Young Adulting - Christina Benjamin Page 0,5

long exhale. I didn’t have to tell my parents anything today, right? There was plenty of time to worry about college.

I shoved my phone back into the pocket of my borrowed blazer, which was a size too big but at least it covered the coffee stains I hadn’t been able to remove from this blouse after last week’s coffee run disaster.

I frowned down at my chest as I tugged at the blazer. It did cover the stains, right?

I was up next and I placed the order for ten different coffees—not one of which was just plain black coffee, of course, because that would be too easy—and waited with as much patience as I could muster as the workers made them. When I had three cup-holder trays balanced delicately in my arms, I hurried back to the office as quickly as I could without a major spill.

I’d learned my lesson on running with full coffee cups last week, thank you very much.

By the time I arrived, Colin, a couple other junior associates, and the other interns were already in the conference room, and I burst in as Colin was speaking.

“Sorry,” I murmured, my cheeks burning as Taylor and her friend Kimmie snickered at my ungraceful entrance.

Colin smiled. “Glad you could join us.”

Tommy Miller, one of the other first-year interns who I actually liked, leapt up to help me and between the two of us, we got the coffees sorted and were in our seats ready to listen in minutes.

What Colin said had my adrenaline racing all over again. “We’re trying something new this year with our interns. A sort of shark-tank style approach to figuring out who will be with us next year, either as a returning intern or, for one lucky soul, as an actual paid associate.” He grinned at us all and I was sure I wasn’t the only one holding my breath as he continued.

With a lock of his floppy brown hair drooping into his face, he kept his head down as he read from the screen in front of him. “You’ll each be given time to sort through the submissions in the slush pile, current or old submissions, doesn’t matter. Your task will be to pick the one that you think has the most potential to be developed into a film.”

I exchanged a quick, excited grin with Tommy as Taylor and her friends stared intently at Colin. We were all leaning forward, on edge with excitement.

“You’ll each pitch your script to a development team and if it’s good you’ll make it to the next round. Your goal is to make it to the final pitch where one script will be given the greenlight. The winning intern will get to work with the screenwriter to make the manuscript as polished and marketable as possible.” He glanced up with a little smile that seemed to say he knew exactly how eager we all were to dart out the door and get started.

My heart was pounding in my chest as he spelled out the rest of the details, about the final presentation and the rules we were to adhere to…

I was only half listening because my brain was racing a mile a minute. This couldn’t be happening. It was too good to be true.

Two weeks ago I’d been so sure that people were only granted one miracle in a lifetime, but here I was looking my second straight in the face. Because while all my peers had been partying it up after work these last two weeks, me and my work ethic had been holed up in my apartment, reading through scripts in the slush pile in the hopes that I could find one to bring to Colin. I’d been optimistically planning ahead just in case I had an opportunity to pitch a project of my own and now…

I grinned at Colin when he finished speaking and looked right at me.

Now I was light years ahead of the others and in the perfect position to earn a spot here after my internship ended.

Colin arched a brow as the rest of the interns ran toward the door, racing each other back to their desks so they could get first dibs on the script of their choosing.

“Aren’t you going to run off and read through submissions?” Colin asked.

I shook my head, not bothering to hide my triumphant grin. “No need,” I said as I got to my feet slowly to go back to my desk. “I already picked my script.”

I headed out