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“God, did I really look like that?” I was beginning to think that I gottoopassionate over this and perhaps overdid it just a bit. I was just hoping that it wasn’t too much.
Mark glanced at the screen as well.
“Yeah, but like, it was attention-grabbing, if that makes sense,” he said, making me raise my eyebrows. He caught my expression and simply pressed play. “Just see for yourself. It’s hard to explain.”
The recording played, and I watched a couple of seconds of myself in the same serious expression as I ascended onto the first drop. As soon as I was approaching the peak, I began to report.
“I am currently riding the biggest roller coaster in the newest amusement park here in Syracuse, New York.”
My facial expression remained the same as I spoke, and it was actually kind of haunting me in the wrong way. The video continued, and I saw myself about to descend at high speed. As soon as I did, I continued.
“Coaster Paradiiise!”
Even as the wind blew strongly into my hair and face, my seriousness didn’t wear off. I was just a serious newsperson the whole time.
I was probably way too invested in making sure that my boss was going to be impressed by this story that it overtook all my senses. I did it so straightforward that I kind of looked… silly being so unsmiling while riding on an amusement park ride.
“Oh, God, what is this story?” I asked out loud as I covered my face in embarrassment.
Mark’s eyes widened at my reaction. “You’reembarrassedby this? What—”
But before Mark could continue his question, one of the editors knocked on the door, interrupting us.
“Sorry to drop you with this, but Ben Oviatt asked me to deliver a message to you,” the editor stated, a tone of concern lingering in his voice. “He said that since you couldn’t pitch your story in time, he was going to leave the decision of publishing it to you, Olivia.”
My heart kind of dropped to my stomach a little bit. He left… the decision up to me?
“But that’s such a huge deal. I can’t possibly make that call,” I debated, extremely shocked that he would actually permit me to do that. No way it was real though, right? The editor must have misheard him.
“I heard him right. That’s exactly what he said,” the editor answered, not seeming to care at my surprised expression. “Also, he was like‘make sure it’s up to my standards or else’or something like that. Overall, he was very scary.”
With a last wide-eyed, grimacing look, the editor left us in the editing bay without giving me another second to react.
It was silent for a while between me and Mark, both of us not really sure how to deal with this situation.
“Hot damn,” he muttered, sitting down at one of the office chairs inside the bay. “So, I guess it’s up to you then, huh?”
It then dawned on me why Ben Oviatt actually allowed this to happen. It just might be my pessimism growing, but I was pretty confident that he was sure I was going to fail, so he wanted to leave the downfall totally in my hands. He was so sure that I wasn’t going to impress him that he was leading me to my own demise.
That sneaky…asshole. I would love to show his stupidly handsome face how wrong he is about me.
“Let’s do this,” I told Mark, not waiting for him to respond as I immediately began to cut down the footage.
There was no way I was going to let anyone lead me to a trap hole. I might have been new to OVT and doing my own stories, but I was a freaking force to be reckoned with.
It was up to me to prove it.
Chapter 7
Ben
Somethingfelt…offtheentire night. Honestly, I wasn’t really getting a good night’s sleep. I couldn’t quite pinpoint exactly what was wrong. I wasn’t feeling any particular illness. I didn’t have any loss of appetite while I was drinking my morning protein shake, and I didn’t feel light-headed while I was working out. Yes, it seemed like a regular morning, but I just could not, for the life of me, shake the feeling that something had upset the atmosphere or something. I was also pretty sure it wasn’t work-related, otherwise Eric would have called me by now.
Maybe I was overthinking things. It wasn’t in my nature to do so, but then again, most people had their off days every now and then. I tried not to think much about it anymore and proceeded to go shower instead.
But even as I got out and started to get dressed, I still wasn’t feeling quite right. I even took a long look at myself in the standing mirror, checking every single area of my body in case there was something wrong. Fortunately, I didn’t find anything unusual, but the feeling was still there.
Once Gerald was driving me to the OVT building, the feeling of uneasiness only grew more, and by then, I was pretty sure now that something was going to happen today. I never gave much thought to predicting the future or listening for the signs from the universe or anything of the like, but this was just too much to ignore. There was an unspoken tension in the air, and I wanted it resolved as soon as possible.
