“Um . . . about that.”

“About what?”

“I’m really sorry. I hate to do this. I know you’re so dedicated to the newspaper.”

Liz’s heart pounded. “Do what?”

“I think you should leave the paper,” she blurted out.

“What?” Liz gasped. She felt the blood drain out of her face. This was her world.

“It looks bad for us to have our editor in the news. It puts a stain on the newspaper as a whole. You have to understand.”

“You’re kicking me out?”

“No, well, I can’t do that,” Massey said sheepishly. “I just . . . I mean, we hope that you’ll step down without us having to speak with anyone. I mean we only have two months to graduation. It would just be a temporary leave of absence.”

“A temporary leave of absence,” Liz said hollowly. “Temporary in that in a couple months I’m graduating and never coming back to the paper.”

“It’s best for everyone.”

Everyone but Liz. She was sure of that. How could it be better for her not to be at the newspaper?

“You can’t be serious.” But Massey sure looked serious.

“It wasn’t an easy decision.”

“An easy decision for who?” Liz snapped, her anger bubbling up. “As far as I’m concerned this is only a simple decision for you. Get rid of the problem and, let me guess—you become editor?”

“It wasn’t like that,” Massey said defensively.

“I’m sure, but you didn’t answer my question.”

“You left me in charge as editor while you were sick. It’s an easy transition for me to just continue to do the work.”

“That would make sense, Massey, if I hadn’t slaved for years here to be the editor! You want to come in and take all of that away from me?”

“I’m not taking all of that away from you,” Massey said. “I’m telling you that it’s not feasible for you to continue to work for the paper when this is on the front page.” She grabbed a newspaper off of the desk and slapped it into Liz’s hands.

Liz glanced down and swallowed hard. A picture of her was on the front page. The headline read, “Congressman Maxwell Affair with UNC Reporter Confirmed.” Liz tried to steady herself as she read through the article. It was pretty cut-and-dried—straight out of the information Hayden and Calleigh had written as well as from the press conference. Still, seeing it like that on the cover made her feel nauseated. She had gotten herself worked up about the other papers last night, but this was so much worse. This was her paper.

Her eyes drifted to the byline. Massey Davis.

“You wrote this?”

Liz knew somewhere in her logical subconscious that if things were reversed she would have done the same thing. She would have written the article and published it. She would have done it without blinking. But it still hurt knowing that her friend had done it to her.

“I’m sorry,” Massey said softly. She actually did sound sincere. “Someone had to write it. No one really wanted to. We like you, Liz. We all liked you as editor. But we couldn’t ignore this. The paper would have looked like it was biased, trying to protect its own and all that.”

“Yeah, because that’s really so bad.”

“You know what I mean. We’re supposed to be objective. You were news. And on campus, you’re kind of big news,” Massey told her.

Liz tossed the paper back onto the desk without finishing reading. “I guess I am now.”

“You would have done the same thing.”

“Irrelevant,” Liz said, crossing her arms. “You’re kicking me off of the paper, Massey. This is my life. This is everything I’ve worked for.”

“I know,” Massey said helplessly. “If things calm down maybe you can still come back.”

Liz knew she was lying. The media haze around her relationship with Brady would lighten, but she would still be with him. There was no way the paper would take her back.

She contemplated asking Massey about the chances of her staying on if Administration got in the mix, but she knew that she didn’t want to actually include the university in the decision. The paper was technically a separate entity from the school to keep its anonymity. It gave the staff freer rein to discuss matters the school itself might prefer that they not talk about.

Liz was sure that Administration would either defer to the judgment of the paper or somehow her taking it to a higher-up would end up in the paper anyway. Neither option was optimal. Likely both would leave her without a position at the newspaper.

All she knew at this point was that she needed to get the hell out of here. This had been her safe place and now she wasn’t even welcome.

“Just temporary. Right,” Liz said softly. She hoisted her purse higher on her shoulder. “Well, I guess that’s my cue, huh?”

Massey sighed and looked as if she wanted to say something, but she didn’t.

Liz grabbed the door handle to her, now, old office and wrenched it open. She glanced at Massey once more before walking out.

Liz didn’t even give Massey any last parting words.

Chapter 4

SPIN

Liz stalked across the quad on the way to her first class of the day. She was mostly looking forward to her last class with her mentor, Professor Mires. Liz had started working for her as an assistant. After they’d successfully put together a political journalism colloquium, Professor Mires had helped Liz get an internship working with the New York Times, which landed her a job at the paper postgraduation. Liz would much rather think about that than what had just happened at the newspaper.

She had two months before she was supposed to be in New York City, and that seemed much more important than what she was doing right now. She wouldn’t mind fast-forwarding through the difficult months.

Trying to shake off her conversation with Massey, Liz walked into the journalism building and found a seat in her advanced editing class. It ate at her that this would affect their friendship. She and Massey weren’t close like Liz was with Victoria, but they had worked together the past two years. Liz didn’t know what to do about it, and worse, she thought there might not be anything she could do about it. She wasn’t about to go apologize for what she had said, and she knew Massey wasn’t likely to either.