Ruined Read Online Free

the sink to splash some cold water on my face. This is it. This is the time that they finally figure out who I am and what I did. My entire life is always going to revolve around one moment in time that I can never take back.
     
    A few minutes later, I have gathered myself enough to return to the table. Reed is sitting there looking at me as a walk across the room. What in the world am I going to say to explain what just happened?
     
    I sit down, but before I can speak he takes the reins. "Willow, don't feel bad. I've had that happen to me before. You probably just ate something that didn't agree with you." He winks at me and then continues chatting about the television station as if nothing ever happened.  For now, I'm safe. But I know all too well that at any moment the Pandora's box that I'm trying desperately to keep closed is going to explode right in my face at the wrong time. Someone around me is going to get hurt as much as I do, so I try to keep everyone at arms length.
     
    "Yeah, I sort of wolfed down a club sandwich before I got here, so maybe it just upset my stomach. I'm really sorry about that." I say, looking down at my hands and trying not to make eye contact. They say the eyes are the windows to the soul, and I certainly don't want him seeing through me. He seems to be a pretty astute guy, not to mention hot, so I don't want him to think of me as this green faced nauseated reporter wannabe.
     
    "Tell you what, why don't you fill out this paperwork and give it to me in class tomorrow? I'll run it by my advisors and see if they even need to have a meeting with you. I feel very comfortable with you, and I'd like to work together. Are you still interested?" He asks me. Of course I'm still interested, I think to myself, but I don't want to be too overeager.
     
    "Certainly. I want to learn as much as I can while I'm here at the college. Working at DCTV will give me the opportunity to hone my craft." Hone my my craft? Who even talks like that?
     
    He smiles, almost like he's reading my mind, and nods his head. Ricky brings our drinks, and he takes a quick sip of his coffee. "Great. I'm looking forward to getting your paperwork and hopefully getting started. We have some big story opportunities coming up soon, and I think you would be perfect for those."
     
    "I'm looking forward to that. My long-term goal is to be a reporter, so this is a great starting point. I was on the high school newspaper staff, so I do have a little bit of experience." I don't know why I tell him this as it only encourages him to ask more questions about my past. It's almost like I'm trying to impress him for some reason, but I think that has more to do with how hot he is than trying to showcase my superior intellect.
     
    "Oh yeah? Where did you go to high school anyway?"
     
    Uh oh. Here we go. At least I can be honest about part of this story. Instead of saying that I had to leave Seattle at the age of fifteen because of my sordid, tragic past and move to Charleston, I can simply say that I attended Seaside High School. Because I did. For a year anyway. Then my mother met Bruce at a cocktail party and got her claws firmly implanted into his heart. After that, I was able to go to Rivermoore Private Academy and hide from those terrible public school kids.
     
    "I went to Seaside. Go Bulldogs," I say laughing. I always thought it was crazy that the high school was sitting right by the ocean and was named Seaside yet the mascot was a bulldog. Not a pelican or a shark or a dolphin. A bulldog. Weird.
     
    "Ah, Seaside. I have some friends that went there. Don't you think a bulldog is a strange mascot for a beach school?" he asks as if reading my mind. Man, he's hot and smart... and maybe psychic.
     
    "I was just thinking that!" I say, sounding like some kind of airhead.
     
    "Great minds think alike," he says softly and almost intimately. Is he flirting with me?
     
    "I guess so," I say as I sip my coffee. It's important that I avoid