After the Ink [PUBLISHED]

Chapter Eight

Tuesday morning goes by fairly quickly. I'm sitting in English with a knot in my stomach knowing I'll have to face Jacob and I'm still not ready. However, the newspaper needs to get done and I'm not going to let him stop me from finishing it. I'll focus on that and stand my ground.

I'm hesitant to leave when class ends. Dylan walks out with me and nudges my arm.

"Just do your best to ignore him," he tells me.

"I'm going to focus on the paper and nothing else," I nod. I inhale a deep breath when I see the classroom. "I can do this."

His eyes are on something behind me. "You better be. He's about to walk in."

I catch Jacob's eye before he walks into Mrs. Thomas' class. His eyes flutter between me and Dylan before he stalks off.

"He always looks so happy to see me," Dylan jokes. "I'm pretty sure I make his day."

I laugh. "Yeah, you put him in a real great mood."

"Well, I gotta get to class," he says. "You got this," he winks at me as he says it.

Rolling my eyes, I can't help but feel butterflies in my stomach. I'm not sure if they're caused by Dylan's wink, or by my nervousness to see Jacob. As I walk in, Sophie appears in front of me.

"Hey, we missed you yesterday," she says as her eyes brighten. "Luckily for you, I was done with all of my work so I worked on your stuff for a bit. It's not much, just a couple of pages."

I breathe a sigh of relief. "That's the best news I've heard all day. I really appreciate it."

"No problem," she shrugs. "My editing skills aren't as good as yours, so you'll probably have to fix a couple of things, but I tried."

"That's perfectly fine with me," I smile at her. "How much is left?"

She twists her face as she thinks about it. "Three pages, if I'm remembering correctly. And one more ad needs to be put in."

"One step closer to publishing this one," I hold up my hand and she gives me a high five. "You're a life saver, Sophie."

She smiles. "It's no big deal."

I make my way over to the computers in the back and sit down. Ignoring Jacob, who is in his usual spot next to me, I log in.

"Well, hello to you too," Jacob says. He's looking at his computer screen instead of me.

Will and Vicky are sitting down and I smile at them. "Hey guys." Dismissing Jacob will only make him angrier, and I'm hoping if I make him mad enough he won't want to talk to me at all.

Will looks at me strangely. "Hey, Lacey."

"Ha-ha, very funny," Jacob says behind me. "Why are you ignoring me?"

"I don't want to talk about it, so let's just get to work," I say. I open my files and find the pages Sophie formatted for me.

Jacob actually listens to me for once and stays silent. I finish the pages Sophie didn't get to before formatting the pages Will did. Once I have everything done, I scroll through one last time before emailing it to Mrs. Thomas.

"So, what now?" Will asks me.

"Now we wait for Mrs. Thomas to proofread it and if everything is good, then we send it off to the printers and we get the hard copies," I explain. I'm excited to see it all come together, especially since it's my turn being senior editor.

At the end of class, I pick up my things and start to follow everyone out of class. I try to rush out of there before Jacob tries to talk to me, but he catches my arm and tugs me back.