Just a Girl - Becky Monson Page 0,86

just be with me.

I blink back tears, not wanting to mess up my makeup.

“Your hair looks frizzy,” Moriarty says, and I turn my face to her.

“Thank you?” I say, my voice full of sarcasm. Even so, I reach up and try to smooth it out with my hand.

“I’m only trying to help,” she says. She then wrinkles her nose. “Also, that suit color isn’t doing you any favors either.”

A strange déjà vu sensation rolls through me. It’s not unlike Moriarty to have an opinion, but these particular words, this sentence structure, remind me of something else.

I look down at my blue blazer and matching skirt, and that feeling, mixed with the situation with Henry and the fact that it’s freaking hot and humid right now, makes something inside me snap.

“You know what? I like this suit, and I like my frizzy hair, actually. I don’t really care what you think, Stacey. You’ve never been nice to me, not once since I started here, and you know what I think?”

Moriarty rolls her eyes and folds her arms. “What do you think?” she asks, her voice exasperated.

“I think you’re jealous.”

She leans back her head and laughs, but it comes out a little more maniacal sounding. “Why would I be jealous of you?”

“I don’t know. I mean, you’re the face of the station. What would a little intern who moved up to anchor much faster than you ever did possibly mean to you? Yet, you spend a heck of a lot of time paying attention to the things I do and giving me unsolicited opinions, in the name of trying to ‘help’ me.”

“Oh please. You were put on midday. That’s like basically second to doing location reporting.”

“But who says how long until I move up to evening? To morning?”

She taps her chin with her finger, as if she’s contemplating. “I mean, maybe that would be possible . . . if you hadn’t let that lovely word fly on air,” she says.

Her face is so smug at this moment, I kind of want to let a bunch of “lovely” words fly right now.

“I did do that; you got me,” I say, keeping my cool. “But guess what? I’m still here. Still standing right here, getting ready to go in front of that camera, just like you. I think you’re scared that if I can make it past that, then who knows what I’m capable of. Maybe someday it will be my face on those billboards on I-4.”

She flinches. It’s minuscule, but I see it. I’ve struck something. A nerve. A chord.

Her lips curl up into her devil smile. “Why would they ever want you to be the face of the station?” she says, and then takes a tiny step back from me, her eyes moving up and down my body.

Message received. Surprisingly, it doesn’t hurt like it probably would have before the retreat. Her words are just that: words. It’s my choice if I let them hurt me. And right now, they’re just a gust of wind. They only float over me and away, into the abyss.

“What’s going on here?” Henry asks as he walks out of the restaurant, seeing the tension that’s clearly visible between Moriarty and me.

I look at Henry, who’s got Bonnie on his arm. Beautiful, put-together Bonnie, and then my eyes move over to Moriarty’s, which are currently shooting darts at me, and I realize that I don’t want to be here. For any of this.

“How about you wrap this up,” I say to Moriarty, making a circle in the air with my pointer finger. “Just like you wanted anyway. I’m done.” And then I turn and walk to the station van, grab my purse, and start walking away.

“Quinn!” I hear Henry’s voice when I’ve gotten about twenty feet away. I probably look a bit psychotic to anyone who can see me, muttering under my breath as I walk in my heels, my hair becoming frizzier by the second. I turn to see him jogging toward me.

“Where’re you going?” he asks, his breathing slightly elevated as he reaches me.

“Moriarty can cover it,” I say. “I’m done with all of this.”

“You’re . . . quitting?” he asks, his brows pulled so far inward, they’re almost touching.

“I’m quitting this—this stupid feature,” I say. “Moriarty can do it, just like she wanted. You don’t even need me.”

“But this was your idea,” he insists. “You should be here.”

“And what a brilliant idea it was,” I say, infusing all the sarcasm I can into my