Chapter One #2
My mother always called me too big for my britches.
She ingrained in me a full understanding of just how selfish I really am, pointing out transgressions and correcting them as she saw fit until I learned how to work harder at kindness and be more considerate of those around me.
I’m not raising no selfish witch , she always said.
Except the word she used wasn’t exactly appropriate for children.
Chrissy scoffs, and I pull my legs up onto my chair with me, wrapping my arms around them, being careful to keep the phone tucked against my ear through the movement.
“Of course you don’t,” she scorns. “An innocent person would defend themselves, but you can’t do that because I’m right.”
My desk goes blurry in front of me as I struggle to bury the unpleasant things in my mind.
I squeeze my legs tighter.
“I’m sorry,” I mutter, wishing she’d hang up. Mom would leave when I was in Big Trouble. It’s the polite thing to do. Let me sit and think about what I’ve done as I piece my garden back together.
“ Sorry ,” she echoes. “You’re sorry ? Do you even know what you’re apologizing for?”
Yes, I know my own sins quite intimately, if perhaps I don’t know which specific instances have led to this final straw for her.
Still, I don’t answer.
She scoffs again. “Don’t come to me when you figure it out.”
And then she’s gone.
Like they always are when they figure out what I’m really like.
Selfish. Self-righteous. Unkind. Inconsiderate.
The opposite of good soup, me.
I let my phone fall, ignoring the would-infuriate-Chrissy thump it makes as it hits the plastic mat beneath my ergonomic desk chair.
Ergonomic because I felt I deserved it. Felt my back and shoulders and neck should have top of what my bank account could afford for me to sit in while I write my silly little letters to Jupiter.
As if I have ever deserved anything good. Selfish people do not deserve good things. I know this. My mother taught me well.
But stupid stupid stupid, I always forget. And what happens when a selfish person forgets to not be selfish?
People notice, and they hate her for it.
Hate her so much that she ends up sitting in her perfectly peach ergonomic desk chair hugging herself because her only in-real-life friend has just ended their friendship and now all she has for companionship is a semi-anonymous pen pal who is sure to realize her horribleness any day now. Then she will, truly, be all alone.
My garden is full of thorns and thistles, and no amount of weed killer is cleaning it up.
I sniff, dragging my eyes across my knees to dry my tears on my forest-witch’s-toddler-daughter flowy green skirt. I’m probably getting mascara all over the butterfly pattern, ruining it forever.
Good.
It’s my favorite skirt, and I deserve a consequence right about now.
Consequences breed correction. The next time I want to wear this skirt, I’ll see the makeup stains and remember that, actually, it’s no longer available to me because I was a horrible friend, and horrible friends don’t deserve to be able to wear their favorite skirt.
I should buy a new chair while I’m at it – something wooden from 1988 with wheels that stick and a serious lack of lumbar support.
Maybe it’ll have a divet meant to fit my bottom that will dig into my tailbone and cause irreparable damage to my spine.
It’s only exactly what I deserve: chair induced scoliosis.
I groan, tipping sideways to lean over my armrest and wiggle my fingers at my phone. I need to see the time so I know how much longer to allot this pity party.
After a fair bit of stretching, grumbling, and nearly toppling out of my chair, I manage to pinch the corner of the phone and bring it up to my tear-soaked face. 3:43 PM. Excellent. That’s 17 whole minutes of pity party left for me.
17 minutes of sniffling and whimpering and generally feeling sorry for myself.
My mother would be disgusted.
I’m disgusted.
The worst part is knowing that she’s right. I try my hardest, but I’m still not able to just. Be better .
If I were a good person, it wouldn’t be so… so…
So hard .
3:48 PM.
Good people do not struggle this much to be good.
There’s no way. There has to be something in me that’s so intrinsically not good that makes it impossible for me – that makes it so that people can tell just looking at me that I’m bad .
Something that tips them off. Something that, try as I might, I can’t ever pinpoint to eradicate from my being.
It’s probably the fact that I eat tomatoes like apples. Or the way that I never shampoo twice, even though I know I’m supposed to. Or maybe it’s something more constant – the way I walk or the way I talk or the way I breathe.
3:51 PM.
Less than 10 minutes.
Less than 10 minutes to pull myself together and stop feeling sorry for myself. Crying about it isn’t going to fix anything. Nobody became a better person by crying .
If you don’t stop cryin’, I’ll give you somethin’ ta cry about, and then we’ll both be bad people. Is that what you want? You want your momma to be a bad person?
I shake my head, probably flinging snot and tears all over my desk. “Stop that,” I whisper. “Momma isn’t here. You’re just making yourself feel worse.”
Yeah, well, acknowledging a truth doesn’t make it go away, does it?
Seriously, Lyra, stop throwin’ a fit or I’ll–
4:00 PM.
I sniff, grab a tissue – or twelve – from the box on my desk, and dry my face off, avoiding my reflection in the mirror above the dresser to my right.
No, thank you, I would not like to see the evidence of my incredible stupidity and weakness.
Instead, I toss my used tissues in the big trash can under my desk, not to be confused with the tiny dumpster I use for small paper scraps on top of the desk, and force my focus back to my letter to Jupiter.
Morale.
Sweet, sweet morale, waiting for me to come back to it.
I sniffle.
Yes, please.
Pulling the mess of cardstock, stickers, and washi tape closer to me, I ignore the pounding in my head and the burning in my sinuses.
No time for a breakdown, Lyra. You’ve got a letter to finish.
Read Now .