Four
The piece ran at ten.
Savannah watched it from the newsroom, standing behind the producer’s desk while Jamie led into the story. On screen, the footage cut clean: her questions, Tilly’s shots, the perfect balance of confrontation and control. The kind of segment that hit right where it needed to.
For once, she didn’t fidget. Didn’t hover over the playback, didn’t second-guess the b-roll or her tone or whether she’d smiled too much on the stand-up. She just watched.
When her closer hit, she knew. It was good — really good. The kind of good you felt in your chest before anyone said it out loud.
Phones started ringing at the assignment desk before the segment even finished. Someone yelled, ‘Line three’s a viewer!’ over the hum of the scanners. A couple of the younger producers high-fived, and one of the anchors leaned around a monitor to give her a small, impressed nod.
She tried not to smile too widely.
The viewer calls kept coming, and a congratulatory email from Aimee hit her inbox before the credits rolled. Someone tossed her a ‘Nice work, Wells’ as they passed by.
She’d been at WDTV three days. Three. And her story was already trending locally on X and in the Metro feed. The clip had a caption someone else wrote: Reporter grills developer over housing delay — refuses to back down. Comments used words like ‘fearless’ and ‘refreshing.’
It felt good. It felt earned.
She stayed a few minutes after everyone else drifted off to the overnight shift, pretending to finish notes but really just watching the newsroom settle — monitors dimming, scanners chattering into the night.
Her name in the rundown looked almost out of place next to the station regulars. She liked that.
Across the newsroom, Tilly watched the same playback in silence from the edit bay. When it ended, they didn’t say a word. Just logged the footage, closed the project file, and walked out.
She told herself she wasn’t looking for their reaction — she was too busy pretending not to glow under the attention — but she still found her gaze drifting toward the edit bay anyway.
Like it mattered more than it should have.
Tilly wasn’t smiling, wasn’t celebrating, wasn’t doing anything except shutting down the monitors like the piece was nothing special.
It bothered her more than she wanted it to.
More than the viewer calls. More than Aimee’s email. More than any of it.
Not because she needed their approval — she didn’t — but because the story had worked, and they were a part of that. The segment had her face and her voice, but she knew the clean snap of it, the tension, the punch, had come from the way Tilly framed her questions.
She waited for… something. A nod. A look. A tiny acknowledgment.
Something that felt like it was meant for her.
Nothing.
Savannah noticed. Of course, she noticed.
* * *
By morning, the buzz had spread. Someone printed the analytics sheet and taped it to the whiteboard like a trophy. #WDTVHousingProbe was still climbing. A couple of people were already joking about her “ten-o’clock takeover.”
When she walked in, the newsroom burst into half-playful applause. Chairs squeaked, and someone banged a pen on the desk like a drumroll.
Harper whistled. “Look at our new star.”
Savannah raised both hands in mock surrender. “It was just a good night.”
“Don’t be modest,” Harper said. “You saved us from another city council recap.”
Aimee called her into the glass office before she could even set down her bag. “That was strong work, Wells. Exactly the kind of edge we’ve been missing. Keep it up.”
“Thank you,” Savannah said, careful to sound level, like she was used to that kind of praise.
“Seriously,” Aimee added. “That kind of tenacity gets noticed.”
Out in the bullpen, Tilly was prepping for the next shoot, headphones around their neck, expression unreadable. Savannah caught their eye through the glass, ready for something — a smirk, maybe even a reluctant nod.
Something that said they’d seen her.
Nothing.
The laughter from Harper’s desk filled the space between them. Savannah adjusted the strap on her bag and told herself it didn’t matter. But it did.
When she stepped out of Aimee’s office, Tilly was packing up near the gear room. Savannah hesitated, then crossed over before she could talk herself out of it.
“Hey,” she said.
Tilly looked up, one brow raised. “Hey.”
Savannah shifted her weight, trying to land somewhere between friendly and confident. “I watched the edit again this morning. It cut really smoothly.”
“Yeah.”
“You made it work.”
Tilly’s mouth twitched — not quite a smile, not quite not. “That so?”
“Guess we make a decent team,” she said, lighter than she felt.
Tilly slung the camera bag over their shoulder. “You got the views. I just rolled.”
The jab landed sharper than she expected. “That’s one way to say thank you,” Savannah said before she could stop herself — sharper than she meant.
Like she cared.
Tilly paused in the doorway. “I thought you were the one saying it.”
Savannah blinked. “Wait—no, that’s not what I meant.”
But Tilly was already moving. Savannah caught the strap of her bag, hesitated, then followed a few steps into the hallway. “Hey, I meant it. About the edit. You’re good at what you do.”
Tilly didn’t slow. “Appreciate it.”
It wasn’t cold, just final.
Which somehow felt worse.
Savannah stopped where the hall bent toward the side exit, hands shoved into her pockets. She could still hear the hum of the newsroom behind her, the faint echo of her name being said somewhere she couldn’t quite reach.
She’d meant to sound grateful. Somehow, she’d still managed to sound like herself instead — and watched the moment slip before she could fix it.
* * *
Her apartment was spotless.
Not cozy — just clean. Every corner lined up, every surface clear. The couch looked like no one had ever sat on it, and the candle on the coffee table had a layer of dust she pretended not to notice.
Savannah kicked off her heels at the door, lined them up beside the others, and stood for a second in the quiet. The air felt still, like it was waiting for her to mess it up. She dropped her bag on the counter, then immediately straightened the strap. The act was automatic.
She opened her phone, checked her mentions again, and told herself she’d eat later.
The fridge hummed softly. She poured a glass of wine she didn’t really want and carried it to the couch, scrolling until the buzz from earlier started to flatten into background noise.
Her story was still trending. People she’d never met were quoting her questions, tagging her by name.
One local blog had already written a piece about “the new face shaking up City Hall.”
She should’ve felt proud. She’d done everything right.
Instead, she felt the same thing she always did once the adrenaline wore off — the hollow between wins, the silence after applause.
She looked around her apartment: white walls, chrome fixtures, perfect symmetry. Nothing out of place. Nothing that looked like her.
A candle stayed unlit.
She told herself she was too tired to cook, that she’d order in later, but she didn’t. She just sat there, watching the reflection of the TV on the glass table, until the wine went warm and the city outside went quiet.