Some stupid jumper.
And then there was Peter, just sitting there, calmly looking at me. Or maybe he was looking at someone else. What did I know? I didn’t remember half of these shoots, everything bouncing back and forth as the camera panned around. Different people. Names that now seemed like people from long ago. Laughter. Words that made zero sense because I wasn’t actually listening.
I wasn’t watching this for the dialogue. Wasn’t here for the stupid games they had made us play. I wasn’t even interested in the gossip and the drama.
I was only here for this. Those shots that seemed to crop up every couple of minutes. Me laughing at something. Me standing up, looking at something in disbelief. Someone giving me a friendly hug.
And then right there would be Peter. Looking at me.
I couldn’t bear it. Couldn’t stop watching. Couldn’t erase it from my brain. It was addictive on a grand scale, the kick of nausea in my stomach every single fucking time. And the hit that followed was more powerful than anything my card could tap into down at that bar.
I wanted to get up and leave right now. I wanted as much coke as I could get my hands on. I wanted to snort it all up my nose and watch the world disappear.
And then there he was again, right on the screen. The camera zooming in on his face in slow motion.
Just the way his face changed. How his eyes just…
He looked at me. A small smile forming on his face. Just a tiny one.
I felt like I’d seen it a million times, and not quite understood what it meant. But right here on my screen?
The dopamine kick shouldn’t affect me like this, but I couldn’t deny it. I was…addicted to it. I was sat here like the junkie I was, just wondering when it would hit me.
I was going insane. That was it. I was just imagining it. It wasn’t real. None of this was. It was just a bloody TV show, and everything was cut and pasted in order to make it look like something it definitely wasn’t.
Then there I was on the screen again. And he was right next to me, whispering something in my ear. His fingers gently travelling down my arm as he spoke.
A tender caress. It could have just been a trick of the light. The angle.
Yes, it was definitely just the angle. The lighting was off. I didn’t remember it being that dark.
Then he looked at me. Really looked. And he smiled.
I wanted to die. I wanted this to stop. I couldn’t take anymore of this, yet I still sat there letting the waves of fear travel through me.
Because when Peter looked at me?
He looked at me like he…
He looked at me like…
It wasn’t fun. It wasn’t cute. It was insane.
He looked at me like he loved me. Me? And I…? How I knew that I didn’t know because I definitely wasn’t loved. People didn’t look at me like that. I knew. I was me.
And anyway, how the hell was I supposed to know?
So I screamed into the screen. Just raged. And then? There he was again.
George
“The footfall of resources needs to be more controlled,” Kirsten read out from the screen in her hand. “That kind of negativity will need to be reined in. The reason we do these productivity polls is for useful feedback and crowd-storming ideas. Not to whinge like small children.”
“We have three new people lined up for interviews today. None of them are –”
“I have someone arriving later,” Kirsten declared, almost proudly, as Storm let out an almost inaudible squeak. Yes, I felt it too. Here we were again. Panic. Deep-rooted panic.
“We as a team need…” I started. “We deserve to be privy to some of these changes in advance. We need more time to work through the schedule. Today we are three cameras short, and there simply…”
