Chapter 8. Micah
MICAH
I glance around my monitor at the new intern, who is scurrying by for the umpteenth time, her eyes and mouth pulled tight.
Sure I could help her, but where’s the fun in that?
Sooner she goes back to Brooklyn, the better.
She probably has a Mama Leone or two back home ready with a big bowl of spaghetti—or the Peruvian equivalent—to congratulate her on finishing her first day.
She scampers by again, flitting around in that tight suit. Her first test at resourcefulness. She better make friends fast before she wears out the floors.
Scott asked me to take a stab at writing some new client proposals before passing them on to Meredith. But all I can see is my notebook poking out from the mess on my desk, waiting.
I scan the sea of workspaces. Everyone appears busy. I sit with my back to the wall so I can keep an eye on any oncoming visitors. Safer that way.
I grab my notebook and jot down a few lines.
Like a light switch, the knots roped across my shoulders release.
Inside these white blank pages, I call the shots instead of others dictating my story.
I’m careful never to leave it out in the open.
Its contents wouldn’t make sense to most. I don’t understand my own brain half the time.
I stayed up well into the evening working on something last night.
A letter. I was on a mad tear, as evidenced by my erratic penmanship.
My sentences become less jagged once I began to settle and be myself again.
Sometimes I can almost get back to what I felt like when I was a typical teenager—before I woke up in someone else’s body.
I was sixteen, a sophomore in high school, when I experienced my first psychotic episode. I’d been cramming for a precalculus test the night before. I remember stressing over it, unable to fall asleep. Eventually, I did.
When I woke up, these grayish human forms were standing at the foot of my bed.
The dark sky outside my window convinced me I was dreaming. I rolled over and fell back asleep.
But when my alarm sounded, not only were the Shadow People still there, they began speaking.
They said terrible things. Things I believed to be true.
How I’d become a burden to my family—mainly Granddad and Aunt Max, who got stuck raising me while my father lived on the road, forgetting his own son.
That day, those demons personified all my insecurities. Their presence unhinged every cell in my body, imprisoning me in my bed for hours.
I peed myself and cried for my mother.
Aunt Max found me later that evening.
The doc who examined me called it schizophrenia.
I hear voices and see people who don’t exist. I also experience bouts of paranoia and other stress-induced adventures.
I responded well to treatment at first. I could manage it. No one needed to know. But my body soon became resistant to the antipsychotic meds and the Shadow People moved back in.
That summer after my diagnosis, Granddad thought it’d be a fine idea for me to start interning at the agency. He alleged a job would fix me.
I didn’t fight it, though I knew I wasn’t ready. I had already disgraced my family enough.
Four years later, and my cocktail of meds keeps changing.
Some leave me listless and bloated and insatiably thirsty, others bouncing off the walls and sleep-deprived.
I’ve lost my friends and I had to finish high school online.
I went from being a regular teenager to a recluse.
I couldn’t even hack my first college class.
The Shadow People occupy my world now. Ignoring them is near impossible. I never know when they’ll show up. Take the guy who keeps pounding my desk. I’m certain he’s not real. I would have remembered hiring his ugly mug.
An alert for my weekly financial meeting with Aunt Max pops up on my screen.
My gut knots up. Talk of cutting staff makes me want to pull out my eyelashes. Thankfully, I don’t do that anymore.
The number one person on Scott’s chopping block is Eunice. He wants to eliminate her position.
Her last merit increase, unbeknownst to her, came from my paycheck. I don’t know what I’d do if I lost her. I won’t let that happen.
When Granddad presses me about the agency acquiring new clients, I redirect. Been a bleak few months, but things will turn around. These next campaigns just need to hit their mark.
I don’t have to look up to know Scott has landed. His cologne gives him away. “You’re back,” I say.
“Short trip this time.” Scott points a manila folder at me, then rests a corner on the top edge of my screen.
He’s dressed in one of his carefully stylized ensembles: a suit and tie with a violet blue pocket square that brings out his indigo eyes and brown skin.
Whenever he needs to dazzle a client, out comes the blue.
I’ve seen men and women lose their train of thought after a mere glance from those eyes.
“Congrats on getting Bradley Products. My team’s working on the creative now.”
His bottom teeth dig into his lip. “Skip your meeting with Max. I need you in the one for Quotagian.”
I nod and wait for more.
Scott’s been careful around me as of late, treating me like one of Granddad’s spies.
Aunt Max, insulated upstairs in her corner office, doesn’t ruffle him in the way I do sitting among the creatives and seeing all the drama unfold.
I’m not sure why he worries. Granddad can’t get his socks to match these days, let alone interfere with how his agency is being run.
Scott got hired to be the new creative director the first summer I interned.
At twenty-six, he became the youngest CD in the industry.
The guy’s talented, the way he manages the designers, copywriters, and art directors impressive.
He’s taught me everything I know. When he discovered I could write, he promoted me to associate creative director, bypassing my lack of a college degree.
Most say he’s kissing up to my granddad.
Probably true. He also likes to pass off work that he doesn’t want to do. Like these proposals.
I’ve learned a lot in my four years observing him. We’re not buds. But I can sense when something’s up. Something big.
He pivots and strides through the open room, his fingers already inside his necktie, tugging it to either side. He gives it a hard jerk before removing it over his head. He marches up the open black staircase.
Heads turn in his direction.
The slam of his office door travels all the way back down to me.
A moment later, Meredith breezes past my desk. She’s trailed by her new intern, who is pulling a hand truck filled with pink boxes—and who, right as she passes me, trips and narrowly avoids a face-plant.
I squint to hold back from laughing. I swivel around in my chair, letting my smile grow. At least she’s entertaining.
My thumb slides across my phone. Time to check in with the psycho.