The compliment washes over me like a wave.
Surprising and refreshing.
“Really?” I ask.
She had barely ever called my story anything but fine.
To have her say something like this is revolutionary.
“You know, you don't have to be nice to me just because my personal life is in shambles,” I joke and immediately regret it.
“This has nothing to do with that. Your other stories have always been well researched and well written, but they were missing something, heart,” Corrin says. “There is no you in them. This one? This one is different.”
I find myself backtracking, about to open my mouth to tell her that I can't finish it and that we can’t publish this, but the words get stuck in the back of my throat.
“I love the way that it starts out with you and your investigation. That really builds up the mystery and the suspense. You’re almost at the end of your 2,000 words, so why don't I talk to my uncle and possibly make this the feature story? You only have another day to finish it because the whole thing has to go to the printers on Wednesday.”
“Feature story?” I gasp.
“Any chance you have pictures of him? Perhaps we can even put something on the cover.”
My mouth drops open, but I quickly shut it, explaining, “No, I didn't take any pictures. He's really not sure…”
“I understand. He's a recluse. He took a chance in trusting you and I don't want him to regret that. The story is amazing though. It puts him in such good light. Did he really ride over to you on a horse when you first met? That's brilliant.”
I'm about to say something else, but again she bulldozes over me.
“Go finish the draft. You have about 5,000 words total. Leave the rest to me.”
I take a deep breath and exhale slowly. I walk back to my desk in a state of shock, floating somewhere up above the floor.
Someone waves to me, but I can’t respond. Another one stops me and invites me to happy hour forcing me to mumble something incoherent.
Why is this happening?
I went over into her office to tell her the truth and now I'm in deeper than I was earlier.
Feature story?
Something for the cover?
Everything he said was supposed to be off the record.
If I publish this and he reads it, he can sue the magazine.
I can deny it, but we will both know the truth and whatever happened between us will be lost forever.
No. I can’t let that happen.
I need a way out of this.
5
Emma
Liam made me the offer of going off the record in exchange for spending a week with him.
I was insulted by that.
I stormed out of there.
Now?
What would his offer be if this article were to go to print?
I don't know.
I sit at my computer feeling nothing but a sense of dread.
Yet, when I start typing, the words start to come out much quicker than they ever have before.
I put down everything that happened after we first met, describing his home, his demeanor, and everything he said about writing as accurately as possible.
Unlike my other articles where I often had to fish around for the right word and then spend hours procrastinating, with this one, the words just flow out of me.
It's almost as if I want to memorize every aspect of how we first met just so that I don't forget it in the future.
By 4:30 PM, I have a good first draft, which I have reread a few times.
The only thing I don't know the answer to is his last name, but that would require a call to Alex to find out.
I also don't have any photos, but that's probably a good thing.
When people start to gather their things to head to happy hour, I email Corrin the article.
Even while I was writing it, I wasn’t sure if I was going to send it. I stayed on the fence the whole afternoon, and then at the very last minute, I sent it.
Liam said that everything was off the record, but he also made me that offer of spending a week with him in exchange for the story.
So maybe not everything is off the record, right?
I have no idea. I do, however, leave that part out of the story.
The following morning, I receive the email with the following headline:
Reclusive self-published author making $6 million a year tells all.
That's the headline that Mr. Matthews wants.
What do you think? It's going on the front of the magazine.
Since we don't have a picture, we're going to go with our original layout, but your article is mentioned on the front page.
Congratulations.
I stare at Corrin's words and take a deep breath. When I agreed to this, it was just going to be a magazine article, hopefully buried somewhere deep inside.
Now, gracing the cover, I can't help but feel a little pride.
I have never had one of my articles mentioned on the cover before and this is a real source of accomplishment for me as a young writer.
Will it also be the source of all my embarrassment?
I spend the rest of the day in a bit of a trance. I have worked so hard that I feel creatively depleted.
I check my emails.
I reply to some, but mostly I spend a lot of time on social media and reading the news.
Somehow, reading about all the horrible things going on in the world makes me feel a little bit better about the horrible thing that I just did.
Is this going to be the end of my career or am I going to make my career by being a slimy gossip journalist with no facts to back up any of their stories?
No, the problem is that I’m not speculating. I have the facts, I just can’t share them.
I don't know the answers to these questions and I'm not too eager to find them out.
The magazine releases the following Friday. I'm shocked when I see the headline of my article on the cover.
We have a tradition of having a bit of a party in the afternoon on the date that the issue comes out, congratulating everyone on their hard work. The writers with their stories on the cover are in the spotlight and today is my day to shine.
Most of my colleagues had no idea that the story was going to be published.
How could they? I didn’t even know.
Shelby, one of my closest friends at work, walks over to me and gives me a warm hug. She's wearing her favorite scent that makes her smell like the ocean and it’s intoxicating.
“I can't believe that you didn't tell me about this! How could you keep this a secret?”
“I had no idea that Corrin was going to publish it, let alone so soon. It was not even a story until a week ago.”
It would be a lie if I didn't say that I was proud of my work. It's probably some of my best writing. I have never put myself into my stories before and now I realize that adding that bit made it so much more powerful and relatable. There are already comments and messages circulating on social media.
“Have you seen these videos?” Shelby asks, holding her phone out to me.
Dressed in high waisted, tight jeans paired with a crop top, her confidence about her body is contagious. She's not model-thin, not even close, and most of her articles and her Instagram is about loving your body at whatever size it is.
She was hired by the magazine only last year to attract a younger demographic of readers who want to read something that speaks to inclusivity.
“There are videos?” I ask.
“You know about Locks and Books, right?”
I shake my head.
She stares at me in disbelief, but keeps going, “Okay, then you must know about The Lazy Reader?”
Again, I shake my head.
“You're hopeless,” Shelby says, turning on one of the videos.
The host is a pretty girl in her twenties with a buzz cut. The lighting and the audio are professional, yet ver
y casual and inviting. She's holding up my article on her phone and reading parts of it out loud to her audience.
“How’s she already talking about this?” I ask Shelby.
“Because… You have no idea what a big deal D. B. Carter is. Everyone who reads young adult fantasy or any fantasy for that matter has been wondering who he is. Your article answers all of their questions.”
I sigh deeply.
“What's wrong?”
“I can't really tell you,” I say quietly.
“Okay,” she says, popping her shoulders and fluttering her long false lashes.
Her makeup is flawless along with her hair and her outfit. She looks this way every single time she's at the office. I would hate her except for I really like her. She's smart, funny, and witty. She makes me laugh.
“Did you sleep with him?”
“What? What are you talking about?” I gasp.
“You did. You slept with him!” She stares at my face, slowly raising her finger and points her long nail at me.
All the blood drains away from my face.
My body grows rigid and I don't know what to do.
When I open my mouth again to try to salvage the situation, something tickles the back of my throat and I start to cough.
“Oh My Fucking God!” she shrieks. “What the hell happened? You have to tell me everything!”
6
Emma
Not wanting to talk about this in the main room with all of our other colleagues, I pull her aside to my cubicle.
“You slept with him,” she says in a whisper.
It's not an accusation.
It’s anything but that.
Shelby is an empowered and sexually positive woman.
No, this is just her being excited for me.
The problem is that it's bad enough that I wrote this article. It would be very unprofessional for me to write this article about someone that I had slept with who I didn't even get to go on the record.
I debate how much of this I should tell her. Then I take a deep breath and take a chance.
“Okay, if I tell you this, can you promise that you won't say anything?”
“What do you mean?” she asks, raising one eyebrow.
“You have to promise me. As a reporter. I'm your source. You have to keep this a secret, just between us.”
Despite all of her interest in juicy gossip and other things like that, I know that Shelby takes her job as a journalist seriously and that she would never break her oath.
I used to think that I was the same way, unfortunately that's not the case.
“Everything in the article is true,” I admit. “Although, he didn't exactly go on the record with me about what we talked about.”
“He didn't?”
“I wasn't going to make it a story at all. It was just an accident that I happened to find him. I went there to get over my stupid relationship drama and to clear my head. Then when I found out that he was actually a friend of Alex's –"
“Wait, what?” Her eyes become two big saucers as she stares at me.
“He was at the party, but he had to leave early.”
I haven't had time to catch up with her about what's been going on, but she knows the gist of how I got D. B. Carter's address from the article.
“I didn’t put this in the story because I didn’t want to mention my party, but Liam was Alex's friend from back in the day. That's why when I came to the house, he invited me in. What he also said was that everything that we were going to talk about was going to be off the record.”
“Holy shit,” Shelby says, putting her hand over her mouth.
It's not until I see her reaction that I realize exactly the depth of the trouble that I'm in.
“You can't do that, Emma. Journalists aren't allowed to do that.”
“I know,” I say, looking down at the floor.
I twirl my thumbs, one over the other, but it just makes my nervousness worse.
“I know that it seems like journalists don't have many rules anymore given that basically people just write articles about what they read on Twitter, but you're going to have a hard time finding a good job if someone finds out about this. There are certain things that are sacred. If he said that what he was going to say to you was off the record, then…”
Her voice trails off. She doesn't need to finish her thought. I know exactly what she's going to say.
“Why did you write this?”
“I went into Corrin’s office and I was just going to tell her that I couldn’t find out who he was. I know that she wanted me to write the story, but I was going to say that I wasn't able to locate him. Then Mr. Matthews was there and they mentioned that the magazine was in real trouble and they really needed a breakthrough story. She kept talking me up and I just… I got in over my head.”
“This is really intense,” Shelby says, sitting down in my chair behind my desk.
I grab a chair from a nearby empty desk and pull it up in front of her.
“It was only supposed to be 2,000 words initially. So, I started writing it from my perspective thinking that I could just end it right before I met him. Mr. Matthews told me they wanted a draft that day. I didn't want to not turn anything in and yet I thought that I would just tell them that everything after this was off the record.”
“I guess it didn't work out that way,” Shelby says and props her head up with one hand taking a long gulp of her wine.
“No, as soon as they read that part, they expanded the word count,” I continue. “And the thing is that Liam did talk to me about writing and all these other things and I had all the content for the perfect article. With depth. It was so much more than I ever did before and it wasn’t just a story about what some celebrity posted on Instagram. This was a real scoop. No one else had the story. I guess a part of me wanted to be the one to break it to the world.”
“I totally get it,” she agrees. “I'm getting tired of rewriting what other people have said on social media. This is definitely quite a story.”
“Maybe it's going to be fine. Maybe it will all work out,” I suggest.
“So, what happened with Liam? How did things end that night?”
I hesitate.
I wonder if I should go into this.
The problem is that I hesitate for too long. Her eyes focus on mine and she reads my expression for the truth.
“He kissed you, didn't he?”
I avert my eyes and shrug, but those are all telltale signs of what I don’t want to admit.
“Oh My God, you slept with him?”
“No, I didn't,” I say quickly. “We kissed. Made out, I guess you could call it that. On the roof of the car.”
I end it there.
A few minutes later, when we go back and join the rest of the party in the conference room, I see a familiar silhouette. When I look closer, I realize that it is Alex.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, walking over to him and grabbing his hand.
He is heavy on his feet and his eyes are glassy. His hair is out of control and uncombed.
“How did you get up here?” I ask.
“Phil, the guard downstairs, is really nice,” he says, slurring his words.
I can smell the liquor on his breath and I try to pull him away from the party before he makes a scene.
“Why did you leave me?” Alex asks. “I'm sorry about Jen, but that's all over.”
I look around, keenly aware of the fact that though most people at the office know that my engagement is off, few of them have actually seen Alex.
He shuffles his feet and again asks me to take him back. All I can think about is how embarrassed I am that he is here.
I have been friendly with a few people here, but none of them know many details about my personal life.
And now they are meeting him like this for the first time?
It doesn’t exactly make me seem professional.
“Alex, you need to go home. Please,” I say in a hush
ed, but serious, tone.
“I will, I will. I just want to talk to you about this. I haven't been able to sleep in days. I miss you.”
Again, his words come out all jumbled and mispronounced.
Slurred.
He has a very high tolerance for alcohol and I wonder exactly how many glasses of whiskey he has had leading up to this.
I also wonder what spurred him to finally find me.
“Why are you here?” I ask, crossing my arms. “You haven't called me in a week. I told you that I don't want us to work. Just accept that.”
“No, I won't. Relationships aren’t supposed to be perfect anyway, right? Isn't that what they always say?”
“I have no idea who they are. Relationships are always different and, in this case, no, I don't want you to fight for me. There's nothing to fight for. We are over.”
“No, we're not over,” he says, raising his voice. “Jen said that she doesn't want to see me anymore. She said that her family is more important. Well, you are more important than her.”
His girlfriend of five years breaks up with him, dumps him, so he comes crawling back to me.
Of course, he's not here just for me.
“I don't want you back,” I say sternly.
7
Emma
I'm so embarrassed by the fact that Alex is here and yet I can't make him leave. I tried nudging him out into the adjoining hallway away from the conference room, but he doesn't budge.
Instead he keeps telling me about how much he loves me and all the things that he wants to do to make up for what happened.
He apologizes over and over again.
I can't make him stop talking.
I know that he is intoxicated and this is not the time to have this conversation. If he were in his right frame of mind, then he would take no for an answer.
He isn't.
I don't know what to do.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Shelby who is looking at me with a concerned expression. I wave her over while Alex continues to rant.
All the Secrets (All the Lies Book 2) Page 3