Chapter Twenty-one
Elizabeth
“Boldness be my friend! Arm me, audacity, from head to foot!”
Cymbaline
I dropped into my chair and kicked off my shoes to stretch my poor feet, ready to hammer out the rundown for the eleven o’clock newscast. This job was seriously unrelenting, but at least I had something to look forward to.
I couldn’t believe Evan had agreed to walk me to the library in the morning.
I’d pierced his no-socializing-with-coworkers rule, even if we could only be friends.
Lauren came in hot, talking at me from across the room. “There’s a gunman on the loose. We need to break in live right now.”
Chaos ensued as everyone raced around the newsroom.
Lauren set up a live feed to a field reporter, but I simply froze in place, waiting for someone to tell me where to go.
I’d only been at this job a little over a week, and while I could pick things up, most of the time I was just faking it as best I could.
I couldn’t learn emergency protocol from a vacuum, and there was no way I was going to try to wing it.
After Gigi nearly collided with me, I ducked through the control room to get out of everyone’s way, ending up in the weather office, an oasis of calm.
“What’s going on?” Evan asked, peering over his laptop. “Do they need me to jump on air?”
I didn’t know. “It’s possible? There’s some breaking news, and they’re scrambling.”
“Oh.” He scratched his jaw, glanced once more at his computer, then closed the lid. “I don’t usually get involved with that. Are they bringing Kent or—”
“There you are,” Lauren said, interrupting whatever Evan was about to ask.
“What do you need me to do?” I asked, ready to take instruction. I could learn new things, but a mind reader I was not.
“What you could do is stay at your post instead of hiding out back here doing fuck all.”
“Well, I just thought—”
“Don’t.” She huffed out a breath. “I don’t need you thinking. I just need you to come and stand in the control room, where I expected you to be, until I can get everyone in their places. Act like a professional for once.”
“Okay,” I said, with a bit of attitude. She’d been rude to me before, but somehow it stung more to get chewed out right in front of Evan.
“Just get back there and stay.” She turned and headed back toward the dumpster fire of the control room, and I stared after her, knowing I should go, but not wanting to jump to her orders like a dog to heel.
“Does she always talk to you like that?” Evan asked.
“It’s been getting worse.”
“You should complain to HR.”
“I’m on probation here, Evan.” I frowned, grateful that he was taking my side but also annoyed that he probably never had to deal with stuff like this. My shoulders sagged. He wasn’t the bad guy. “I’m sorry. Everyone’s just so tense.”
He was across the room in a heartbeat, his hand gently resting on my wrist. “You don’t need to apologize or make excuses.”
I sniffled, and God I felt so dumb, getting upset over nothing. “I just hate feeling incompetent.”
“You’re not incompetent. You’re inexperienced. There’s a world of difference.”
“Tell that to Lauren,” I said, scoffing.
“Okay, I will.” He started to march out of the weather lab like he meant to confront Lauren on my behalf, but I definitely did not want him or need him to fight my battles.
“Whoa.” I hooked his elbow, and he immediately spun to face me, an impish grin on his face that let me know he was being dramatic for an effect. Though I suspected if I hadn’t stopped him, he would have told Lauren to pick on people her own size.
He cocked an eyebrow in challenge.
I laughed. “Don’t be disappointed when I don’t pick a fight with my boss, but thank you for the laugh. I better hurry before she comes back.”
“You’ve got this.” He tipped an invisible hat, like some do-gooder cowboy, then returned to his desk.
I slunk back down to the control room, avoiding Lauren who was speaking in clipped tones to everyone, though with far less insulting language. It seemed like an eternity had passed since this insanity began, but it had only been twenty minutes, and the techs already had the feed ready to go.
Lauren put on her headset and said, “I need you to watch and learn. Do you think you can manage that?” She snapped her fingers in my face. “Focus.”
My soul shrank, and I thought about all the times Chelsea explained to me why having a mean dad had ruined her for men, how the constant belittling, the tone, the walking on eggshells diminished her one day at a time until she cowered at the slightest whisper, like an accusation that she’d done something wrong, even though she didn’t know what.
How had she lived like that for years? No wonder she’d built walls two feet thick around her heart.
But she’d come through it tough as nails, and I was still soft as a marshmallow.
She’d never tolerate anyone talking to her the way Lauren did just now.
My parents had protected me from the thorns, encouraging me to thrive, but somehow I’d disappeared behind my siblings, never learning to fight my own battles, to speak up for myself, to even know what it was I wanted.
I stepped back, into the darkest part of the control room, watching but also not. In my mind, I was picturing that letter to Kate in my drafts folder. Not the one where I resigned, but the other, the one where I laid out my case for a full-time position.
I’d send it tomorrow. What was the worst that could happen? The premature arrival of the inevitable?
The professionals worked modern-day magic, disrupting the evening sitcoms or whatever to warn the public of an imminent threat, and that was the first time it registered to me I should have texted Chelsea. I should have worried about my own danger in the newsroom.
But while we were on air, Eric, our field reporter, announced the perpetrator had been apprehended. With the public menace neutralized, Eric signed off saying, “More on this developing story at eleven.”
And then we were back to business as usual.
Lauren shot me a nasty look as we left the control room. “Come with me.”
What had I done this time? There was a chance she wanted to discuss the rundown for the evening newscast, but as soon as we crossed the threshold of her office, she said, “What do you have to say for yourself?”
“What do you mean?” Undefined shame spiraled through me, and I wanted to curl into a ball until she was done with me.
“We were dealing with a five alarm fire, and your impulse was to go flirt?”
“I wasn’t—”
She held up a hand. “It doesn’t matter now. The point is, I needed you, and I couldn’t count on you.”
Oh, God, was I about to get fired? I waited for the dread to settle, the fear of losing a paycheck.
But what I felt instead was a weird combination of rage and relief.
She was right. I wasn’t cut out for the job.
I’d been chasing the rewards of capitalism, and every day spent here was another day I’d never get back.
I imagined Chelsea—who would tell me to channel the person I wanted to become—then I straightened my back and said, “You’re right. I quit.”
The shock on her face was nearly worth the ramen noodle dinners in my future. “You can’t quit. I need you to write tonight’s rundown.”
I shrugged. “Why? I’m clearly not adding any value.”
“I never said that.”
“You didn’t have to. You treat people like they’re disposable, but I’m not. I know my worth even if you don’t.” God, it felt good speaking my mind, burning it all down. “Maybe you’ll treat the next assistant with professionalism and respect. And a little goddamn understanding.”
She growled, literally growled. “It figures you’d somehow find a way to make a bad situation worse. But fine.” She threw out her hands, like she was giving up. “Leave us to clean up this mess.”
I shrugged. “It’s literally not my problem anymore.” Then I turned on my heels, grabbed my messenger bag, and, with a shit-eating grin at Gigi, who stood gaping, waltzed out of the newsroom.