Sanity // s.m. [IN EDITING]

[24]

Elliot

***

She was scrolling through her phone when I entered the room, holding three cups of iced coffee on a tray in my hands, which I set down on the table. She looks up at me, her perfectly shaped eyebrow arched.

"Hey," I awkwardly wave my now free hand. "You must be Brooke. From Rolling Stones?"

"Um... " she looks around the room, as if the reason for my unexpected presence was written on one of the walls somewhere. "Yeah, that's me. I'm sorry, who are you?"

"Right, I'm Elliot Johnson. I'm an intern here."

Her eyes light up, and she shuts her phone off, leaning back in her seat and crossing her arms. "Elliot Johnson, huh? What are you doing at Manhattan Literary? I thought you were with New York Times."

"I was," I shrug. "I left. Now I'm going to be a reporter, I guess."

"You guess?" she blows a strand of dark hair from her face, flicking it over the shoulder of her lacy navy blue top. "What's that mean?"

"It means I was just informed. I wanted to be a writer."

"Well, reporters are writers," Brooke smiles, and something about her smile seemed sly, deceiving, like a fox. Her eyes told me to run.

"Do you think you can tell me more about reporting? I don't know much about it."

She cocks her head to the side, like a confused puppy. "Well, you're a novelist, it should be easy for you. You make up stories, right? It's pretty much the same thing, except you interpret. You convince your audience one thing, even if the reality behind it says something different."

"Isn't that considered lying?" I ease into a seat, terrified that I'm sealing the deal.

"I don't see it as lying," she shrugs, her eyes darting away from mine. "You're telling a story, making people aware. Keeping the world interesting, at its finest bore."

I hated to admit it, but reporting actually doesn't sound like the worst thing in the world. She makes an interesting point. I don't have to be exactly like her, but still-- you're just interpreting news to keep things intriguing. Imagine how boring things would be if reporters weren't there to exaggerate.

And with my expanded vocabulary and grammar skills, I could write some pretty good articles. And if I'm successful, it'll pay well-- and that's a bonus.

Just then, my CEO enters, her pressed blouse adjusted as she smiles at the both of us.

"I'm so glad you two are getting along," she hums, making a general assumption that could very easily be wrong.

Brooke glances at me, her eyes fierce. Who hurt this girl, I wonder.

"Actually, I'm totally psyched," the CEO continues, "because our last article reporter just took a maternity leave. And we have a very important story to cover promptly, tomorrow night, in fact. I figured you two could take care of that."

"I'm not ready," my eyes immediately widen.

"Don't worry," she laughs, placing her free hand on her chest. "This will just be a watch-and-learn type of story. Brooke here is used to covering things like this, and you can go this weekend to watch her, you know, do her thing."