Chapter 60
DIANA
Diana,
After a thorough review of the documents you’ve provided and the recent news reports that have come to light, the board has decided to reinstate you as editor-in-chief of the Howler.
You will resume your duties starting this week.
Andrea Whitney, the interim editor-in-chief, will be present to help make this transition as seamless as possible.
Thank you for your cooperation throughout this process. We’re glad to have you back.
BV
A heavy ache throbs behind my temple before I click off my phone and focus on finishing up my readings before Mellonbaum’s class starts.
In the corner of my eye, my phone lights up again.
Emails from the Howler bombard my student inbox, while my HMG inbox is overflowing with reporters asking for interviews and statements.
Pressure pushes down on my chest. I fight back the urge to pathetically search for the one phone number that I’m used to turning to whenever everything gets too much to bear. Even though I never labeled it with Kai’s name, my heart always knew it was him.
I struggle to breathe through the deep ache burrowing inside of me.
I’m doing this to protect Kai. It hurts now, but it’ll be worth it later on. Kai will sign with a team, and he will play in the NHL like he always dreamed about.
But I hate the visions that swarm my head every time I assure myself I’m making the right choice.
This specific one is so clear, it feels like a thousand glass shards ripping into my chest: I’m sitting somewhere in a quiet airport lounge with important news figures surrounding me.
They’re telling me about reports and updates about a developing story.
Instead, my eyes are pinned to the TV over our heads.
Kai is on the screen, playing at his first NHL game.
He bends down for the face-off, his dark green eyes glinting behind his visor.
Memories rush back of those eyes softening on me in his cozy apartment in Kitsilano, in his car when he drives us to the hockey club on Saturdays, across crowded rooms when no one else is paying attention.
All I can do is sit in this lounge, surrounded by people who don’t care that I’m quietly dying inside at seeing someone I love go from being one phone call away to a distant stranger I only see on screen.
My breath catches. Tears rim my eyes.
“Stop, stop, stop,” I whisper.
I can’t do this. I can’t think about Kai. Not after how badly I broke him.
I’m back in my father’s favor, I have a CEO vote to win, a joint project to spearhead, and news stories that need my attention.
This is everything I wanted, and I have to protect it or lose it all over again.
All around me, students file into Mellonbaum’s lecture room. Bagel wraps crinkle apart and iced coffees are slurped to survive the first Monday lecture after reading week.
“One of Cheval’s most majestic works is the piece Swansophone,” Mellonbaum gushes.
Her hands flare out at a painting of a court jester in rouge.
His cheeks puff out as he blows into a saxophone that curls down and swells into the body of a swan fluttering its wings. “Look at that color! That bravado!”
I crack a little smile, leaning sideways. “If you squint—”
The words die on my tongue.
The seat beside me is empty. It will be for at least a week because Kai and the Griffins are playing in conference tournaments.
Still, my eyes can’t stop flickering back and forth from the slides on the board to the door that will never creak open mid-lecture.
Even when Kai isn’t on campus, I see and feel him everywhere.
In the doors leading towards the orange tunnels, in the bypass that connects to the Balfur Arena, in the parkade where we’d sneak into his car.
Even in my office at the Howler.
I push past the boxes of Andrea’s things to get to my desk. In the corner of my eye, the empty sound booth makes me go still. I remember exchanging secret smiles and fleeting glances with Kai during the radio interview on that mid-October morning.
I bite my lip to stop the tears from spilling out.
I don’t think I will ever know how to feel at home with any other guy except him.
“Ahem.”
I force myself to straighten up. When I turn around, I see Andrea standing across the desk with a resentful glare on her face.
“I’m almost done clearing my stuff out,” she declares. “I’ve left my agenda for the Howler on your desk. We can go over it if you want.”
I glance down at the planner. I know the board wanted Andrea to help me transition back into office. But she reminds me too much of Kai and all the things I remember they used to do together. Things that one day he’ll do with some other girl he falls in love with and—
My breath catches.
I can’t think about this. Not right now.
“I think I’ll be alright,” I dismiss. “I’ll reach out if I have any questions.”
“Fine.” Andrea shoves a lid over a box and plops it down on the wagon carrying the rest of her things.
I settle into my chair just as Andrea walks toward the door with her wagon in tow. She suddenly pauses and turns around.
“Are you dating Kai?”
My fingers pause over the agenda. I try to keep my voice as steady as possible, while I nonchalantly flip through the pages. “Why are you asking me that?”
“I saw you at the Halloween party. You defended him from Simon and left the party together.”
I try to sift through the panic swarming my thoughts, fighting to grasp for a response that’s logical and unassuming at the same time.
“Kai was just trying to help me get away from him. It was a nice gesture from a source I’ve worked with,” I lie. “Nothing more.”
Andrea scoffs. “Right.”
But she doesn’t push on it. She simply snatches her wagon handle and turns to leave again.
The memory of her begging Simon to spare Kai flashes in my head. The question lingering on my mind tugs at my tongue.
“Why are you with Simon?”
Andrea stops. She staunchly avoids my gaze. “We’re in love.”
“He treats you horribly,” I point out.
“He just has bad days,” she snaps. “But we’re happy, okay? My friends and my family like him, so your opinion doesn’t matter.”
I slam the agenda shut. There’s been very little opportunity I’ve had to talk to Andrea for longer than an eye roll and a snippy response that I can’t stop the next question from barreling out of me.
“Is this how it’s always going to be between us? You’ll hold a grudge against me until we graduate?”
Andrea scoffs, crossing her arms.
“Why does it matter to you?” she sneers. “You have the entire world at your hands.”
I roll my eyes. “From what I understand, you had it all in first year, too. A spot on the Howler, one of the top grades in class…” I try to talk around the painful ache in my throat. “You were dating the star player on the hockey team.”
“I had to try so hard to get those things,” Andrea seethes. “You, on the other hand, don’t have to lift a finger. You have the name, the connections, the attention, and everything comes so easily to you!”
“Which is why I give other reporters the resources I have because I know I get it easily!”
“I know you do because you do everything right! You’re always so organized! Your hair is perfect! Your makeup is perfect! You rarely fuck up!”
“It might seem like I have it all together, but I don’t! I’m exhausted half the time trying to live up to every expectation thrown my way.”
Andrea pales in surprise. “You’re exhausted, too?”
I look away in shame. I hate it when people know I’m struggling. It doesn’t make me feel safe. It always makes me pace and worry that people will think I’m not good enough.
But there’s nothing I can do now. Andrea heard what I said.
I drop back into my chair. The pressure I feel grows even heavier, suffocating me with no relief.
“I know we were raised in different circumstances. But I understand what it’s like to keep performing for people just to keep their validation and respect.”
A shaky breath unhitches from Andrea’s lips. She sags against the wagon handle, drained from a weight I didn’t realize she had been carrying, too. “That’s what it feels like most of the time for me.”
Surprise catches me off guard as I look back at her. I used to compare myself to Andrea. Always wishing I could be pretty like that, all golden and effortless in her beauty. I wanted what she had, not just what she had with Kai, but the quiet unassuming life.
I didn’t realize we were walking on the same tightrope this whole time.
“Is that why you turned your back on Kai after the rumors spread? You felt like you had an image to maintain?”
“I couldn’t handle the way my friends and my family were looking at me, so I…” Andrea gulps. “I broke it off with him and started dating Simon. I thought it’d make things look better. I thought it’d make me look better.”
I used to wonder what Kai saw in Andrea sometimes. But I understand it now. It’s her ambition. Twisted as it became, Andrea is a fighter who grabs fate by the throat even if it scars her.
“I know Simon is not a good guy,” she admits quietly. “I’ve been trying to find a way to break it off with him. I’m just in the middle of working everything out to make sure I’m going to be safe when I finally walk away.”
She sniffles and wipes at her eyes, chuckling bitterly as mascara comes away on her fingers. “It’s so unfair. I do so much to impress everyone else, but at the end of the day, I’m still fucking up and I’m still the one dying inside.”
Andrea’s face falls. She disappears into a place I can’t follow and all I can say is, “I understand.”
But I do. I understand what it’s like to live under the pressure to work harder, achieve more, until you start to rust. At the same time, a part of me rages at the fact that Andrea willingly chose to be with a guy who’s so blatantly racist and entitled.
My shoulders fall, weak and exhausted from battling so many conflicting emotions. “Look, whatever happens, I hope you’re safe when you finally leave Simon.”
She takes in my words with a simple nod of her head and a hint of gratitude in her eyes. “Thanks, Diana.”
I offer her a small smile before I turn back to my duties and flip the agenda open to today’s list of tasks. My eyes widen.
God. Was the Howler always this busy?
There are feature stories on scholars in residence, approving newspaper events, and special editions.
The squeak of Andrea’s wagon wheels suddenly grinds to a halt.
“I’m sorry.”
Surprise catches me off guard. I blink up at her. That familiar, stifled resentment on her face is gone. Only genuine regret stares back at me as she says, “I’m sorry for the way I’ve treated you all these years. I was jealous and insecure, and I took it out on you when I shouldn’t have.”
At this point, I can barely comprehend half the things that are happening to me. But through the confusion, a flicker of hope shines through from Andrea’s apology. “I appreciate that.”
She finally heads off, leaving me alone in my office at last. I dive into the first task on the list except my focus is broken up by pieces of our conversation.
Andrea’s struggle with regret, perfectionism, and exhaustion uproots the ground under my feet.
For so long, I believed impressing people and living up to expectations would make me happy.
But none of it has been about my happiness.
Everything I’ve done has been for bàba and my family that it makes me wonder how long will it be before I lose myself the way Andrea lost herself?
How long will it be before I’m drowning and dying from a life that looks admirable to everyone else, but feels utterly soul-crushing to me?