomqvist emerges from his office in his shirtsleeves, carrying proofs for the Phoenician exhibition flyers that we’ve had redone. I wrote the copy, and I’m rather proud of it.
Right now, though, I’m not thinking about the flyers. I’m looking at Mr. Blomqvist. Earlier he was wearing a tie and jacket, but perhaps he’s too hot as well because they’re absent and his collar is open. He leans past me to grab the envelope the proofs came in, and his shirt gapes a little. I can’t help peeking, and I see that there are more tattoos on his chest. His very strong chest. I glimpse blue and black ink, intricate designs that might be Nordic, and then he’s straightening. I quickly look back at my computer screen.
“These are good. Approved to print,” he says, putting the proofs back in their envelope and handing them to me.
Thank you, sir, I think, as I have lately whenever he tells me something like this. Except that today the heat has got to me or I’m still distracted by the sight of his tattooed body, and it slips out. “Thank you, sir. I mean—Mr. Blomqvist.”
Crap.
“No need to call me sir,” he rumbles over my head, and I could swear I hear a shade of something in his words, but I can’t tell what. He goes back into his office, and I’m glad because now I’m so hot I could self-combust.
So I like calling him sir in my head. It’s no big deal. I just like the way it sounds and these days so few words bring me pleasure. The word sir fills my mind with peace, like a hand reaching out to dampen a struck cymbal. My therapist doesn’t need to know. No one needs to know. Except I’ve just said it to Mr. Blomqvist.
Despite that thought making me squirm, my sense of peace endures well into the evening. I eat dinner in my room as usual—a piece of salmon, rice, hazelnuts, and steamed vegetables—and when I come back downstairs I watch TV with my parents for an hour or so, but most of the time I’m thinking about Mr. Blomqvist. About calling him sir. And whether I dare say it to his face again.
I kind of want to.
The next morning I arrive at the office to find an email that makes the bottom fall out of my stomach. A feature article about the Laxos exhibition in one of the major newspapers has been canned. Mr. Blomqvist spent three hours with the journalist a few days ago, but now she says her editor is pulling the piece.
When he steps out of the elevator ten minutes later, I can barely return his hello. He’s going to go through the roof when I tell him. This was one of the key marketing pieces he was relying on. If we don’t get the word out about the exhibition, it’s going to flop and next year’s budget will be toast. I won’t be here of course, but I still care, and I’m the one who’s going to break the news to him. I remember him berating me at dad’s exhibition and I want to grab my handbag and flee.
We have catch-ups in his office twice a day, the first at ten, and the two-hour wait is agony. At exactly ten I stand up, knock on his door and go in. Feeling it’s best to get the worst over with, I tell him about the article and then brace for impact.