Chapter 6: The Interview

The woman from downstairs introduced herself as Melissa.

She led me through a maze of offices, glass-walled meeting rooms, and workspaces packed with people juggling three screens at once. Everywhere I looked, there was polished glass, expensive equipment, and the kind of confidence that came from people who knew exactly what they were doing. The deeper we went into the building, the more aware I became that I was very much the outsider here.

“Right this way.”

I followed her down another hallway, trying not to stare too obviously at everything around me. This was it—the interview that could decide whether I stayed in school. No pressure or anything.

Melissa stopped outside a conference room and pushed open the door.

Five people sat around a large table, and the conversation inside died the second I stepped through the doorway.

Great. Exactly the kind of attention I was hoping to avoid.

“Ms. Bennett.”

One of them stood and offered his hand.

“Thank you for coming.”

“Thank you for having me.”

I took the seat they indicated and folded my hands in my lap before they could find something nervous to do. The interview began immediately, moving through sports journalism, reporting ethics, photography, media management, game-day coverage, feature writing, interview techniques, and athlete relations with the efficiency of people who had done this many times before.

At first, I answered cautiously, weighing every response before I gave it. Then the questions became more detailed, less interested in rehearsed answers and more interested in whether I actually knew what I was talking about. Fortunately, this was the one area of my life where I did. Once the conversation shifted into practical scenarios and real-world challenges, the nerves faded. I talked about building trust with athletes without compromising professionalism, covering fast-moving games under impossible deadlines, finding stories hidden beneath statistics, and taking photographs that captured something meaningful instead of simply recording an event.

The room stopped feeling like an interview and started feeling like a discussion. By the time we were debating media ethics and the responsibilities that came with access, I had forgotten about scholarships, forgotten about Mason, and forgotten about the internet entirely. For the first time in weeks, I wasn’t defending myself or managing fallout from someone else’s mistakes. I was talking about journalism, and somewhere in the middle of it, I remembered that I was actually good at this.

Nearly an hour passed before the questions finally slowed.

“Do you have any questions for us?” one of the interviewers asked.

I did.

One, specifically.

I sat forward slightly. “Why me?”

A few eyebrows lifted around the table.

“I’m from Northbridge,” I continued. “I know my credentials are strong, but Easton and Northbridge aren’t exactly friends.”

That earned a round of amused smiles.

“So why me?”

The interviewers exchanged glances, not awkwardly but with the air of people deciding who should answer.

“We’ve known about your work for quite some time,” one of them said.

“You have?”

He nodded. “Your portfolio stood out.”

“Your game coverage is excellent,” another added.

“And your photography work is stronger than most students we see.”

“We’ve followed some of your reporting as well.”

For a moment, I simply looked at them. They had noticed my work before any of this happened. Before my personal life became public entertainment.

“The timing worked out,” one interviewer said.

Another immediately shot him a look.

It was brief, but I caught it.

The man cleared his throat. “What he means is that your qualifications made the decision easy.”

Something about the exchange tugged at my attention, like a loose thread I couldn’t quite grasp. Before I could pull on it, another interviewer smiled.

“We’d love to have you join Easton’s Hockey Media Department.”

I stared at him.

“What?”

The woman beside him laughed.

“We’d like to offer you the position.”

Immediately.

No waiting period. No callback. No second interview.

Just yes.

Relief hit so hard it was almost disorienting. Weeks of stress seemed to loosen all at once, and I had to concentrate on responding like a functioning adult instead of someone who wanted to leap across the table and hug strangers.

I got the job.

Against every expectation I’d carried into the building, I got the job.

A few minutes later, Melissa was leading me through the department, explaining where everything was and what my responsibilities would be. She showed me editing suites lined with computers, equipment storage rooms, photography stations, media offices, press areas, and eventually sections of the arena itself. As we walked, she outlined game-day expectations—player interviews, photography assignments, content creation, social media coverage, and enough moving parts to keep several people busy at once.

I listened carefully, trying to absorb everything. Each new room made the opportunity feel more real. By the time we approached the rink, the building had taken on a familiar rhythm. Voices echoed through the corridors. Skates scraped somewhere in the distance. Laughter drifted from behind a closed door. Sports programs always had their own energy, and stepping back into that environment settled something inside me.

We rounded a corner near the player facilities just as two athletes emerged from a hallway ahead.

One of them was Dean Mercer.

The other was Ryan Cole, the teammate I’d seen with him earlier.

Neither noticed us immediately. Ryan was in the middle of a story and delivering it with enough enthusiasm for both of them. Dean carried his equipment bag over one shoulder and listened with the patient expression of a man who understood that friendship occasionally required enduring long stories.

Both wore Easton tracksuits.

Both looked exactly like the kind of athletes universities built marketing campaigns around.

For one embarrassing second, my brain stalled.

Not because Dean Mercer was attractive, although objectively speaking, he was annoyingly attractive.

It was because he was Dean Mercer.

The captain. The face of Easton hockey. The guy whose surname probably generated revenue on its own.

Ryan spotted us first.

“Hey, Melissa.”

“Ryan.”

His attention shifted to me.

“Who’s this?”

Melissa gestured in my direction.

“This is Iris Bennett. She’s our new media hire.”

Ryan’s eyebrows rose.

Then he grinned.

“Oh. You’re the new media hire they’ve been talking about.”

“Yeah.”

“Nice.”

That was it.

No awkward pause. No recognition. No questions about Mason. No expression that suggested he’d spent the last month consuming internet gossip about my life.

Honestly, it was refreshing.

Then Dean looked at me.

Not through glass. Not from across a rink. Just standing a few feet away.

For a moment, I wondered whether he recognized me from the headlines, the videos, the endless stream of online nonsense that had somehow become everyone’s business. If he did, nothing in his expression revealed it.

“Welcome to Easton,” he said.

His voice was low, polite, and entirely matter-of-fact.

No curiosity.

No judgment.

No performance.

Just a welcome.

Then he adjusted the strap of his bag and continued down the hallway. Ryan fell into step beside him without missing a beat, picking up his story exactly where he’d left off. Within seconds, they were gone around the corner, still talking.

Melissa resumed the tour immediately, explaining another section of the arena as though nothing noteworthy had happened.

I tried to focus on what she was saying, but part of my attention remained fixed on that brief encounter. After weeks of being stared at, whispered about, recognized, discussed, judged, and pitied, Dean Mercer might have been the first person I’d met who seemed genuinely uninterested in my scandal.

And somehow, that simple indifference felt like the nicest thing anyone had given me in weeks.