Harley
A strategy without knowledge of your own strengths and your enemy's weaknesses is like bringing a butter knife to a gunfight. At least that's what Chapter 3 of The Art of War taught me—know your shortfalls, wield your strengths like a dagger behind your back, and never, ever overestimate the enemy. Bring all your troops too soon, you're wasting manpower. Bring too little, and you're toast. Literally. Like a sad piece of dry bread no one wants.
Clearly, that must've been the chapter Clad skimmed before serving me my pride on a silver tray. But where's the part about sleeping comfortably after being humiliated? As I flip through my very handwritten notes—yes, handwritten, because I romanticize my trauma—I barely make it two pages in before:
Snap!
The book shuts.
My beloved A4-sized journal, indigo with soft white floral swirls and two butterflies dancing like they've never been publicly rejected, is gone. Ripped from my peace. I look up.
