K. Linde - Off the Record

“Looks as if I have a couple minutes,” he said to Liz. She smiled as he walked her far enough away from the crowd that their voices wouldn’t carry. She could tell that he was anxious that they were together in public. She didn’t blame him. She was antsy, but she tried hard not to show it.

“What are you doing?” Brady demanded as soon as they were out of earshot.

“I had to talk to you,” she said, wanting to reach out and touch him but knowing better.

“This isn’t a good idea,” he said simply. Compared to the warmth he was showing onstage and before his audience, to her he seemed frigid. She didn’t know what that was about.

“I just…liked your speech. I…”

“Can we talk about this later? Somewhere not public?” he asked frostily.

“Um…all right.” She wanted nothing more than to wash away whatever was holding him back. He seemed so distant. She had thought they had connected during his speech, even if it hadn’t been directly for her. It had felt as if it was for her. This couldn’t just be because they were in public. He wasn’t like this with her. Even that one time he had given her cold eyes at the town hall, he had apologized for being an ass and hadn’t done it since. “What’s wrong?” she couldn’t help asking.

“What do you mean?”

“Brady…what’s wrong?” she asked, her voice barely a whisper.

“Why do you think something is wrong?” He checked his watch as if he was bored with her. Where was the man who had only a week and a half ago told her he could never be bored with her?

“I know you too well.”

“You put out your article,” he stated, as if that explained it.

“This is about my article?” she asked, confused. “I thought you didn’t care what I wrote?”

“That’s just it. I don’t give a shit what you write about. I’ve always liked that you wrote whatever the hell you wanted and didn’t back down. But if you didn’t like my suggestion for your paper, why did you agree with me?”

“Well, I didn’t exactly agree with it,” she said, backtracking. Liz hadn’t been able to make up her mind about the article, so she had sat down and written both versions. The one about basketball was sitting on her computer, waiting to be fed into the printer. But it felt wrong taking the idea that Hayden had and then using Brady’s example. She had put Brady’s take on the back burner and gone with her gut. Standing in front of Brady now, she was doubting her own decision.

Brady just stared. “You said you saw what I meant; that was enough for me. You don’t have to use my suggestion, but if you didn’t want to, then why didn’t you tell me?”

“I don’t know,” she whispered. She didn’t want to upset him. That was why.

“You’re a reporter; aren’t you supposed to be honest and unbiased?” he scoffed. “I thought you would tell me if you thought it was a bad idea.”

“I did think it was a good idea,” she said hastily.

“You write what you want to write, and I’ve always liked that about you. It’s why I thought you were different in the beginning. If you can’t be honest with me…” He trailed off.

Liz didn’t think she could strike a nerve with Brady. He seemed so solid inside and out. He didn’t get irritated that she cut down his political views, or when she freaked out when she thought that he was seeing someone else. He didn’t get irritated about much, aside from whether or not she was seeing someone else. He just wanted her to be up front with him.

It was just a suggestion, but he was taking it so seriously. Did he actually think that she couldn’t be honest with him? He was the only one she was honest with anymore.

Still, she hated upsetting him. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I should have told you. I didn’t know you would be so mad.”

“Liz, I have to go,” he said, but he didn’t turn away.

“I know. Five minutes. Give me one more. We’re engrossed in conversation.” She didn’t even stop to wait for him to say anything. “I didn’t come to find you in public to argue. I just came to talk to you, because I wanted you to know that you were right.”

He stared down at her with interest. “About what, specifically?”

“You told me once that if I got to know you, I would see you for more than your voting record.”

“At the gala,” he said, a small semblance of a smile appearing on his face at the mention of it.

“You were right,” she whispered. Tears were forming in her eyes, and she was so incredibly pissed at them. Why was she getting emotional like this? It wasn’t as if they could even move forward in their relationship. They only had secrecy to hold on to. “I see your vision. I see you. I was proud of you onstage today.” Her voice was hoarse when she said the last line. “I’m sorry for the tears. They’re stupid,” she said, wiping gently under her eyes. “But…you’ve got me, Brady. I get it now. I get it.”

“Liz…” he whispered.

“No, just one more thing,” she said, trying to muster the courage. “You won my vote today.”

He sighed, as if he had realized how much of an ass he had been earlier. “Baby, do you have plans later?”

She looked up into his face, surprised. Brady was supposed to be leaving for the coast today with his family. She wasn’t going to see him all weekend.

“No plans.”

“Good,” he said softly. “Because I’m going to be spending all night making this up to you.”

Liz stared at the ground uncomfortably before taking a breath and walking into the coffee shop. She had talked to Justin on the phone a couple times since he had gotten his DUI, but he’d had his disciplinary committee hearing this morning and he’d agreed to meet up with her after. She’d offered to go with him to the meeting, since she was the reason for the DUI in the first place, but no one else was allowed inside.

“Over here,” Justin called. He waved his hand from the corner, and Liz strode in his direction.

“Hey.” He stood when she approached, and she briefly wrapped her arms around him sympathetically before they both took a seat. “How did it go?”

Justin sighed and shrugged despondently. “I wish you’d been there. You could have sweet-talked them for me.” He looked up to meet her blue eyes. “They stripped my scholarship.”

“Oh my God!” she cried. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m thinking about transferring out. My parents can’t afford to pay out-of-state tuition.”

“You can’t just leave.” Liz shook her head. “There has to be something that can be done. Can you appeal the verdict? Maybe you can apply for student loans to help with tuition.”

“My parents are looking into it, but I don’t think there’s much that can be done. Student loans look at your records, so I’m not sure how much I could get…probably not enough to afford it.”

“Ugh,” she groaned. “I wish there was something I could do.”

“Yeah. Me too.”

She felt partially responsible for this. One bad mistake shouldn’t bring a lifetime of turmoil. She knew Justin would bounce back, because he was a genius, but it would be hard.

“It just sucks.”

“It does. But hey, maybe I should use this as my opportunity to try something new. I was always too smart for college anyway,” he said with a wink, but his smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Maybe I’ll open my own business or take over the Internet. I always thought that would be fun.”

“Only you, Justin.”

“Thanks for meeting up with me, Liz.” He reached out and grabbed her hand across the table. “I made a bad choice, but it didn’t turn out as bad as it could have. At least I didn’t hurt anyone. I remember running through that light, and I think about how lucky I was that I didn’t hit anyone. It’s only a scholarship, but it wasn’t my life…or yours.”

“I’m really sorry, you know?”

“I know. Me too.”

They finished their coffee and parted ways. Liz was glad that she had met up with him, at least.

She was supposed to go out with Victoria later and she needed to get home and get ready. Liz walked into the house fifteen minutes later to Victoria yelling at her from down the hallway of their house. “You better fucking get drunk with me tonight!”

Liz shook her head and dropped her bag in the living room. She grabbed her latest article from Professor Mires and trudged down the hallway. “I already said I would get drunk with you, Vickie. If you ask me one more time, I’m going to call you that all night!”

As she waited for Victoria to relinquish the bathroom, Liz flipped through the paper she had gotten back that morning—the one based on Hayden’s suggestion. It had garnered her an A. The professor said that she could really see her improvement and depth of growth. That if she turned in her final paper with similar quality work, she would be comfortable giving her a B+ or even an A- for the class, despite her earlier work in the semester. Liz knew that meant she had her work cut out for her, but she was up to the challenge.

Her last week of classes was coming up; in just over a week, she would be heading out to D.C. to visit Hayden. She found it hard to believe it was that close already. Soon the fall semester would be upon them, then the primary, and then the general election.

Liz shook her head. She was getting ahead of herself. There was still too much that needed to get done before then. Brady’s big summer gala event, for instance. It was coming up this weekend, and she was pretty much freaking out about it. Would she be noticed? She already knew that she couldn’t go with Brady, but would he take someone else? It didn’t help her to get too antsy about it, because at the end of the night, he was coming back to her one way or another. And she had to be confident in that.