The Exact Opposite of Okay
Laura Steven
Hello
Look, you probably bought this book because you read the blurb about how I’m an impoverished orphan and also at the heart of a national slut-shaming scandal, and you thought, Oh great, this is just the kind of heart-wrenching tale I need to feel better about my own life, but seriously, you have to relax. I am not some pitiful Oliver-Twist-meets-Kim-Kardashian-type figure. If you’re seeking a nice cathartic cry, I’m not your girl. May I recommend binge-watching some sort of medical drama for the high caliber of second-hand devastation you’re looking for.
Either that or you saw the nudes, which, y’know. Most people have. My lopsided boobs have received more press attention than your average international epidemic, which I bet the super-virus population is furious about. All that hard work attempting to destroy the human race gone unnoticed.
In all seriousness, I don’t know why my publisher asked me to write this book, because apart from that one time I accidentally ate a pot brownie and broke into the old folks’ home, my life really hasn’t been all that interesting. But we’ll get to that in due course. It’s not actually relevant to the sex scandal or anything, but it is hilarious on a fairly profound level.
I know, I know, it’s highly confusing that I’m referencing the fact this is a book you bought – unless you pirated it, in which case joke’s on you because this PDF is set to self-destruct in forty-five seconds – but the reason is that I am incredibly meta and pretentious, and I wanted to make your brain hurt like it did when you watched Inception for the first time.
First, I guess I better explain how I got to this point: eighteen and internationally reviled. But instead of wasting time typing it all up for you, what I’m going to do is copy-paste entries from my blog so you can catch up, and add valuable retrospective insights in square brackets. By my calculations this should take up at least ninety-five percent of the manuscript, which is a big win for me because it means significantly less work on my part. When in doubt, always do the least amount of work possible, in order to preserve energy for important things like laughing and sex.
Don’t look at me like that. This is a book about a sex scandal: did you really expect me to be a nun and/or the Virgin Mary?
Tuesday 13 September
7.01 a.m.
Honestly, I swear I’m the only person in the universe who realizes how pointless life is. People act like mere existence is some beautiful gift, completely overlooking the fact that said existence is nothing but the result of a freak accident that occurred a cool 13.7 billion years ago.
Not to rain on the parade or anything, but we’re all doomed to a limited number of sun orbits before we finally kick the bucket and end up in the same infinite hell as Donald Trump and Adolf Hitler. Perhaps I’m overthinking it, but what we do between now and then barely seems worth getting out of bed for.
Maybe I’m being melodramatic. I just really hate getting out of bed.
2.47 p.m.
Just had a career counseling session with Mr Rosenqvist, who is Swedish and very flamboyant. Like Brüno but less subtle. Actually I think Brüno was Swiss or Austrian or something, but whatever. The point is I can’t look at Mr Rosenqvist without seeing Sacha Baron Cohen in a blond wig.
The dude tries really, really hard to make sure everyone FOLLOWS THEIR DREAMS [he is very shouty, hence the caps lock] and TAKES THE PATH LEAST TRAVELED and STOPS INJECTING HEROIN ON WEEKENDS. [I hilariously added that last one myself. To clarify: nobody at Edgewood High is in the habit of injecting heroin on such a regular basis that it would be of concern to our career counselor. In fact, if you are a lawyer who’s reading this, please ignore every such allegation I make throughout this manuscript, because I really don’t need to add a libel suit to my spectacular list of problems.]
We’re sitting in Rosenqvist’s minuscule, windowless office, which I’m pretty sure is just a repurposed broom closet, if the lingering scent of carpet cleaner is anything to go by. He sits behind a tiny desk that would be more suitable for a Borrower. There are filing cabinets everywhere, containing folders on every single student in the entire school. I would imagine there’s probably some sort of electronic database which could replace this archaic system, but Bible Belt schools really love to do things the Old-fashioned Way?.
So he’s all: “Miss O’Neill, have you given mach thought to vat you vould like to study ven you go to college next fall?”
[I’m going to stop trying to type in dialect now as I don’t want to appear racist. If you can even be racist to white Scandinavian men, which I’m not sure you can be.]
Breathing steadily through my mouth in a bid to prevent the bleach smell from burning away my nostril hair, I’m all: “Um, no, sir, I was thinking I might do a bit of traveling, you know, see the world and such.”
And, to be fair, his subsequent line of questioning regarding my economic situation is probably quite legitimate, given that my grandma and I currently require more financial support than the US Army.
“So do you have money saved up to fund your flights at least?” he asks, completely unperturbed by the decades-old feather duster that’s just taken a nosedive from the top shelf behind him. As an aspiring comedian and all-round idiot, it’s very challenging for me to refrain from scoring the duster according to Olympic diving standards. 8.9 for difficulty, etc.