"One day you're there and you're like, 'this is my life.' And then the next you're like 'oh well, I guess we walk this path'" The Boss texted me on my personal phone at 11:00 on a Friday night. I sat next to my best friend and we downed our shots of Patron.
I say The Boss is polarizing because she delights in making people cry, has said so verbatim, but she also loves to be the savior. Broken things delight her as they delight me; she is drawn to them. She is broken and I am broken, so we delight each other.
In a year I've watched a dozen employees leave. It's a small company, we can't afford to lose so many, but we lose them because Boss is difficult and temperamental.
The part that's difficult for me is that even though she angers quickly, she doesn't anger quickly with me.
Rewind to the time we took a client on a walk. A giant, lumbering, low-functioning beast of a boy. I held one hand and she held the other, and as we left the house she caught sight of the four-inch scar on my upper arm. Most people dance around it. "Ouch," she said, and I smiled. "Did you do that to yourself?"
Long pause. "It was a good one," I said, and we turned the corner with the kiddo in between us.
"I'm sorry," she said. Then she said to our kiddo, "Say, 'We love you, Amanda.'"