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It didn’t make it any harder for me to quit now that I knew what an amazing scoop it would be, telling the whole Chase Carter story. It had all the elements of a page-turner: drama, fear and intrigue blended with selfless acts of heroism. I bet Liam, Jax and Ian had their sides of the story as well. It would probably be fascinating to catch up with each of them, see what their experience of it all had been and where their lives had taken them since.
But it wouldn’t be me doing it. I wouldn’t be blogging about Chase. In fact, I’d decided yesterday, I wasn’t going to blog anymore. I’d continue writing, and maybe online, but not for Scooop’d. I’d outgrown it, and it had never fit me all that well in the first place. It was really Tori’s baby, Tori’s dream, and it was time to hand it over to her full-time.
From what I’d seen, she was doing well on her own building an audience. Plus, she’d pulled in some guest bloggers for the games and they were doing a great job, keeping it sassy and scandalously fun. Scoop’d was taking off. The thing was, so was I, but in a different direction.
“You!” Tori rushed at me as she bustled in the door of the condo at around five o’clock. She gave me a huge hug. “Where have you been? You’ve been missing everything! Last night, were you even watching the gymnastics? Is swimming all you care about now? Or should I say one particular swimmer?” She gave me a knowing look.
“Yeah, we are dating.” I did not share her teasing tone. I needed to cut to the chase. “Listen, Tori, I’m not going to write the feature on Chase.”
“What?” her tone dropped, not happy.
“I can’t do it.”
“Don’t do this to me.” She shook her head and walked into the kitchenette. I heard a cabinet slam and the faucet run as she poured herself a glass of water. “Before you start with this shit, Emma, I need some Advil!”
I checked in the bathroom for her and, sure enough, she had a bottle of her drug of choice in the medicine cabinet. I brought out two orange pills and she swallowed them, then looked me in the eye.
“What. The. Hell.”
“I can’t write anything about Chase. I won’t do it.”
“But this is our big chance! Do you know how big an audience I’ve built around this? How much I’ve been hyping it? I nearly barfed when I saw some other blog had scooped him yesterday. Did you see that?”
“Yes, I did.”
“But they didn’t get the real story. That thing was Swiss cheese it had so many holes in it. Not like the kinds of pieces you write.”
She was trying to butter me up, flatter me into writing the piece. It wasn’t going to work. “I’m not doing it. In fact”—I took a deep breath, squaring my shoulders. I hated doing this to her, but I had to—“I’m quitting the blog.”
“What!?!” Tori’s eyes bugged out and she threw her hands up in the air like a spectator infuriated over an outrageous call by a referee. “You can’t do this to me!”
“I have to do this.”
“Wait.” She eyed me, suspicious. “Are you just freaking out because you haven’t gotten the full story yet? Because that’s OK. We can still string people along while the games are in play. We have, like, a whole ’nother two weeks. You two should go on some romantic vacation together. Screw his brains out. He’ll tell you everything.”
“Tori, don’t talk about him like that.”
“Oh, it’s like that, is it?” Each time one of us spoke, the volume escalated.
“Like I care about him? Yes, I do.”
“So now you’re Miss High and Mighty. You know, you’ve always had a bug up your ass about this blog. It wouldn’t be anywhere near what it is today without my content. I’m the one who’s built it. I’m the one who’s made it a success.”
“You’re right,” I surprised her by agreeing. I didn’t like her vindictive, venomous tone, but every word she said was true.
“Hold on.” She looked at me, suspicious again. “Are you giving the story to another blog?”
“Tori, that’s ridiculous.” I had the exasperated tone now. “I’m sorry I’m doing this—”
“Then don’t do it! You have the scoop, don’t you? You know what happened that night he almost drowned.” She came at me, her voice a conspiratorial octave lower. “Did he break the law? Is Chase a criminal?”
“I think I’m done with this conversation.”
Tori’s phone rang. “Oh, that’s Paulo calling. Have I told you what he can do with just his pinky finger?”
“I’m heading out.” I started for the door, wondering why it had taken me so long to do what I’d just done. I already knew I’d made the right call.
“Wait, don’t go!” she called after me, but she also clicked over to accept the call. “I am so happy to hear from you,” she said flirtatiously into the phone.
Fine. I’d leave things to Tori to sort out. I’d said my piece. I didn’t know if she believed me or not, but she would in time because I meant what I said. I wasn’t writing a word about Chase Carter, and as far as I was concerned, I was no longer a part of Scoop’d.
I walked out into the late afternoon heat, in the throng of the Olympic Village. I’d expected a lot of things from the conversation, namely Tori’s anger, disbelief and accusations. That had all happened. But what I hadn’t expected, and I now happily realized, was how good I’d feel. Walking along back toward the rail
system which would take me to the swim pavilion, I realized I hadn’t felt such a clear conscience and a light heart in a long, long while.
§
Liam was awesome. That evening, while Chase met with his coaches, before I saw him for some actual physical therapy, Liam and I grabbed some horrible pizza together. He was incredibly easy to talk to, wanting to hear all about growing up in Florida and how I’d chosen to get into physical therapy. Chase had clearly been bragging about me in a ridiculous way.
“I hear you’re a hardcore runner.”
“No, that’s just Chase being nice.”
“Chase doesn’t throw around compliments,” he assured me. “When he says something, he means it.”
“You’re right.” I smiled at the realization. You could honestly trust what Chase had to say.
“You really like him.” Liam leaned back in his seat, surveying me with a smile. “That’s good. Because he really likes you.” That made me smile more, and blush so I took a sip of my drink. Sometimes I felt like I hadn’t left high school.
“He told me he talked to you about the accident,” Liam surprised me by adding.
I nodded. I knew Chase wasn’t supposed to have spoken to me about it, so I’d assumed he’d keep it between us. But it was better for him to have it out in the open. I couldn’t believe how much he’d beaten himself up over the years, feeling responsible for what had gone wrong.
“Funny how something can eat at you when you can’t talk about it.” He took the words right out of my mouth. I watched him sip his own drink, wondering if he was talking about himself, too. But he was the hero of the bunch. He must sleep well at night.
It was a pretty personal subject to explore, so I didn’t ask. I wasn’t a blogger after the scoop anymore. I could simply let him talk, listening as he shared what he wanted.
“I guess that’s why the four of us are still so tight,” he finally added.
“You are?” I asked, pleased at the thought. At least that was a silver lining, lifelong friendships forged out of trauma.
