Ch. 1

"Why can't I ever find normal girlfriends?

I replied to his bitter leer with a roll of my eyes and proceeded to insert the sharp teeth into my mouth and clamped down on them to settle it in there nice and tight, so I would be able to talk amongst the beautiful people. I fondly remember the last time, when I was talking to a parent about an upcoming event that month and the teeth popped out on the word 'personal interests' and hit her right in the forehead, slimy drool and all.

'Ugh'.

"Oh 'god'! Biff can you 'please' spare me of this monstrous transformation and do that in the bathroom?"

I tipped my head back to genuinely laugh at his mortified expression, most likely resembling an old-fashioned nineties villain, with the sharp teeth and green dinosaur attire, and now complete with the over the top evil laugh.

"It pays the bills, Garth," I say matter-a-factly, a slight lisp lacing my words due to the rubber teeth, and it occurs to me that whatever comes out of my mouth is not going to be taken seriously but I continue nonetheless, "One of us needs to wear the pants in this relationship and pay for all our night-outs on the town." I add a quick shimmy in an attempt to get a laugh out of him, probably looking extra silly in my green get-up.

He didn't laugh.

It was meant to be a joke, but he scowls at me. He mutters a "whatever", as he turns away to tamper with the frozen yogurt nozzles across the counter, trying and failing to look unaffected by my comment. We've had countless fights like this before and I should probably know better than to tease him about his lack of a job and the fact that he is indeed able to pay for booze and cigarettes, but he can't pay for his half of the check after a simple dinner. I never personally judged him for his lazy tendencies, 'I' could be lazy too, in fact.

Don't be fooled, I love everything about Garth.

For one, he doesn't care. Which is a good thing! Because while I prefer a more planned out schedule, like going to work, finishing ten page essays for my classes, going to my MMA sessions to stay in shape. Garth would rather "wing it", and let the day take him as he is; in other words, he'd rather sit on his ass, while he plays video games.

I'm trying really hard to not sound resentful, but it's actually proving to be somewhat difficult.

Garth is like my rock. When I have particularly intense stress attacks, he's one of the only people in my life who I can trust to relax me, and he does it in the most sweetest and caring way that any boyfriend can possibly do; by handing me a glass of wine. Because God-forbid he actually takes some fucking initiative to manually help his girlfriend through stressful times in her life.

Okay, my thoughts are getting out of hand now, I was never good at explaining my feelings anyway.

I just wish he had motivation to do better and lead a more stable life, living in an apartment relying on his roommate to pay all the bills and use nothing but coupons and his EBT card all year long, it takes it's toll on a girl who watches her boyfriend struggle, day in and day out. My mom once said in one of her agonizingly drawling lectures to me, "it's always good to strive for greatness, even if you don't necessarily reach it", it's one of the few things she's said to me that I actually deemed true.

Worry not my delicate flower, my fragile 'Garth', they're all meant as light-hearted quips, and the last thing I want is for him to feel sad because he's overall more enjoyable to be around when he smiles and when he makes me laugh, it's my favorite thing in world. But I'm beginning to doubt that he recognizes my words are anything but humor, considering how upset he looks at this very moment.

I instantly sense a familiar feeling of guilt as I see him turn his back to me; Garth is a sensitive guy and he has feelings, much like I do. I've known him my whole life, and although we've only started dating a few months ago, I've harbored feelings for the guy for more years than I could count. I actually meant to count the exact time from beginning to now, how long we've been together, but I never got around to it.

'I can be lazy too.'

"Hey! Um...you wanna go to the parade with me today?" Again, due to the god-damned teeth, it all came out a jumbled mess: "You wanna go to da pawade wit me today? 'I'll tweet'..."

I cringed. Not only did I sound like Tweety bird, with the spit particles that had landed unceremoniously on Garth's cheek, but I had inadvertently insulted him again by suggesting that I would "tweet", it may not seem like that big of a deal but like I said, Garth is like a statue of fragile glass, one shove, and it can fall over and shatter.

I swear, when I fuck up, I don't just fuck up once.

It took him a moment for him to relay my words in his mind and strain to understand what I had just said, he suddenly had a look of recognition and he nervously scratched the back if his head, looking upwards most likely avoiding my hopeful gaze.

"I don't know. I kinda got things I gotta do, my place is a mess."

"Since when do you care about your place being a mess?" I inquired, at first, genuinely disquisitive but even as I was saying it, I realized mid-question, that he was just making an excuse to not be around me.

My guilt suddenly turned into panic and slight frustration. He doesn't even want to look at me, and I'm not sure if it's because I was in an uncomfortably tight, green dinosaur wet-suit that made my arms bend back in a t-Rex fashion, or if it was because I insulted his "manhood" or something.

"Garth..." I say cautiously, his eyes met mine for just a moment, only for him to quickly look away again as if just 'looking' at me physically hurt him or something.

He's embarrassed of being seen with me.

I squeeze my eyes shut and shake the churlish thought away. If that's the case, he better get used to it, I'm basically paying for most of our dates and most of his groceries when I wear this ridiculous outfit, I don't care if the other kids from campus see us together, and he shouldn't either.

I don't get angry often but when I do, it's usually because of him.

"Yeah. Danny's getting restless about the pile of garbage I keep forgetting to take out-you know from that party? He's a pussy anyways but he pays most of the rent so... You know."

'He pays ALL of the rent...'

"Wait," I say, "you still haven't cleaned up from that last party?"

"Nope."

"The same party where we all played that stupid baseball game with a half empty wine bottle and a golf ball?" A breathless laugh escaped my throat, I couldn't help it, that was one crazy night.

"Yup."

"That's gross Garth," I stated in a dull voice, "people threw up in that garbage bin, you know?"

"Mmm." He hummed sounding as if he was quickly losing interest in this conversation, slipping his phone out of his front pocket, he flipped it open to text or do whatever he usually does to appear busy, much like in our classes. The light illuminated the better half of his face and I studied him for a moment, I don't know exactly what I was searching for or waiting for but I was definitely expecting something to occur, or for him to say something else, for him to say anything else.

I finally sighed very, very heavily, so much so that spit flew gracefully from my lips and through the crevices of my fake teeth, making the most delightful of sounds.

I give up.

"Okay." I mutter, knowing damn well that if he 'really' wanted to hang out with me, he would have found a way to do so. "Have fun mopping up vomit."

I turned and walked in the complete opposite direction of Garth.

"Text me, later?" He called out just before I was whisked away by the suffocating crowd of people in the busy mall, I can tell by his voice that he only suddenly asked that because he knew I was upset and wanted to assess the situation a bit. Even a little bit of effort goes a long way with me.

"Sure!" I call back. I try to turn my head slightly to wave goodbye to him but it proved impossible considering the stupid constricting outfit and the traffic of faceless people shoving me deeper into the masses of other shoppers.

I considered looking at my phone to check the time and make sure I wasn't late for work but I realized that it was in the front of my too-tight pants pocket under the too-tight dinosaur suit, I swear, it's as if I'm waddling around in heavy snow by this point, my arms nestled in the suit to make it appear as if I have small T-Rex arms, my awkwardly legs spread apart due to the green spandex tightened around my thighs, which is also my fault, I'm the one who chose to wear the hand-me-down skinny jeans that my mom insisted would look 'sexy' on me, who of which was also in the 80's when she wore them and was apparently a few pant sizes too small when she was my age.

And then there's the head...what's a t-Rex without it's ugly head?... My face is literally being surrounded by a pleathery-like, T-Rex hat-like thing- all I know is, is that it's uncomfortable and makes me feel top-heavy. I probably look so attractive right now.

A few people turned to glance at me for a moment as I squeezed by them but eventually looked away, almost uncaring. Leave it to the good people of Manhattan to be completely jaded to the fact that a 5'6 ft reptile, was walking among them.

Rawr.

So I settled for looking at the big, old-fashioned clock perched in the middle of the galleria.

Seven minutes late.

'Shit.'

I sped up my waddling in order to make it to the store without being too late, or noticed, it was a good thing the place is so fucking busy all the time; kids scrambling around, crying, screaming, laughing, falling, ect... While the mommy and daddy try to catch up with them and scold them for creating the reoccurring, big messes, but whether it was with the dinosaur stuffing, or the beads, or their own bodily fluids, I had to clean it up. I clenched my jaw, and took a breath. Be patient Biff. Relax.

Did I mention that my job sucks?

Although some parents just let them run around like unleashed animals and look on in complete indifference as they run a muck, so I suppose that's worse.

I used to be in to the idea of having kids of my own, but after working at 'Dino-Haul' for a little over a year, I don't necessarily care for the idea, nope, not one bit.

I heard passerby's spewing out insults of:

"Watch where you're going!"

"Your 'tail' hit my stomach, freak!"

"What's your problem?!"

And I just continued to mumble "sorry"s and "excuse me!"s in return, I don't care if I keep knocking people out with my dinosaur head, I could not be late for work.

As I finally haul my ass into Dino-'Haul', I'm immediately surrounded by small children, and scarily some pretty grown up pre-teens, and I-in turn-plaster on a fake-cheesy smile.

Thankfully, I was not required to speak in any certain, cartoony way like I've heard other people do in jobs like these, (those poor bastards) and I don't think the kids would like me spitting all over them while I clumsily talked through the teeth.

"Miss Nelson."

The sound of my boss's voice, albeit the loud, obnoxious music that played in the background that haunted my every waking moment, the very resonance of his voice still managed to weave it's way through the cringe-worthy rhapsody, and shake me out of my reverie.

"Yessir?!" I practically squeaked, bouncing upwards, back straight as a board.

The kids who's arms were clasped around my forelegs and thighs, began to whine in protest as I snapped away from them, my attention now diverged to something else.

"You're about five minutes late, miss Nelson."

I just don't understand this guy's work ethic, he 'drills', and 'hammers' it into my head, that I have to create the illusion of being a real dinosaur for the children, and yet he goes ahead and ruins any trace of this-so called illusion (if there even 'was' one to begin with), by talking to me as if I'm off the clock, and even going as far as blatantly using my real name.

"I'm sorry, I'll work five minutes overtime." I say tight-lipped, (as tight-lipped as I can be with the rubber teeth). Of course it was meant as sarcasm but I realized quickly that I knew I probably shouldn't have said anything at all.

He raised his brows and motioned for me to follow him with his index finger. "Come along."

I think I'm in trouble.

"Ooooooh..." The kids immaturely drawled in almost perfect unison, staring at me with their mischievous wide-eyed expressions.

I stuck my tongue out at them and as they giggled, I gently pried their small hands from my limbs and waddled as calmly as I could after my boss to the office in the back if the store, past all the chaos of stressed-out parents, and screeching children.

I spotted a regular by the candy machines, she was a single mom whom I've taken a liking to, she was surprisingly pretty easy to talk to, in fact she was the lady that my rubber teeth hit.

The woman looked busy (as always) with her sticky and overly rambunctious triplets, but she caught my gaze and did a classic double take before smiling in a way that said you see what I have to deal with? (Of course referring to her kids) and quickly waving at me.

I beamed and waved back with my dinosaur claw. "Hi!"

"Miss Nelson."

I jumped, and whipped my head back towards my boss, "Sorry."

He stared at me with that long ugly face of his.

He said no more and continued on to the door expecting me to follow.

When we entered the room, the door closed automatically, it suddenly seemed so silent and empty, compared to the shenanigans outside the space, maybe the room was sound-proof. I realized that I'm not usually sent to this office (thank God) but when he does invite me into the lions den, usually it was for a special reason.

I stood awkwardly near the doorway and looked at him.

"Please, have a seat miss Nelson. We have some matters to discuss, nothing to be worried about, just sit."

Boss had a weird habit of sounding like he cared and to put people in a false sense of security, when in reality he wanted to see people suffer when he reveals his true intentions; a class A sadist if you will.

I cleared my throat and did as I was told, the rubber that squeezed most of my torso, not to mention compressed my butt together, also serving as a second skin, made weird noises as I struggled to sit comfortably.

"I need you." He said.

Okay, not what I was expecting, and I didn't actually know how to take that, or what he was insinuating, and it most definitely showed that I was confused, when I opened my mouth to retort but no words came out. You see, there was a number of ways I could react to this statement.

For example, should I punch him? Or should I storm out in a violent fashion, telling him just what I really thought about his work ethics and where he can stuff his brutally honest opinions, maybe tipping over one of his many potted plants that quite frankly made his tiny office look like a jungle and an all around uninviting place to be in.

It was hard to say.

"As your boss, it's my duty to survey how you treat the customers and how you behave in general. And from the very first day, I could tell that you enjoy helping people," he absentmindedly swapped a piece of chocolate from the fancy glass bowl in the middle of the desk. "Personally, your unconditional kindness for 'everybody', makes me sick, but I digress." He said as more of an afterthought and popped the chocolate in his mouth.

"I'm just doing my job, sir." I smiled sheepishly, the teeth almost falling out and landing on his desk, due to this-I- for a moment considered pulling them out so I can talk like a normal human-being but I just think pulling out fake teeth with strings of saliva hanging from it, was just plain disgusting, not to mention rude, so instead I noisily sucked in the excess drool through my teeth, making it sound like a sloppy hiss. 'Ew.'

Almost startled by the random slurping, my Boss eyed me warily and popped another chocolate in his mouth, "'Riiight'." He drawled between chews, his voice devoid of emotion as always. "Anyway, I truly believe you have a heart of gold and you are very passionate about your work and earning a hard-day's work."

I beamed at the praise.

"There's a Thanksgiving parade in Time Square tonight, and unfortunately my wife has gone off to Pennsylvania to take part in her mother's funeral," he further explained with a roll of his eyes at the last portion of his sentence, obviously displaying his natural insensitivity to the subject of his wife's dead mother, ('wow'), "and as you know, there will be a 'lot' of camera crews there to record the event, and every year me and my wife are interviewed about the Dino-haul parade truck, they approach 'me' because my father owns Dino-Haul, of course."

Actually I didn't know that. "Of course." I repeated.

"So, I thought it would be a good idea to take you as a replacement." He concluded.

"Oh, um to advertise?"

He nodded.

"I don't know," 'I already deal with you four hours a day and that's already too much for me to handle.' "That's not exactly in my job description," I preformed an awkward and breathy chortle to somehow lighten the mood, "and I kind of had plans."

"I'll give you a raise."

I blinked. "Well I-"

"And you can take Thanksgiving off."

I raised my brows. "Didn't I 'already' have Thanksgiving off?"

"You will, if you accept my invitation." Only he can say something quick and make it seem desperate and uncaring all at once. And it was obvious he doesn't usually ask for favors, he looked almost as awkward as I do, as he fiddled with his fingers atop his desk. It's also obvious that he would rather just order me to do it instead of asking, and I'd be damned if I gave him the satisfaction of agreeing to this, at least not immediately.

"Sir, I'm sorry, I have to decline, I don't think it's a very good idea, I'm not comfortable being in front of cameras, and besides, I promised my...boyfriend that I would spend time with him tonight." Lie.

He sighed frustratingly, "Miss Nelson, I'm begging you, there's going to be important clients there that I have to impress, and despite popular belief, Dino-Haul is a very large business that's sweeping the nation, there's going to be a parade truck dedicated to the store and everything and I can't just 'not' show up, and if I do, I can't show up without a woman on my arm."

"Okay, wait, what does this whole 'thing' entail, what 'role' am I playing here?"

"All you have to do is follow me around and look pretty; really, don't say a word."

My eyebrows knit, what's that supposed to mean?

"And I get a raise?"

"I was hoping you would forget about 'that' proposition," he looked irritated, "but I suppose."

"How much?" I asked, suspiciously.

"A hundred, it's all about money with you, isn't it?"

"Three-hundred."

"Outrageous. Are you trying to rob me blind?"

I got up to leave (although that proved almost impossible given what I'm wearing) however, he immediately stopped me. "Okay, okay- 'Two'-hundred. And that's it, stop trying take advantage of my vulnerability, I'm still your boss and I can still fire you-speaking of, weren't you 'late' today?" He hissed though his teeth, and crossed his arms begrudgingly.

I beamed, as if I wasn't almost blackmailed into it. I also ignored the question. "Okay then. So how does this work? Do you drive me or...?"

"I'll pick you up at seven, but you'll have to provide yourself with formal clothing, I'm your boss, not your tailor."

And judging by your lack of style, I'm thankful for that fact.

"Agreed, you know where I live, correct?"

"I have it on file. Now get out."

Well, he had all this planned out didn't he?

"Right." I tried to hold out my hand to give him a handshake as if to cement this little business arrangement; he eyed my dinosaur claw and looked back up at me, face expressionless, but I can see he was clenching his jaw, probably biting back a yell of some sort.

"Miss Nelson, if you don't get out of my office in the next three seconds I'm firing you indefinitely and I'll get someone else to fill in tonight," he crossed his arms, "anybody is replaceable." He added with a shrug.

I guess that's true considering he's basically replacing his own wife.

I quickly retracted my claw.

"Okay. But before I go, can you tell your wife I'm sorry about her mother?"

"'1 2'-"

I think I broke a piece of my heavy Dino-hat as I quickly waddled out in a frenzy.

...

During lunchtime, I travelled to the food court and ate some Chinese food, but not before removing the teeth of course. It wasn't like I only remembered to take the rubber out of my mouth until I ate a piece of dumpling and almost choked because I couldn't chew the meat properly with rubber teeth... No nothing like that.

Apart from the abusive kids, uncaring parents, insensitive bosses, and the mutilated dignity, not to mention the desire to kill myself every ten minutes, this'll be a good day. I keep reminding myself that I'll be making a ton of money due to overtime and the extra three hundred, and then my self loathing would lessen at least a little bit but then I also end up remembering that I'll only earn the extra money by taking my narcissistic boss out on the town.

I feel cheap but hey, a hard working person like me has gotta think on the bright side or go insane.

I ate in silence, completely exhausted from the nonstop bustling of shoppers and snot-nosed kids sticking beads in my dinasour get-up through the gaping opening of my mask. I think they've succeeded in filling my actual body with the objects of arts and crafts because of how much of the glitter and beads ended up getting accidentally plucked into my ass everytime I sat down to rest.

I sighed heavily as I ignored the particular looks that were aimed at the pitiful girl in a bulky costume she could barely walk in, let alone eat a poorly put together meal with her restricted dinasour arms. (Just in case you were wondering, I'm talking about me).

Now I don't know how this is possible, but through all the noise of shoppers and my personal bubble made of despair and hardwork (mostly despair), I heard a small adorable voice amongst the people and it broke through my barrier of self-loathing.

"Mom! Mom, look! Hey! Mom! It's 'Dino'! Is that the 'real' Dino?" Asked a small child, innocently across the way.

I scrunched my eyebrows up in fatigue, though prepared to slip my teeth in if need be. I didn't want to be the one to defile the image of a childhood hero, even if it means interrupting my "inhale my food" time.

"Don't get near 'it' sweetheart, you don't know who could be inside those ridiculous costumes." The mother replied back to her kid with an obvious sneer in her voice.

I guess 'I' wasn't needed to destroy the kids dreams, the mother seemed to have had it all covered in that department.

I continued to eat, not at all effected by the mother's unkind words towards me. Originally, I was probably going to forget that moment within the next ten seconds, when my ears perk up to the same child's cries of 'it's not a costume mommy!' And 'why would you say that mommy?! Dino is 'real'!'

I grimaced mega hard when I heard the mom answer a phone call and ignore her kid's distressed sobs, that personally broke my heart.

I thought fast and slipped in the detested teeth that was on my tray and I swiveled my whole body around and faced-as much as I could-towards the small boy. I looked for the source of the cries, which was a few tables away in between these three middle-aged women conversing animatedly about something, expressive hand gestures and all that, and an elderly man who was sucking on numerous packets of mayonnaise (ya, I don't know, either).

I spotted the careless mother first, who was laughing about something somebody said to her via phone call. I looked downwards, and instantly caught his big glassy blue 'innocent' eyes, his face covered in what looked to be chocolate.

His cries stopped as he seemed unsure of how to react to my staring and I simply stuck my tongue out and crossed my eyes.

I triumphantly got a glimpse of the edges of the boys mouth turn upwards, resembling a smile.

I went the extra mile and and shimmied a bit in my seat (succeeding in pushing the beads more upwards into my body) but getting a cute chuckle out of the kid. WORTH IT.

I stopped my movements, and settled for an enthusiastic wave in his direction, this time, catching the attention of the mom, who finally noticed her son wasn't crying anymore (mother of the year here people).

She looked confused, then screwed up her face at me, grabbed her kid by his forearm nearly breaking his shoulder as she yanked him upwards and off the floor.

I flinched as he cried and reached his free arm towards his hero, Dino, in a futile attempt to somehow be swept away from his abusive mother as they left the food court.

I clenched my teeth, unable to even do it correctly with the rubber separating my top and bottom teeth.

I then released a shaky breath.

Looking back down at my dumplings and noodles, I popped another dumpling in my mouth.

And while I sputtered and choked on another peice of food, I thought of the possible ways I could feel better about what had just occurred. Shit like this? I would be thinking about it for weeks now. I should have done something, I should have took a stand for the kid but I sat there and did nothing.

Movies... Specifically superhero movies.

Those always usually made me feel better.

Most times.

Okay so I fell in love with Marvel movies just a few years ago, what with the great fucking movies they've been coming out with. It's got action, great characters, interesting plot lines, super-powered people, humor-just the whole package, and it's my favorite genre out of all movies.

I remember when I first saw the trailer for the first ever Avengers, I was in my dorm-I think I was studying- and I was watching some old sitcom and it was a commercial break.

So I'm sitting on my bed, tweaked out on red-bull finishing my art projects due the very next day because I wait till last minute to do everything, and I carelessly glance upwards for just half a second towards the TV, and I end up doing a double take.

Another Iron-man movie? Maybe a Black Widow movie-shes cool, wait... Captain America? Thor!... I saw Thor! I could've sworn I saw Thor! And... THE HULK!

And I proceed to spaz out on my bed, with foam spilling out of my mouth but it turns out I wasn't having a fangirl attack but a bad reaction to the multiple energy drinks I was consuming and the lack of sleep. It turns out, that I was having a stroke.

But when I woke up in the hostpital, and the beautiful memories came flooding back to me, I screamed at the top of my lungs in absolute joy which made a number of nurses rush into the room. They blamed it on the pills they gave me, but what they didn't know is that I act like a freak all the time so there's that.

I violently spit out the teeth across the table, food particles spraying everywhere and as it lands on the floor. I flick off the cap of the cup, and take a big gulp of my soda uncaring of the judg-ey looks I'm sure were thrown my way and I notice some of it spills out the corners of my mouth and into my mask it goes-the cold liquid streaming down my flustered and sweaty neck. I groan because sure, it feels good now but then it dries and gets sticky and gross and me, just unable to reach it because of the mask for the rest of my shift. But you know what? It doesn't matter because I'm leaving early today. I only have two hours left in Hell-haul, then I'm off to my beautiful dorm to take a hot ass bath then get picked up by my boss, whisked away like Cinderella, and to the stupid parade.