Ethan’s strategy suddenly fits into place in my head. I hear it in the leading way he proposes syndication. It’s not a suggestion—it’s the whole point. I remember Ethan’s pushiness in the editorial meeting the other day, the way he pressed for the front-page position and the jump to center. He was ensuring I made his story the focus of the issue, knowing it would be impossible to replace. When he decided to take his piece elsewhere, he didn’t tell me so I wouldn’t have time to prep a new feature. Which, of course, he doesn’t want. Ethan needs his story in a high school paper to be eligible for the National Student Press Club Awards.
Beneath my fury, I admit I’m impressed. I have to hand him this one. It was carefully planned and perfectly executed. The flicker of respect I have for him pulling it off is yet another insult. Nevertheless, I can’t help grudgingly admiring him.
“I can’t win best newspaper with a syndicated story,” I say.
Ethan cocks his head, pretending to consider. “You might. It’s better than being disqualified for having an insufficient number of pages. Let’s face it”—his eyes narrow on mine—“my story could be enough for you to get an honorable mention. If you replaced it, though . . .” He leaves the sentence unfinished, forcing me to play out the scenario myself.
He’s right. I hate how right he is. If I replace his piece with unpolished filler, we’ll win nothing. There’s a slim shot at some prizes with his syndicated story, but it would reflect badly on me, the editor in chief. The judges, some of the best journalists in the country, would know I centered our issue on something syndicated from the local news.
It’s why he did this. Not the prestige of having his reporting in a professional paper, not the production week curveball it’ll cause. He did it just to make me look bad. What’s more, I realize, remembering Erin and everyone in the hallway, he’s done it without regard for the rest of the Chronicle staff—some of whom, the sophomores and juniors, could’ve put our publication-of-the-year award on their own résumés and college applications. I don’t know if he’s overlooked how his move will affect them, or he just doesn’t care. Either way, it’s just like him.
“You’ve crossed a line.” My voice vibrates with fury.
“No.” Ethan steps forward from the desk, closer to me. He’s slightly taller than I am. I don’t know why I notice it now. He’s wiped the smugness from his expression and watches me with a mask of determination. “I’ve won,” he says. The hint of a grin flits over his lips. “I hope you’re mature enough not to be a sore loser about it, Sanger.” He flings the word in my face, repeating the reason I gave him when he wanted to know why I wasn’t competing with him.
He looks down on me, eyes electric, enjoying his victory. I hold his gaze. I refuse to show him how defeated I feel. When finally he walks past me, crossing close enough our shoulders nearly knock, I realize I was clenching my jaw so hard my teeth hurt.
I hear the door close, the sound harsh in the empty room. I’ve won. Working over his declaration in my head, I reflect on the past few weeks. I’ve been so focused on Harvard and valedictorian that he was able to hit me out of nowhere on this new front. My chest heaves. My pulse pounds furiously enough my veins ache.
While I’m wounded, though, I’ll never concede Ethan’s won. Not to him, not to myself. I’m left with one goal.
Forget maturity. I’m getting revenge.
Thirty-Two
IN ZERO PERIOD THE next morning, I feel awful. The pressure of an impending headache pounds in my forehead. My eyes refuse to focus, warping the writing on Pham’s whiteboard into colorful nothings. In my stomach, hunger and nausea fight, like I swallowed static electricity. In short, I have every symptom of an all-nighter.
I spent literally the entire night in the newsroom. When I told my parents I wouldn’t be coming home because there’d been a Chronicle crisis, they didn’t object. They told me to call them in the morning and joked I didn’t need to use the paper for cover, reassuring me they wouldn’t tell Ethan Molloy’s parents. I was too overwrought to dispute the insinuation. Ms. Heyward went home a little past midnight, ordering the editors to leave with her. I hid in the bathroom until she was gone, then used my keys to get back in.
Under the eye-watering fluorescents, I worked for hours rearranging the page designs so I could remove Ethan’s story before deciding it was impossible. There was no way I could come up with enough lengthy headlines, extra graphics, and creative margins to replace fifteen hundred words. More desperate measures would be required. With the clock in the corner of my computer monitor reading 3:58 a.m., I started a new story—one without interviews or original reporting. We’ll never win publication of the year, but in my resolution for revenge, I decided I didn’t care. What’s important is Ethan doesn’t win.
It’s one thing he’ll never expect. Mutually assured destruction.
I wrote five hundred words of a year-in-review piece, nonsensical in the middle of March, while running on nothing except the can of cashews I keep in my office drawer. Ignoring the sky changing in the windows from black to the depressingly light blue of the early morning, I wrote and deleted, revised and reworked this hopelessly mediocre story. Finally, it was seven. To the sounds of students trudging onto campus and the custodians unlocking the doors, I forced myself to close my computer and walk to zero period.
Knees shaky, I find my desk in Pham’s room and sit. Ethan strolls in, smirking when he sees me.
“Nice blazer, Sanger,” he says. “It looked great yesterday too.”
I’m too tired to come up with a pithy retort. “Drop dead.”
Ethan doesn’t reply, no doubt considering my exhaustion a victory. When the bell rings, Pham passes out the day’s AP practice questions. Reaching me, he doesn’t drop the paper on my desk. “Miss Sanger, no. Nurse,” he orders.
“What? Why?” I ask.
“You look like you’re about to collapse.” Pham’s watching me flatly, not even pretending to sound sympathetic.
Ethan leans over his desk. “I’m worried for her as well.”
“I’m fine,” I say forcefully, shooting Ethan a look that a court could consider evidence of intent to commit murder.
Pham shakes his head. “Did you think I didn’t notice when you sat through an entire exam with food poisoning? Either you’re lying and I can’t trust a word you say, or you have no idea when you’re sick. Which means I can’t trust a word you say. If Nurse Sharp clears you, you’re welcome to return.”
I wait stubbornly, hoping he’ll reconsider. When the moment stretches into a standoff, I grab my stuff with a huff and walk out of the room. He thinks I shouldn’t be allowed to determine when I go see a medical professional? It’s infantilizing. Not pleased to find myself crossing the empty campus to the nurse’s office the second time this month, I scowl the whole way there.