Read Online Diplomatic Immunity by Brodi Ashton - Free Book Online

networks do it.”
    â€œI’m teaching students to be better than what’s out there now.”
    I forced a smile. “Okay.”
    â€œOkay. Keep up the good work.”
    I left the newsroom to get the afternoon edition of the Washington Post at the front office. As I walked back to class, I lookedat the stories from the first few pages. All of them could’ve been written by numerous reporters. How was someone like me—a scholarship student who had only just started at Chiswick—supposed to find a story only I could write here?
    For a moment, I had the fleeting thought that maybe I should just go back to Clarendon High, where I could stick out. Where I had a real shot at being the best.
    That’s where my head was at when I ran into Raf in the hallway.
    I guess I was wearing my frustration on my face, because when he saw me, he said, “Hey, Pip. What’s the matter?”
    I sighed. “You wouldn’t understand.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œBecause you duct-tape cheerleaders to walls and dance the flamenco in lunchrooms, and you’ve never had to worry about paying for a thing.” I shook my head. “You do not know what real life is.”
    â€œSure I do,” he said with a smile.
    â€œNo. You sit on the top of your marble staircase, with your maids and your chauffeurs and your dad who gets you out of every bind you’ve been in, and your diplomatic immunity, and you look at the commoners like me, and my used car, and my money worries . . . you look at us with an unaffected curiosity.”
    He rocked back on his heels a bit. “Wow, Pip. Don’t stop there. Tell me more.”
    I knew I should stop, but I couldn’t. I was too frustrated.And I was high up on my soapbox. “If you keep going like this, you won’t be able to face any struggles in life, and . . . without struggle, you won’t know the feeling of . . . overcoming struggle.” This was all sounding better in my head. I wasn’t yelling, but I sounded a bit manic, even to my ears. “And overcoming struggle is a really good feeling. Believe me. Also, if you limit your circle of friends to only those with trust funds, you’ll miss out on life. Because real life happens with the peasants.” Did I just use the word “peasants”?
    â€œI know peasants,” he said with a smug grin.
    I frowned. “You don’t even know where they sit in the lunchroom.”
    He went quiet.
    â€œI’m sorry,” I said. “I had a bad day . . . week . . . month, and I took it out on you.”
    â€œNo one’s ever spoken to me like that,” he said. His lips curved upward.
    â€œBecause you’re surrounded by yes-men who are too scared to tell you no.”
    He stared at me for a few moments, silent again.
    â€œOkay, well, I have to go. I have a job.” It wasn’t my paying job at the Yogurt Shop. It was in the newsroom, but I didn’t tell him that.
    He grabbed my arm. “Tell me more. I can take it.”
    â€œGet someone else to tell you.”
    â€œBut it will mean more coming from a peasant.”
    I shook my head. “No. You don’t want to hear more.” I shook my arm free and walked away, irked.
    Irked. Rafael Amador irked me. No peasant wanted to hear they were a peasant. Even if I had used the term first. It was bad form.
    I went back to the newsroom, where Mack was working on the layout of the paper. I peeked over her shoulder and saw the picture of Raf and the dancer on page one. One!
    Normally, I loved being above the fold, but a spoiled boy’s birthday bash did not warrant above-the-fold treatment.
    Suddenly, Raf and his richness and his entitlement and his no-need-for-scholarship money and his quick comebacks didn’t feel like a random problem. It felt like a personal attack. Like he embodied the complete injustice of my situation.
    I turned to my computer and impulsively tried out a headline.
    THE