I should have seen it all coming from a mile away.

When I met Corey, we were two freshmen in high school, and he wasn't exactly the coolest guy in school by any stretch, but he was sweet, he played football and was very good at it, and for some reason, he thought I was interesting enough to be around as well.

And in our seven years, he hadn't changed except for one stupid moment. Why would he be any different or any less great to be around now?

My eyes fell down to my gloved hands that comforted each other with my twitchy, restless thumbs. Logically, I knew it would be difficult to get over everything that happened, but why was it taking so long? All I wanted was for it to stop hurting.

"I am so, so sorry. I didn't know—" Ryan began, but I cut him off.

"Stop. I don't really care right now. I should have just let you find this story somewhere, because I'm not sure there's a single one on this campus right now besides football, Courtney's, and my own."

"There has to be. We'll find it, even if—"

I interrupted him again. "Stop it. I don't even care anymore. If Isabel wants to kick the shit out of me when I'm down, then I'm not going to stop her."

Ryan didn't reply to that right away. For someone who always had plenty to say, whether it was helpful or not, his silence was enough to make me wish I could just throw up and get every last bit of Corey out of my system.

"I'm just so tired of hurting like this. I'm doing my best to move on, but it feels like every decision I've made in life was a giant waste," I said. Why was I filling the silence? Wasn't that Ryan's obligation? "I mean, I've made every decision for myself, but I always thought that it would all end in a completely different way than it looks like it will."

Ryan nodded, but he still didn't have anything to add.

"And I know Isabel is just doing her job, just like I was with Courtney, but it doesn't make it feel any better. It still feels personal." You're still whining, Layla? Seriously? People are starving. "And that's not even getting into everything else I have going on at home. It feels like there's someone out there controlling my fate who absolutely fucking hates me."

Ryan raised his eyebrows. "Did you just say fuck? I thought you were too much of a lady—"

"Shut the fuck up and let me talk for once." I paused for half a second, and although I still didn't have my thoughts in order, the words kept spilling out. "He already replaced me."

The first tear fell from my eye, and it was a salty drop of failure. I had kept it together for so long in front of everyone besides my mom, and it was all gone now.

I shook my head. Why did it have to be Ryan of all people?

"Layla, I've known you for a few years now, and I've seen you in a lot of different moods. I've listened to you talk about everything but yourself and your life. But I've never been around you when you're this upset," Ryan said.

That made me feel even worse. It would have been better if he told me that I could go home or if he simply didn't say anything at all.

"Thanks," I said. How else was I supposed to respond to that? "I'm just gonna go to sleep now, I think. Maybe that's my problem."

Ryan shook his head. "I don't think so, Gaudreau. We need to get your mind off of what you saw here—"

"Maybe I don't want to get my mind off of anything. Maybe I just want to feel like shit for a few days. Maybe that's the only way this is ever going to get better." My body shook with every word, and although we were outside in the cold, I knew better than to blame it on the weather.

"I'm sorry," he said, and that was all. And that only made me feel even worse. It would have been better if he told me to quit being a whiny little baby and to stop taking my feelings out on him.

***

Even though I wanted to give feeling sorry for myself for a few days to see if it could work any magic, I didn't have that kind of time to spare. Between running home to give Mom her medicine, my one final and several papers that I still had to finish up, and starting to put together a story about the football team and their run to the championship semifinals that I had been covering all year and couldn't abandon now, there weren't enough minutes in the day to accomplish everything I wanted.

As I reminded myself that I could cry in the car to maximize my efficiency in all my endeavors, I opened up the door to the classroom for the school paper. Fortunately, I was in charge of my own articles for the football team, since Isabel didn't really understand anything about sports, and I only had to include the information that I felt made the story complete.

Offensive linemen were not pertinent to the story I was telling.

When I went to sit down in my usual seat, a shout came from inside Isabel's office. While I was pretty much used to Isabel raising her voice at people like Ryan, this time, it was a man's voice that was the loud one.

Although my natural curiosity was great for journalism, it wasn't great for human relations.

The man opened up the door, and I caught a glimpse of Isabel rubbing her eyes with her elbows on her desk, and before either one of them could notice that I was watching, I went back to my work so it didn't look like I was being nosy.

I knew him, though, even if he didn't notice me sitting there as he walked past on his way out the door. Dr. Brian Lambert was the head of the English Department, and if there was anyone in the school who could tell Isabel what to do, it was him.

I took in a deep breath. I wasn't sure what that was about, but if I had to take a guess, it would have been that we still weren't putting up good enough numbers. Of course, I was partially to blame for that, as I couldn't find an interesting story to save my life, and I was doing everything I could to stop my own from being told.

Just like Isabel, I put my elbows on my desk and rubbed my eyes until I could see swirls on the back of my eyelids. There was no easy way to fix our financial situation, and if I wanted to have Isabel's job when she graduated, there still had to be a newspaper next year.

After I gave her a moment to cover up whatever kind of emotions she was having after her chat with Dr. Lambert, I knocked on the door to her office. "Hey, Isabel. It's Layla. Do you have a second to chat?"

"Come in," she said, and I hesitated before I opened the door just to give her one last second to get ready to face a person.

"Um, I saw Dr. Lambert come in here, and I wanted to make sure everything is fine with, uh, the Badger Times," I said.

She shook her head and tucked a box of tissues behind her desk. "We are nothing more than a sink for money, Layla. We are a waste of space and resources." She looked up at me and smiled. "That made me feel great. Merry fucking Christmas to me, right?"

"I'm sorry. I really wish I had some way to just magically fix our financial problems, but—" I hesitated for a moment. There had to be some kind of story I could orchestrate if I couldn't find one in the wild.

"But?" Isabel asked.

"Well, let me tell you a story about something that happened last night. Ryan and I were looking for something interesting to write about, and we accidentally stumbled upon some sort of banquet for the football team. Corey was there with another girl, and it hasn't even been a month since our whole thing, so I obviously had to get out of there before I did something stupid."

Isabel lounged back in her spinny office chair. "There's really not much there for me to work with. So there was a banquet, and Corey was there with someone, and you did nothing about it."

"But I'm pissed, Isabel. And I think I'd like to do something about it."

She perked up and leaned forward in her chair.

If she needed a story, I was going to make her one. We both needed one, really. That was show business, baby.

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Hello! Thank you so much for reading!

So for today's question, what kind of plan do you think Layla is going to come up with? Is she going to be able to get the readers to keep The Badger Times alive?