Page 90 of One on One
I can’t sit down. “I promise I will,” I say. “But first, can you pull up the article while I try to find out what happened? It wasn’t supposed to be published today. I need to know what’s going on. Mynameis in it.”
He starts to make a noise or say something, but it gets caught in his throat. His voice is hoarse when he speaks again. “This is real, then?”
Over the last week, I’ve had a lot of practice rehashing the worst thing that ever happened to me. Lily Sachdev is an extremely thorough journalist, with her Moleskine notepads and diligent questioning. It was scary, but this is equally terrifying.
“Yes,” I whisper. “It’s real.”
His dark eyes hold on to mine so tightly it’s hard to look away. But I need to talk to Lily, and I need to see the article. Maybe they’re breaking it into pieces, posting part of it today, with more to come at a later date. Maybe the gory details of my story will be covered in part two.
I pull out my phone. Fourteen missed calls, twenty-two text messages. I ignore most of them.
Lily: Call me ASAP. It’s urgent.
Lily: The story is dropping shortly. My editors feel that we need to publish now, while BM is most newsworthy. There will be fewer eyeballs on him and the story after the finals. I wish I had more time to warn you.
Lily: I’m sorry, Annie.
“Here it is,” Ben says.
I lean over his shoulder. “Skip ahead. We probably don’t have much time.”
His thumb shakes as he scrolls, first past the introduction, then through the accounts of some of the Arizona Tech women.
Annie Radford. Holy shit, there it is. My name. It’s so overwhelming I have to look away, at the light switch, the crystal glassware on the shelf, the photo of the cathedral in Jackson Square mounted on the wall.
When I look back, Ben is reading Lily’s summary of the night Maynard drove me home from the bar.
“I was a big believer in the Ardwyn Family.” I’m not sure if Ben is paying closer attention to the words I’m saying or the words on the screen, but I keep going. “Maynard was always like…a cool uncle, or something. It didn’t bother me that he saw me wasted that night.”
“He never acted like a regular boss,” Ben says quietly.
“Right. He humored my zaniest video ideas, always asked what music I was listening to. How much time did we spendsitting around the office listening to him tell stories about his playing career, his early coaching years?”
“He loves telling stories,” Ben says.
“He could tell a story better than anyone else. I don’t know about you, but he’s still the most charismatic piece of shit I’ve ever met, to this day.”
Ben nods, swallowing thickly. I can’t see his face from this angle, looking at the phone over his shoulder. It’s better this way.
“His approval was priceless to me back then,” I continue. “The way he treated us, like our work mattered?”
“He took us seriously.”
“Exactly. You weren’t the only one who took that to heart. I wanted to work in basketball so badly. Maynard knew what he was talking about, and he didn’t have to tell me I could be successful, but he did it anyway.”
Scrolling further, Ben skims the next few paragraphs. When he reaches a picture of Maynard’s text messages to me, he freezes.
Metadata confirms that the following screenshots were saved eight years ago,the article says. Thank you, Cassie.
The last thing I need is to read these messages again. I sit in the chair across from Ben, burying my face in my hands. “I don’t know which ones they included.”
“ ‘What are you dressed as for Halloween?’ ” Ben reads. “ ‘You’re a beautiful girl.’ ” He pauses, clearing his throat. “ ‘Will you send me a costume picture too?’ ”
“He texted me a lot. I sent a lot of awkward ‘ha-ha’ responses. I was already partying too much, trying to forget about Oliver. The stress of the messages only made it worse. I started to develop this Pavlovian stomachache every timemy phone buzzed. I drank more. Slept less. Couldn’t focus at work.”
“Did you tell anyone?” A muscle in his jaw twitches.
I shake my head. “Telling someone would make it seem like a big deal, and I didn’t want it to be a big deal. All I wanted was for everything to go back to normal. I was still hoping he’d hire me full time after graduation.”
