Chapter Nineteen
“Shit shit shit.”
If I had a dollar for the number of times Amara has said the word “shit” today I would never have to eat at our dining hall again, but the tone of these is distinctly more panicked than usual. She tilts her screen to show me an email that went out to the entire Newsbag team just now.
To the students of Newsbag —
I think we can agree that this situation has gotten out of hand. I am willing to overlook Newsbag ’s involvement in the leaking of confidential information if someone steps forward to take responsibility for obtaining it. Otherwise, you will all stand before a jury of the administration and your peers to decide whether every member of your organization will face suspension, expulsion, or another suitable punishment.
It’s from the dean, and clearly no accident that it was sent right before the rally set to take place on the quad in half an hour.
“He’s full of hot air. He won’t actually do it,” says Amara, changing her tone when she senses the ripple of panic in the room. “Nothing to worry about.”
I wait a few moments for the chatter to kick back up before walking over to her, lowering my voice to ask, “That said—is someone on Seb Watch right now?”
Amara nods, glancing up to make sure nobody overhears. “They’re all squaring away the last of the restructure proposal with the athletes, in case we get an audience. Rowan will stop him from doing anything stupid.”
This statement is less comforting than she thinks, not because I don’t trust Rowan, but because I don’t trust Seb. At least not when it comes to his mile-wide guilt complex, which seems to be expanding with every passing day since the numbers dropped.
A few minutes later Amara sets down her phone and aims a sigh so unmistakably in my direction that I look up again from the sign I was filling in with marker. ( MAPLE RIDE = SWEET, CORRUPTION = SOUR is maybe not my first choice, but the football team is earnestly trying their best.)
“What’s up?” I ask.
Amara leans in, making a bubble of us in the room full of other Newsbag members and volunteers setting up for the rally. “I’m sorry about the timing of all this. I mean, I’m glad to have you on our side for it. But I also haven’t really had a chance to talk to you about your writing or what you’re hoping to do with it long-term. That’s my favorite part of being here, watching the newbies grow into themselves, and I fucking love your writing. It’s hilarious.”
Oh, shit. It’s every Maple Ride dream I’ve ever manifested happening to me all at once, and I can’t hold it all in myself. At least, not without terrifying a good half of the people in this room.
I clear my throat. “That means a lot, coming from you,” I say. The understatement of the century but at least one that I can stand by.
“Aw, shucks,” she says cheekily.
“I mean it. I’ve been reading your work since you started,” I tell her. I don’t let myself go any further than that only because I don’t want her to think I’m angling for anything this close to the end of the competition. “And I appreciate it, but— Newsbag means the world to me. I’m glad to get to be a part of this.”
Amara smiles, considering me.
“Good,” she says. “Because that brain of yours has been quite the secret weapon. But when this is all worked out, you and I are going to schedule coffee or something and sit down and talk writing. You’ll bring your clips.” She lowers her voice again so the rest of the room can’t hear, and says, “I can’t say I know how the competition between you and Seb will work out, because you’re both talented as hell. But I do know you’re a hell of a writer and you’re going to do some badass things with it one day.”
Between this and my parents’ praise, it will be a miracle if I manage to get through this day without turning into a puddle.
“Thanks,” I bleat out. “I’d say more but if I do I’ll start blubbering and make an embarrassment of myself.”
“No such thing here.” Amara’s phone buzzes again, and her eyebrows lift. “So, uh. Seb’s not with Rowan anymore.”
My eyes fly to meet hers.
“You think you can beat him to the main office?” she asks.
I roll up my sleeves, already headed to the door. “I’ve been crushing Seb since we were eight,” I tell her. “I don’t think. I know. ”
I tear out of McLaren and route the campus out in my head. If Seb was at the school gym, where they’ve been using space for strategizing with the athletes, it would make sense to take the main path to the office. But Seb is in international-superspy mode now and odds are if I know he’s left the building, he knows it’s only a matter of time before I come to find him. Sure enough, I find him on the narrow, less crowded path, walking with clear purpose toward the main office.
“Hey!” I call out, indignant.
A mistake on my part, because then the situation reaches peak ridiculous. Seb turns and sees me coming toward him, digs his heel into the cement, and runs.
“Abso- fucking -lutely not,” I mutter to myself.
There is no world in which I should be able to beat Seb Adams in a footrace. This I know for a mortifying fact, because I gave it my all in every gym class and field-day event that pitted us up against each other, and lost vital shreds of my pride every time. But for once I’m not running with just my pride on the line. I’m running with Seb on the line. And he is about to make a calculated error, underestimating just how much that’s about to do for my endurance and speed.
We’re on the edge of the quad when I manage to get a few feet behind him. He turns and then does a double take. I open my mouth to threaten him, but my lungs are so preoccupied that nothing comes out aside from a wheeze.
Another calculated error on his part—he slows for half a step to make sure I’m not about to keel over, and his concern is immediately rewarded by me not grabbing him but leaping like a flying squirrel and bodily launching myself at his back. We’re both in a heap on the grass in an instant, thudding and rolling, making such a spectacle on the quad that despite the early-afternoon hour someone starts yelling, “Fight! Kiss? Fight and kiss!”
I’m not sure who says what after that because we’ve somehow come to a stop with Seb fully on top of me, elbows braced on the grass on either side of me. His face is mere inches from mine, breathing right into me, warm against my cheeks, my lips. And then, because I’m an established cosmic joke, that is the precise moment the sun comes out full blast from behind a cloud, illuminating the back of Seb’s head and lighting up every soft curl of his hair so breathtakingly that the universe might as well be screaming, Kiss his ridiculous face! Do it right now!!!!
But then his ridiculous face is scanning mine, and he’s scrambling to his knees, doing a nonsensical patdown of my shoulders like he’s trying to account for me.
Once he’s satisfied, he demands, “What is the matter with you? That could have broken all of your bones.”
I sit up and get right in his face again. “You better hope yours are sturdy because I will do it again if I have to,” I say through my teeth.
“Fight and/or kiss!” someone yells.
Seb shifts to get up again. I deadpan, “Ow, my leg,” and yank him by the arm to keep him there.
I feel a little bit bad when Seb’s eyes flicker in genuine concern. Then he realizes it’s a bit and says, “You can’t stop me from going.”
“Sure I can. I just did. And I’m going to continue to fake various injuries until you sit down and talk to me.”
Seb shakes his head. “I appreciate what you’re trying to do here. But this isn’t your call,” he says, shifting again.
“My other leg!” I call out flatly.
Seb rolls his eyes but stays put.
“Sorry, I’m no theater kid,” I say. “But I do know the names of all my limbs, and you’re going to look really bad if I get through the whole skeleton with you walking away.”
Seb lets out a resigned sigh, then settles himself next to me on the grass. “You have five minutes. But after that I’m going.”
Five minutes is more than enough for me to stall for time. People are going to start rounding up for the rally any minute—if I can’t talk sense into him by then, someone will.
I turn my body toward him and gesture out toward the main office. “I’m going to run a scenario with you,” I tell him. “One where I let you give yourself up. You tell the dean it was you. You get expelled from Maple Ride and never, ever have a shot at writing for Newsbag, after everything you did to save it. The administration makes an example out of you to scare the shit out of everyone coming to the rally, and we lose momentum and our school’s only Instagram-meme celebrity in one go.”
Seb is quiet for a moment, and then says, “All right. Then I get to run a scenario, too. The dean follows through with that email. We’re all suspended. There’s nobody to run Newsbag at all, so it shuts down, and we don’t just lose momentum but the entire publication.”
I frown. “You can’t possibly think there’s a world where he makes good on that threat.”
“Look at how fast this all escalated. I think he absolutely will,” says Seb, his voice resigned. “And if he does, that means a ton of people who weren’t even remotely involved in getting those numbers are punished.”
“So let Rowan or Amara come forward. They published it. They’re responsible, and they know it,” I insist. “They would never let it come to that.”
Seb shakes his head. “You said yourself the truth has consequences. If I run from mine now, what kind of journalist could I ever be?”
Goddammit, past me and her supposed nuggets of wisdom. I blink, trying to recalibrate, but I keep losing the thread. Like my head is trying to parse something my heart is too tangled in to let it.
My five minutes are still ticking by. I take a chance and let my heart take the lead.
“Okay. We run your scenario again.” I swallow hard, looking Seb in the eyes. “You get kicked out, and I’m just—here without you.”
For a moment we’re both very quiet, letting the words settle between us. Not just the weight of what they mean now, but what they might mean for the future. Seb smiles, slow and sweet and rueful.
“I might be leaving anyway,” he reminds me.
My stomach drops. I’ve been so occupied trying to convince Seb we’re a team that I almost forgot that in one important way, we’re not.
“You wouldn’t,” I insist. “If you don’t get the role, you wouldn’t just leave after all this.”
I’m not talking about Newsbag anymore, and he knows it. I can tell because of the regret I see shining in his eyes, and the unexpected pang of surprise in my chest. Seb really hasn’t counted Blue Ridge out. Everything we’re fighting for here isn’t important enough to make him stay.
I’m not important enough to make him stay.
Another stretch of quiet, but it feels like one outside of time. The clock isn’t ticking anymore. I’m afraid to move, like it might unsettle this moment that feels entirely grounded but fragile at the same time.
“My scenario again,” he says quietly. “This matters to you.”
I nod. “And you matter to me.”
There’s the tiniest crack in Seb’s expression, but he doesn’t yield. “I mean it,” he says. “I can’t let this be something I take from you. We’ve stood in each other’s way for so long.”
And there it is—the thing I was most afraid to know. It’s not that Seb doesn’t care enough about me to stay. It’s that he cares so much that he’ll step aside. He cares about me enough to sacrifice something I’m not willing to sacrifice for him.
The guilt is so searing and immediate that I duck my head, but Seb doesn’t let me. He’s got his thumb just under my chin, gently lifting it back up so my eyes meet his. It strikes me that this is the kind of thing we used to do to test each other. Getting just enough in each other’s space to see what the other would do about it, like magnets attracting and repelling, wondering just how close we could get before something did or didn’t happen.
We haven’t played that particular game in a while, and in this moment, it’s anything but. In this moment we are both entirely still, like we know precisely what is going to happen. I lift my eyes to meet his and see the intention behind them. Can feel us both leaning so slowly, so deliberately, that there is no doubt what we’re leaning for.
I want this. I want him. So much that it finally clicks for me. It’s not that I don’t care as much as Seb does to step aside. It’s that neither of us should have to, and we’ve been too stuck in our old rhythms to understand that we never did.
“You know that’s not true,” I tell him. “Maybe it started out that way, but when I look back—we were always just pushing each other to be better.”
He still has a full breath poised to argue, so I double down.
“One of us will win and the other one will deal with it. You can talk to your dad and make him see how important writing is to you. How important Maple Ride is to you.” My eyes blaze into his, refusing to let him look away. “We’re not done yet. Not with Newsbag or all the things we’re going to be here.”
Seb slowly pulls his hand off my face, settling it back into his lap. There’s a sinking sensation in my chest before he even speaks.
“Sadie—I’m not writing for Newsbag. ”
My brow furrows. “We’ll figure out our ideas for the third piece after things calm down.”
Seb shakes his head slowly, patiently. Like he’s waiting for me to catch up. “I mean I’m pulling myself out of the running for the position.”
“No, you’re not,” I say, without missing a beat.
Seb just levels me with a look. “You know full well that you’re better for this role than I am.”
The indignation is so immediate it feels like a live wire in me, the shock of it jolting my back straight. I felt guilty at the idea that Seb might step aside, but I’m infuriated at the idea that he’d just give up.
“Fuck that,” I say. “I’m not going to win this by default. That’s—you’re not doing me any favors here, Seb. I want to earn this fair and square. You don’t get to take that from me.”
But Seb doesn’t rise up to match me like he usually does. His face is set with an infuriating calm.
“You already did earn it,” he tells me. “Sadie, you’ve been earning it. You’ve been writing pieces on par with Newsbag all through high school, and you’ll only get better from here. And honestly, the kind of writing I want to do—I don’t think Newsbag is quite right for it.”
I’ve been shaking my head through everything he’s said, but stop at that last bit, stunned. “You literally just won the second round. How do you think you don’t fit ?”
Seb isn’t just calm when he speaks, but certain. Like he’s been thinking about this for a while.
“I feel good about my piece, but I think we all know it’s not the right medium for it. I want to write more in-depth pieces that dig deeper and take longer to write. Pieces like Daisy’s. Like I did back when I was on the paper with you.”
I open my mouth to protest again, but he puts up a hand for me to hear him out.
“You’re right. I do need to make my dad understand how important this is to me. And I’ll only be able to do that if I’m writing the kind of pieces I’m meant to write. Whether I’m doing it here or I end up at Blue Ridge—I want to hold out for something else. Take a risk, like all the ones you’ve been taking lately.”
My eyes are stinging again. I’m empty of comebacks. It makes sense, and I can’t pretend it doesn’t when I’ve read more of his words than anyone he knows.
“All right,” I concede. “As long as you’re doing what you want. Not something for your dad or even for me.”
Seb’s relief is plain in his face. “It’s got everything to do with me, and nothing to do with you.”
A knot loosens in my chest, like his relief is contagious. Maybe nothing will end up the way we thought it would, but for the first time I’m hopeful that we’re better off for it. That maybe we won’t get everything we thought we wanted but end up getting what we need.
Seb is watching me carefully, waiting for my cue before we let the tension ease. I raise my eyebrows at him. “Except for the part where you’re now denying me the visceral joy of crushing you,” I point out.
“Would it help if I admitted defeat out loud?” says Seb. “Because you’re a much funnier writer than I am.”
My lips tug into a near smirk. “Well, it doesn’t hurt, ” I say.
He leans back in, that gleam back in his eye. “And a much better dorm food connoisseur.”
I lean in to close the gap between us. “If you think you’re going to distract me with compliments so you can make a break for it and tattle on yourself, keep dreaming.”
There’s an easy hook to his smile again, my favorite kind of smile. The one that isn’t to set anyone at ease but meant to rile. “And most definitely better at calling me out.”
We’re so close that I know exactly what’s going to happen, almost as if the current that’s been crackling between us all this time led us exactly here. I can see it there, electric in his eyes reflecting mine. I can feel it humming in the ground beneath us as it nudges us closer and closer still.
“I’d list more,” he says, close enough that our lips are near brushing, “but you’re an overachiever, Sadie. Too many good things to count.”
I’m the one who crosses the distance, who catches his lips with mine. It feels like catching sunlight, warm and sweet, simmering through my whole body. There’s a split second when I’m stunned by the effect of it, by the way I want so much of this, so much of him, that I have no idea where to start. Then Seb pulls in a sharp breath through his nose and slides his hand around the back of my neck, the two of us easing into an imperfect rhythm, smiling into each other’s mouths.
We pull away, and the sunshine isn’t just in my body but gleaming in the few gold flecks in his eyes. Like we’ve lit each other up from the inside out.
“All this time I’ve wanted to kiss you, and that’s all I had to do?” Seb asks, breathless and grinning. “Admit you’re better at something than I am?”
My face flushes. “You might be the better kisser.”
His hand is still on the back of my neck, squeezing reassuringly. “You have too much experience keeping up with the competition to believe that.”
“I could use some more,” I say, leaning in and grazing my nose against his.
Seb hums in acknowledgment before leaning in to kiss me again. We’re steadier this time, learning each other’s beats, finding one all our own. I slide my hands under his arms to settle them on his back, to push my fingers into the steady warmth of him. He eases in to press us closer together, but I break the kiss, keeping my forehead pressed against his.
“Wait—you said ‘all this time.’ Since when did you want to kiss me?” I ask, bewildered.
Seb surprises me by laughing. “Only since we were fourteen.”
I only bite down my smile because if I don’t, it might burst. “I’m glad I finally caught up.”
He tilts his head, pressing a kiss to the side of my mouth. “I think this was the kind of thing where we had to run our own races.”
“Yeah, well. One hell of a finish line.”
He wraps his arms around the back of me, holding me to him. “Finish line, huh? So you’re done with me now?”
I shake my head against his. “New race. Better view.”
He presses his smile against my own, but before we can sink into another kiss there’s an abrupt thump at Seb’s back, jarring us both.
“My bad!” says one of the soccer players, whose ball hit Seb.
We blink and notice that in the few minutes we spent sitting in the grass, the quad has started to fill with students—some in athletic gear, some sporting T-shirts from their groups, a good number of them holding signs. Even twenty minutes out from the start, the crowd is already bigger than the one we assembled for the dodgeball game by a long shot.
I turn to Seb. “How about this—we get through the rally, see how it goes. We talk it out with Rowan and Amara. Nothing has to be decided this second. We’ve got time.”
Seb answers by leaning in and kissing me again. “I’m going to catch up with Rowan about the final proposal,” he says. “I’ll see you after the rally.”
I watch him walk away, too light and dizzy with happiness to realize that wasn’t an answer at all.