Page 17 of Breaking News

“Well,” she said, looking down at the paper in her hand. I had a feeling I knew what this about. Elaine was in charge of the internship program, and if I had to guess, the email I’d sent her last night was a bit of a surprise. “I got your email about Jillian requesting your daughter for the internship program." She cleared her throat, glancing at me carefully. "I just wanted to make sure I have the green light before finalizing assignments. There was another student slotted for that position, and if Olivia gets it, he’s…. out.”

Just like that, my stomach twisted.

Shit.

I’d told myself it wasn’t a big deal. Olivia was a good kid, she was smart, she wanted to be in the program. But she’d also turned in her application late. And now, because of me, some other kid—a kid who didn’t miss the due date for the application—was losing out on an opportunity that probably meant a lot to him.

Am I any better than Silas?

“Do we have somewhere else we can stick him?”

“It’s not in the budget. We’re at capacity,” she said, and my heart sank. This was going to upset Olivia, and maybe Jill, but I couldn’t do this. “Although…”

Elaine’s voice sounded hopeful as she shifted through the papers in the manilla folder. I sat up a little straighter. “Yes?”

“The student we planned to place in the ads department is having some scheduling conflicts. He’s working as a lifeguard at the public pool this summer, and it’s been a nightmare trying tocoordinate around his shifts. His mother’s been giving me a lot of grief over the phone.”

“So… maybe he’s not the best fit?”

“Maybe not. Do you want me to drop him, move this other boy to the ads department, and put Olivia at WWTV instead?”

I gripped the armrests of my chair and inhaled. Decisions like this weren’t supposed to be mine.How the fuck did I get here?I held Elaine’s gaze for a few more seconds, fully aware that, at the end of the day, I was still giving my daughter the spot that plenty of other interns had probably been hoping for. Who wouldn’t want to work alongside Jillian Taylor?

I knew exactly how this looked.

I almost told Elaine to forget about Olivia altogether, but then I imagined the summer ahead; driving her to work with me in the mornings, having her under the same roof day after day, and watching her develop a passion for journalism.Maybe.

I cleared my throat. “Yeah, that sounds fine. Thank you, Elaine.”

The second she left my office, I started drafting a text to Olivia, making sure she understood how important this internship was. I didn’t want to guilt her, but she needed to know I’d gone out on a limb to make this happen—I was trusting her to take it seriously.

In other words, don’t embarrass me.

Jill’s voice cut through my thoughts, and I turned the volume up on the TV. “And city officials say Grissom Elementary School, one of the hardest-hit buildings in the tornado, is still undergoing major repairs. But the district is optimistic that renovations will be completed before the start of the new school year.”

She turned to her right, shifting her attention to Bernard at the weather map, casually asking about his predictions for tornadic activity in the coming months. I pushed up from my chair to getcloser to the TV, slipping my hands into my back pockets as I watched her more closely on the screen.

It was difficult to get past the stiff way she held herself, like she was trying to mask her discomfort. She still laughed at one of Bernard’s silly weather puns, but her eyes didn’t light up like they usually did. This wasn’t just exhaustion or a bad morning—something was definitely off.

I needed to talk to Meghan about this.

TheWoodvale Timesnewsroom was one of my favorite places to lurk when I didn’t know what else to do with my time. I often wandered up there to check on my old team, sticking around until Meghan made it known I was disrupting her from her work. She wasn’t exactly subtle about it, either. Just last week, she’d told me I was fucking up her workflow and that if I didn’t get out, she’d start giving me assignments just to make my presence useful.

Meghan gave zero shits that I was the interim CEO now, and honestly, I respected her for it.

She was working on her laptop at the long table at the front of the room when I popped in, putting together the next day’s layout in InDesign. Without pulling her eyes from the computer as she dragged a headline across the screen, she sighed and said, “Let me guess. You got bored pretending to be in charge and came here to bother me for a little bit?”

“Sounds accurate.” I pulled up a chair to sit beside her and watched her work in silence for a moment. I resisted the urge to suggest she change the lead story from three columns to two to give the words some breathing room.

But that wasn’t my job anymore. It was hers. And I had to trust she knew what she was doing.

So, I cut right to the chase. “What’s going on with Jill?”

Her eyes shot up in my direction. “What do you mean?”

Xander emerged from his cubicle, rolling his desk chair into view to ask the very same thing. “What do you mean?”

I glanced back and forth from the two of them, sputtering out my next few words. “Well, she just… she didn’t really seem like herself on-air. Like maybe she was in pain.” I had to downplay this and put on my CEO hat and sound a little less like a loser with a pathetic crush. “If I’m noticing it, our viewers are probably picking up on it, too, and that can’t be good.”

---