The Crown

SLOANE

The announcement came on a Friday.

Not with fanfare. Not with a drumroll or a ceremony or even a proper all-staff meeting. Castillo simply walked into the newsroom at the start of third period, set his coffee on the desk, uncapped a dry-erase marker, and wrote a single name on the whiteboard.

**EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: SLOANE WINTERS**

Then he turned around.

“Congratulations,” he said. “Now get to work.”

The room erupted. Riley—who had somehow gotten wind of the decision and already texted me about it a minute ago—punched the air so hard she hit the doorframe. Mel made a sound somewhere between a gasp and a cheer. Nora slow-clapped from the copy desk with genuine warmth. Even Chris, the perpetually anxious sophomore, looked up from his fact-checking spreadsheet and gave a single nod, which from him was the equivalent of a standing ovation.

I sat very still.

Not because I wasn’t happy. Somewhere beneath the shock and the sleep deprivation and the low-grade hum of anxiety that had become my baseline emotional frequency, there was genuine, bone-deep satisfaction. I had wanted this. I had worked for this. I had spent two years building toward this exact moment.

But the first person I wanted to tell was two hundred miles away, and I had already decided I wasn’t going to call him.

So instead I stood up, took the marker from Castillo’s hand, and said, “Staff meeting in five. Bring your pitches for the October issue. If you don’t have one, write one in the next four minutes.”

The cheering stopped.

The working started.

---

Ava was gracious about it.

That was the thing about Ava. She was always gracious. Always composed. Always exactly the right temperature for the room. She found me after class, standing by the water fountain in the east hallway, trying to drink without my hands shaking.

“Congratulations, Sloane,” she said. Firm handshake. Steady eye contact. The perfect blend of warmth and professionalism that made you wonder if she’d rehearsed it or if she was simply constructed that way. “You earned it.”

“Thanks, Ava. I mean it.”

“I mean it too.” She adjusted the strap of her bag. “Castillo told me the deciding factor was the crisis exercise. Specifically, the way you deployed Mel on the lead story.”

I nodded. “She did the work.”

“She did. Because you saw she could.” Ava paused. A flicker of something crossed her face—honest, not bitter. “I would have written it myself. That’s the difference, isn’t it?”

I didn’t insult her by denying it.

“Maybe,” I said. “But your page was better designed. Your editorial was stronger. If this had been a writing competition, you would have won.”

“It wasn’t a writing competition.”

“No.”

She smiled. Small. Real. A little sad around the edges.

“I want to be managing editor,” she said. “If you’ll have me.”

I blinked. Whatever I’d expected from this conversation, an alliance wasn’t it.

“You want to work under me?”

“I want to work *with* you. There’s a difference.” She tilted her head. “You’re strong on instinct and people. I’m strong on systems and production. Together we’d be annoyingly effective.”

I studied her for a long moment.

“Managing editor,” I said. “Starting Monday.”

“Starting Monday.”

We shook hands again. This time it felt like something real.

---

That night I sat at my desk with my phone face-down and the October issue outline in front of me.

The outline was good. Strong lead feature on the district’s budget discrepancy. Opinion section on school lunch reform. Sports had the usual game recaps, which I’d already assigned to two reliable juniors.

But the sports section needed more.

Not just scores and standings that people could find faster on Eastlake Athletics T*****r. Something with depth. Something that would make people read the Ledger for the sports journalism rather than despite it.

An idea had been forming since the summer. Since the prospect feature. Since Castillo had called it a masterclass.

A series. Multi-part. Profiling local college hockey players during the season. Not just stats and scouting reports. The real stories. Pressure. Identity. The machinery of the draft and what it does to the humans inside it.

And there was only one school close enough to cover on a high school newspaper’s budget and schedule.

Dalton University.

Three hours north.

Where Chase Hartley was currently failing to return my texts.

I flipped the phone over. Nothing.

I turned it back. Opened the notes app. Started writing the pitch.

This was journalism. Not a rescue mission. Not a romantic subplot. Not an excuse to see the boy who’d taken up permanent residence in the part of my brain I used to reserve for ambition.

This was work.

And if the work happened to require regular access to the Dalton University hockey program, that was a logistical coincidence. Not a motive.

I wrote until midnight.

The pitch was fourteen paragraphs long. It was the best thing I’d written all week.

And it scared the hell out of me.

---

Castillo read the pitch in silence.

I sat across from his desk, hands folded in my lap, posture perfect, trying to project the calm competence of a person who had not rewritten the opening paragraph eleven times between midnight and two a.m.

He turned to the second page. Then the third. His coffee cooled beside him, untouched.

Finally he set the document down and looked at me over the rim of his glasses.

“You want to cover Dalton University hockey,” he said. Not a question.

“A four-part series. One profile per month, November through February. Local college prospects with legitimate NHL draft buzz. Behind-the-scenes access, game coverage, long-form interviews. The kind of reporting the Athletic does, but from a student perspective.”

“From a high school student perspective.”

“From a journalist’s perspective. The age of the journalist shouldn’t disqualify the quality of the work.”

He almost smiled. Almost.

“Dalton’s three hours away.”

“Two hours and forty-seven minutes. I’ve mapped it. Weekend games mostly, with some Friday night matchups I can catch if I leave after sixth period. I’ll file remotely. Edit on the drive back. The copy won’t suffer.”

“And the access?”

This was the part I’d prepared for. The part that required the steadiest voice.

“I already have a contact in the program,” I said. “My summer feature on a Dalton prospect ran on ChirpSportsNet. Their media relations office knows my name. I’ll apply for a student press credential through the athletics department.”

Castillo leaned back. “And before I approve this, is there any conflict I need to know about?”

I took a breath. “Yes. My father got married to Victoria Hartley."

He folded his arms. “Winters. Your stepbrother plays for Dalton.”

The word *stepbrother* landed like a stone in still water. I kept my face neutral.

“He does.”

“And the summer feature you published. That was him.”

“Yes.”

“So you’re pitching a series that would require regular access to a program where your own family member is the star player. And you don’t see the conflict of interest?”

I had anticipated this. Had spent an hour on the drive to school rehearsing the exact cadence of the response.

“The series isn’t about Chase. It’s about the program. Multiple players, multiple stories. If anything, the connection improves the access. Players talk more freely when they trust the reporter. And the summer feature proved I can write about someone I know without losing editorial distance.”

“Derek Paulson called that piece ‘uncomfortably close to the bone.’ His words.”

“Close to the bone is where the good stories live.”

Castillo studied me for a long, quiet moment. The kind of silence that made you aware of every tick of the clock and every creak of the ancient radiator.

“You know Ava pitched a series too,” he said.

My stomach tightened. “What kind of series?”

“Student athletes and mental health. Local colleges. Interviews, research, the whole package. She submitted it yesterday morning.” He picked up a second document from the stack beside him. “It’s good work.”

Of course it was.

“Both series can run,” I said carefully. “They’re complementary, not competing. Hers is the systemic view. Mine is the individual view. Together they’d make the sports section the strongest it’s been in years.”

Castillo was quiet again. Then he nodded. Once. Decisive.

“I’ll approve both. On conditions.” He held up one finger. “Ava manages her series independently. You manage yours. No overlap in sources or subjects without mutual agreement.” A second finger. “You disclose the family connection in a tagline on every piece you write about Dalton. Transparency, not secrecy.” A third finger. “And if at any point I feel the personal is bleeding into the professional, I pull the series. No appeals. No negotiation.”

“Understood.”

“Good.” He slid both pitches into a folder. “Now go tell Ava her series is approved. She’s been hovering outside the newsroom door for twelve minutes pretending to check her phone.”

---

Ava was, in fact, hovering.

She looked up when I pushed through the door, expression carefully arranged into polite disinterest that fooled neither of us.

“Both approved,” I said. “Your mental health series and my prospect profiles. Castillo wants us to coordinate on sources.”

Relief crossed her face before she could mask it. Then calculation.

“He told you about mine.”

“He did.”

“I submitted it before yours.”

“I know.”

A beat of silence. Then Ava did something I didn’t expect. She laughed—short, surprised, genuine.

“We’re going to be competing all year, aren’t we?” she said.

“Probably.”

“Good.” She tucked her phone into her bag. “Competition makes better journalism.”

We walked into the newsroom together. Side by side. Not friends, exactly. Not yet. But something adjacent to respect, which in a newsroom was worth more than friendship anyway.

Ethan was at the layout station, hunched over a proof, red pen in hand. He looked up when we entered and his face did something complicated. His eyes went to Ava first, a quick, assessing glance. Then to me. Where they stayed.

“Hey,” he said. To both of us, technically. But his body had turned toward me. Subtle. Unconscious. The kind of micro-shift you only noticed if you were trained to observe.

I was trained to observe.

So was Ava.

Her smile didn’t falter. But something behind it cooled by half a degree.

“Ethan,” she said, voice perfectly calibrated. “I need your notes on the layout template. Can you send them to me by fifth period?”

“Sure.” He was already looking at me again. “Sloane… I heard about the Dalton series. Eavesdropped actually." He smiled. "Um... that’s incredible. If you need anyone to help with game coverage logistics, I used to go to Dalton games with my brother. I know the campus.”

Something cold slithered through my stomach.

His brother.

I hadn’t made the connection until that moment. Reeves. Ethan Reeves. The thoughtful layout editor with the careful hands and the too-long hair. The one who always seemed to be wherever I was, asking questions that were just a little too personal for a colleague.

Tommy Reeves’s little brother.

The floor tilted slightly under my feet.

“Your brother played at Dalton?” I asked, keeping my voice steady through sheer force of will.

“Transferred to Michigan sophomore year,” Ethan said. “But yeah. I know the rink, the press box, the whole setup. Happy to help.”

His smile was open. Earnest. Nothing like Tommy’s. Tommy’s smile had been a weapon. Ethan’s was the opposite—unguarded. Almost vulnerable.

Ava watched the exchange from two desks away. Her pen had stopped moving.

“I’ll think about it,” I said to Ethan. “Thanks for the offer.”

“Anytime.” He held my gaze a beat too long. Then turned back to his proof.

I walked to my desk and sat down. Opened my laptop. Stared at the blank document.

Tommy Reeves’s brother wanted to help me cover his former team.

Ava, who clearly had something invested in Ethan’s attention, had just watched it redirect toward me.

And I was about to spend every other weekend at the school where my stepbrother played hockey, pretending our relationship was purely professional while carrying a conflict of interest the size of a Zamboni.

Senior year was supposed to be simple.

Nothing about this was simple.