The Fixer: New Wave Newsroom Read Online Free PDF

Royce had different ideas about things.”
    â€œYes. And when I kept pushing him away, he tried to force me.”
    â€œBut you said it wasn’t—”
    â€œWell, I was drunk, but not so drunk that I couldn’t knee him in the groin.”
    â€œHa!” He barked a triumphant laugh. “Atta girl.”
    â€œAnd that’s it, pretty much.” I sagged back against the wall, and though I hadn’t maintained the detachment I’d been going for, strangely, the story didn’t have the same power over me it’d had just minutes ago. In fact, now that it was out, I wasn’t sure why this had been weighing on me so much. I was embarrassed even. Some dumb freshman got her boobs groped by a jerk. What else was new? “Sorry. I know it doesn’t seem like a big deal, but—”
    â€œI think it’s a big deal.”
    My breath caught. I wanted to kiss him for saying that, for understanding. But that would be stupid. Plus, I was having trouble meeting his eyes. I didn’t know how to be with this Matthew, the sympathetic, nonconfrontational one.
    The phone rang. I didn’t know whether to be relieved or annoyed, because I knew who it would be. No one else called me in the middle of the night.
    Matthew curled his lip. Ah, there was the surly boy I’d come to know. “You have a phone in your room?”
    I sighed and picked up said phone. “Hi, Dad.”
    Matthew
    Who was this girl? The fucking queen of Portland? I thought of all those phone messages she had left me. For some reason, the idea that she had been making those calls from her room on her own personal phone riled me. Reminded me who she was. I had been starting to feel a little sorry for her, with all this Royce stuff. She was vulnerable under all her bluster. She was kind of funny, too. But she was also—like everyone else at this school—a rich kid with no idea how the world actually worked. It was good, though, because it reminded me who I was and why I was at this school. It snapped me back into my place. In two months, she’d be using her trust fund to cushion herself while she willed her way into an entry-level journalism job, and I’d be in a vermin-infested shithole room in Boston trying to hold out as long as possible before I caved and got a restaurant job.
    â€œListen to me. Dad. Listen.”
    She’d been talking this way to her father for a few minutes. It was hard to figure out what was going on. She would listen for a while, then start lecturing him, but then seem to get interrupted.
    â€œThe little white pill, Dad. Did you take your pill at breakfast?”
    There was a long silence, during which she looked at the ceiling and—goddamn, was she crying ? She wasn’t making any noise, but a few tears were leaking from the sides of her eyes. I’d been eating my sandwich while she talked, planning to get up and go once I was done, but dammit, I didn’t think I should leave her like this.
    â€œThis is a manic episode, Dad. It will pass.”
    More silence. She shook her head as she listened to him. “Dad. Listen to me. This is the last thing I’m going to say. You are going to hang up the phone now and go to bed. If you can’t sleep, you’re just going to lie there until the sun comes up. If you don’t promise me, right now, on Mom’s grave, that you are going to do what I’m telling you, I’m going to call an ambulance.”
    Some more silence, then a quiet “I love you, Dad.”
    She hung up the phone, but she didn’t move at first, just sat there with her shoulders slumped, frozen. After a few beats of silence, I watched her straighten her spine like she was steeling herself for battle. I recognized the posture. It was pretty much how I went through the world every day. When she finally turned, she caught me looking at the phone. Well, really, I’d been looking at her hand. When she’d replaced