The Fire Within

“If you believe that what you’re doing will have positive results, it will— even if it’s not immediately obvious.” 

-Sophia Amoruso 

-

"Fuck, you're so hot," Chuck said, as he pulled me in for a kiss. He came from behind, pulled my hips backwards, and then-

"Chuck, oh my fucking god," I gasped. This wasn't happening. We kept kissing, as Chuck kept going and I kept gasping.

"I can't believe it's been this long," Chuck said, as he pulled me in for another kiss. "Blair, you have no idea how much I needed this. How much I need you."

Was he fucking serious?

I gave him a look, and he corrected himself, "Not just like, physical sex stuff, but like taking care of me and shit."

I looked at him, and said,

"CHUCK I NEED TO GET CLIENTS."

I woke up, nearly gasping for air. My hair stuck to the sweat on my neck, and my inner thighs were also sweaty from the blazing Chicago heat. Of course, my apartment building still had not turned on the air conditioning.

I hadn't been on a date in a while, or wanted to go on a date for a while. My company was keeping me busy and I was focusing and working on myself. Yeah, Chuck was out and about going to parties and having the time of his life, but that didn't matter. That knowledge and that boy had absolutely no part in my future. Although, there was a slight problem regarding Chuck.

You know, the whole spontaneous- AND COMPLETELY UNWANTED- sex dream thing. But that wasn't the biggest concern I had, as a matter of fact that was just a small blip on my radar.

Because my business had kind of hit a tiny bump.

Okay, so maybe I had no laptop, no clients, and everyone probably thought that I was absolutely and utterly crazy...but that wasn't going to stop me.

Actually, no, I had a client. I just wasn't getting paid to help him. Kevin had started to fall a little bit backwards, and it made me worry, and lose a little bit of faith in myself. What if I wasn't helping him? What if I was absolutely delusional and this whole thing was a bad idea?

I laid there, in bed, analyzing the entire situation around me. It was actually okay if Kevin slid back a little bit- getting over break ups are never easy. Hell, I was trying to make a business because of break ups! It's never a straight forward process, there's a lot of back and forths, falling back into old ways, getting lost in the sauce, and being a total mess. And if you're not- then it hasn't hit you yet! Chuck had never gone through any of this, and it was because he was still in his crazy kind of denial where he locked himself in his room and talked to no one, only doing homework.

I looked at my phone, to see a text back from Carter.

Carter: I see you're in a motivated mood...I feel like I'm dtf.

Gag.

Blair: You're not going to F me. 
Carter: You can't blame me for trying. :)
Blair: You're not getting a slice of this apple pie.

I hadn't gone on a date for a minute, and I was actually one hundred percent perfectly okay with that. I wasn't single, I wasn't taken (definitely not), but I was building my empire. Working on this business had given me an even greater sense of fulfillment than any guy had ever given me. I was in charge, and I was passionate about something that had made me feel absolutely fucking amazing. Butterflies in my stomach, heart beating faster, ridiculously cheesy excitement...I had found fire. And I had found it within myself.

"But your only client isn't paying you except in coffee, you have no laptop to run your business, and you haven't really made any progress since you made the website and ordered fancy business cards."

Reality never fails to hit.

I crawled out of my bed, and decided that I was going to finally be ballsy and put up the posters that I had made the day before, for my business. With tackboards all over campus, I'm sure my posters would have appealed to someone out there.

-

As Kayresia and I sat on the bus, a familiar face appeared. Bertram got on, immediately making eye contact with me, and then turning away.

"FUCK, I am not in the mood to see Chuck's ass after having that freaky deaky dream," I thought to myself, as the door closed.

Bertram turned around, only to end up sitting right next to me. That's right, buddy, the only seat available is next to yours truly.

"Hi, Blair, Kayresia."

"Hey Bertram," I said, as Kayresia also said hello to him. This was only sufficiently quite awkward. He scanned me from head to toe, acknowledging my spaghetti strap eyelet romper and my bare face. I had woken up late that morning, so makeup had not been a priority for me. Especially in this eighty degree weather- I did not have time to schedule my face melting in this heat.

Bertram looked at me with judgey eyes- it's not like I looked like I was falling apart. For god's sake, Chuck was practically bursting at the seams and smelled like death. And he was judging me?

"Just you wait and see, buddy, I have a business now and even though I have no computer to run it on, and no clients, and people probably think I'm crazy- I'm going to take over the world."

-

I printed out 36 posters...which transformed into 18 back-to-back posters, and then purchased some colorful push pins to put these posters all around campus.

As I posted these posters, and walked around campus, I have to admit that I actually felt productive. I ended up going to Ulta to get a brow wax. I was feeling like a girl boss, and I felt like I could take on the world with my new sense of motivation and dedication. I had the hustle, and the passion. She flattered me, talking about how I'm going to do big things and whatnot, but the problems still loomed over my business.

No clients.

No laptop.

And so, I decided to do something about it. And by do something, I mean that I decided to drag Shane to Best Buy to get a computer. I was going to take charge of my own destiny, and I was going to make my business boom. Because if I didn't, who would?