Falling in Love + other Conditions of Living

Chapter 1

A/N: ATAR is the Australian Tertiary Admission Rank and is the criterion for entry into most undergraduate-entry university programs in Australia, it's used in every state except Queensland. So it's a pretty big deal..

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© kelliekook 

Rachel had known she wanted to be journalist since she was seven years old.

What had started out as a simple interest in her dad's morning paper all those years ago, almost at once became a life's passion. She'd always loved stories, but there was something even more appealing about ones that were real. 

It's no surprise then, that by the time Rachel was twelve she already had subscriptions to Time magazine and two national papers. Of which, four years later, she had published articles in all three of them.

If she was a romantic, Rachel probably would've said she'd fallen in love with writing — with journalism — and that nothing could take this love from her. Not then, not now, not ever.

But Rachel wasn't a romantic, she was a realist.

So as she sat patiently in the reception area of The Daily Sunshine Telegraph, awaiting feedback from her first submitted article, she couldn't help but feel as though she was perched on a delicate edge. One big gust of wind and splat — goodbye dreams.

She was nervous, good god, she was nervous. In all her life she'd never felt this anxious, not even when she was sitting in her bedroom and opening the letter that contained her ATAR results. She may have spent her entire high school education working for those results, but she'd spent almost her entire life working towards this. If things didn't work out...if they chose to reject her submission...

Rachel swallowed hard. No, nothing she'd previously experienced could possibly compare to the anxiety that gripped her now.

In an effort to preoccupy her mind, she began to fiddle with the hemline of her skirt, tugging at it with her perfectly shaped nails that she'd spent all summer growing and filing into the right shape. A complete waste of effort, she now realised. She shouldn't have invested all that time on something so trivial, she should have invested it on the article.

The article that determined the rest of her working life!

Rachel resisted the urge to beat herself with one of the trashy women's magazines on the coffee table beside her. 

"Miss West?" Rachel snapped to attention and looked up to see the receptionist smiling at her from behind her desk.

She stood. "Yes?"

The receptionist motioned for her to proceed down the hallway. "Mr. Denson will see you now. Down the end and to your left."

Rachel smiled in thanks and focused on walking her wobbly legs down the corridor and into the correct office.

Her hands were clammy and she wiped them on her skirt as she reached for the doorknob.

When she opened it she had to stifle a gasp.

She'd only met Mr. Denson once before in the HR department when they'd been interviewing candidates, it had been in a dull room with no windows and little decoration. His office — with it's floor to ceiling length windows, pristine white walls and gorgeous mahogany desk — was a stark contrast.

As she walked towards his desk, she couldn't help but be a little distracted by the brightly coloured painting that hung on the wall behind him. Although she was a sketcher herself, Rachel had always wished she could paint too. She'd never been able to work with colours very well, at least not like the artist who'd painted this couple walking in the rain.