For the Record (Record #3)(42)

Victoria grabbed a glass and started pouring herself some wine. “You’ll be up there all the time anyway with Brady.”

“Yeah. It’s just weird. We’ve lived together for four years.”

“I’d totally go lesbian for you if that’s what you’re getting at,” Victoria said with a wink.

Liz rolled her eyes and laughed. “Hardly.”

“So, who were you on the phone with? I heard some raised voices.”

“Brady,” Liz said, taking another sip. “Hayden showed up on campus today and said he wanted to talk to me.”

“God! Can’t he just leave you alone and not interfere with your life?”

“I don’t know. He just wants to try to make it better.”

Victoria shook her head. “You know how I feel about Lane. I think you should let him suffer.” Liz cringed and drank some more. “Seriously, you just don’t like to see anyone hurting, do you?”

“Not really. I made up with Massey today.”

“Massey is fine. Whatever. She didn’t sell you out to the newspaper,” Victoria said pointedly. “I know you. You’re going to see him, aren’t you?”

“I haven’t decided, but Brady got all pissed off at me.”

“Rightfully so, bitch! Think about it.”

“I have!” she cried. “I’m not rushing into things. I didn’t even really want to see him, but then talking to Brady, I kind of talked myself into it.”

“If you ruin this thing with Brady because of Hayden . . .”

“No! No way. I’m not going there,” Liz said vehemently. “Brady is everything. He’s my past, present, and future. I just kind of want to close the lid on Hayden. It’ll make it easier to stomach everything that happened knowing that we’re in an okay place.”

“He doesn’t deserve an okay place,” Victoria told her.

“Maybe not.”

They stood together like that, going through a couple glasses of wine each. School was officially over and it was strange for both of them having nothing they had to do. They had spent the last four years working endlessly and now it was all coming to a close.

When they lapsed into silence, Liz turned to absentmindedly scroll through her phone. Her thoughts turned to her career and what she was going to do now that she was only days away from graduating without an acceptance letter to graduate school and no job on the horizon.

Then she remembered a lunch conversation with her friend Justin a year ago, when he had tried to convince her to come work for him. He had originally been part of Liz’s scholarship program, but after he got a DUI, the university had stripped his scholarship. He’d dropped out of school and started his own company online that was just getting off the ground. He had tried to recruit Liz, but she had always been too busy. If he was interested, maybe she could use that as a starting point.

She jotted out a text to him.

Hey, do you have a free minute?

He responded almost immediately.

Sure. What’s up?

She dialed his number and he answered on the first ring. She waved her phone at Victoria and then, on wobbly feet, took her wine into the living room.

“Hey,” she warbled.

“What’s up? You sound tipsy.”

“Just a bit.” She plopped down on the couch.

“Cool. What did you want to talk about?”

“Do you still need help with your blog?”

“Yeah. Why? You interested?” he asked.

“Um . . . yeah. What would you need me to do?” She had kind of called on a whim. All she knew was that Justin was running a company based around organizing YouTube videos and compiling them in a coherent categorical system.

“You’ll just run the blog and keep the masses entertained. I can send you over the information. Just write your opinion.”

“You know what? Sure. Let’s do it.”

“I knew you’d come around,” Justin said cheerfully. “When can you start?”

Liz couldn’t believe it was really that easy. “Now?”

“Awesome! I know you’ll be perfect for this.”

Liz laughed and then they got off the phone. She had just gotten herself a job! No strings attached. It felt good to know that her writing was still valued, even if it wasn’t on the same level or even in the same discipline as she had been trained. Professor Mires had said one door closed, and another one opened.

Liz was starting to believe her.

Chapter 15

PRIORITIES

Thursday rolled around quicker than expected. Liz still had to decide what she was going to do about Hayden. Now that she’d had time to cool down after her argument with Brady, she had realized just how stupid the whole thing had been.

She and Brady hadn’t talked about it since their argument Monday, but she knew him well enough to know that he was anxious about what she was going to do. And she didn’t like that. Their relationship wasn’t always going to be perfect. In fact, it had never really been perfect. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t work with him.

Liz crawled out of bed, took a quick shower, and then tidied up her room. Her parents would be in town tomorrow for graduation, so she had to get her house ready. She was afraid to look in the living room; with all the packing Victoria was doing, the place looked like a pigsty.