Page 1 of 10 Days to Ruin

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ARIEL

I blame Superman for the way my life turned out.

If The CW hadn’t cast Tom Welling as Superman inSmallville, it would’ve been different.

If Tom Welling didn’t have cinnamon roll eyes and the bone structure of a sex god, it would’ve been different.

If I hadn’t been a hyper-impressionable twelve-year-old girl caught deep in the vicious chokehold of puberty when the season four premiere ofSmallvilleaired, then I wouldn’t have been so jealous of Lois Lane getting to see Tom Welling naked that my crush on him immediately and violently transferred to a girl crush on her, and then I wouldn’t have wanted to be a reporter, and then I wouldn’t have gotten this job at The New York Gazette, and my editor wouldn’t have sent me to this gala, and I wouldn’t be in this situation I’m in.

But The CWdidcast Tom Welling.

Tom Wellingdidhave cinnamon roll eyes and the bone structure of a sex god.

And Lois Lanedidget to see him naked in season four.

And so all of the other things did happen, one domino colliding into the next, shit rolling downhill, and so now, I’m cloistered in the men’s bathroom at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, hyperventilating and bleeding from a cut on my hand and wondering just how the fuck I’m supposed to go back out there and do my job.

The woman in the mirror doesn’t have any more of an idea than I do. She’s staring back at me helplessly. Green eyes, auburn hair, punching well above her weight class in a Diane von Furstenberg dress she stole from her best friend’s closet.

“What’re we gonna do?” I try asking my reflection. She just mouths the question back to me, that useless tramp.

I sigh and look down at my hand. If you thought the Met would be ritzy enough to ensure their door handles were free of jagged, rusted edges, you’d have thought wrong. I just opened up a good two-inch gash in my hurry to slam the stupid thing behind me after I charged in here, because the women’s bathroom had a line two dozen deep, because of course it did.

I’ve got my other hand clamped on top of it to stop my life juice from splurting everywhere. But the blood is starting to well up between my fingers and it’s making me a teensy bit queasy.

I don’t do blood. I don’t do stitches. I don’t do grievous wounds or even particularly bad bruises.

When you grow up the way I did, you see enough of that stuff to last a lifetime.

But I’m by myself in here and no one is coming to my rescue. So with a big, brave inhale, I peel away my good hand and take a look at?—

“Nope. Nuh-uh. Nooo thank you.” My reflection agrees with me—that’s a nasty cut. If I spend even a millisecond longer looking at it, I might pass out.

Wouldn’t that be a headline?Reporter Faints in Men’s Bathroom While On-Duty; Cracks Head Open On Sink; Funeral Sparsely Attended.Honestly, I’d have to laugh—it would be undeniably hilarious if my obituary got a byline before I ever actually got one myself.

In my defense, I haven’t had many opportunities to actually, like,do the job I was hired for.My six months at the Gazette have thus far been spent primarily going back and forth to the Starbucks on the corner. I’m not sure if it’s an intern thing, or a rookie hazing thing, or just aHey, you’re a woman, therefore you’re on coffee run dutything. But whatever the cause, I’ve had precious little opportunity to do what I took this job for.

Reporting. Telling stories. Shining little lights into the dark, cramped corners of the world, because I know better than almost anyone what goes on in those corners.

That in itself is a little bit ironic, if only because I’ve worked like hell to getoutof those corners. Didn’t I leave home the first chance I could? Didn’t I change my name? Didn’t I sever (almost) all contact with the man who raised me in those corners?

I did. I did. I did.

Therealirony, though, is that the very first chance I get to do some real reporting… is on that man himself.

That’s right: Leander Makris, New York’s infamous crime boss and head honcho of the city’s Greek mafia, is the star of my article.

He’s also my dad.

I didn’t know he’d be hosting this gala until I showed up tonight, but when that slap from reality landed, it did so with avengeance.Thus the tears, and the fleeing into the wrong bathroom, and the hyperventilating, and the reminiscing about how Tom Welling led me all wrong and if I ever get my hands on him I’m gonna kiss him and then kick him, possibly not in that order.

“Breathe,” cautions my reflection. “You’re starting to look a little crazy.”

She’s not wrong. Gina, the best friend from whom I stole the DVF dress I’m wearing, did my hair in fancy braids for the night (albeit only after I bribed her into it). One is starting to come loose, though, and I lost an earring at some point in my flight to the bathroom. Between those things and the blood starting to trickle down my fingertips, I really do look like a nutcase.

At least nobody else is here to witness my?—

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