Twenty Two
By day two, the snow had started melting into gray slush, and Savannah’s nerves felt the same. Wet. Heavy. Cold around the edges. Unsettled in a way she couldn’t shake. She pushed through the newsroom doors like she meant to break them.
Everyone else looked tired from the storm cycle, but she looked tired for other reasons.
The kind you didn’t say out loud. The kind that pressed into the base of your skull and made your shoulders sit too high.
She hadn’t slept more than a few hours, and she didn’t need a mirror to know she looked it.
Her chest still felt scraped raw from yesterday.
But none of that mattered, because the second she stepped inside and saw Tilly across the room, something in her snapped tight and hot.
They were in the gear room again, talking quietly with Andrew.
Same steady face. Same calm stance. Like they had slept just fine.
Like nothing had happened in that damn truck two nights ago.
They didn’t look her way. They didn’t even shift.
Savannah set her jaw so hard it hurt. Fine. If they wanted to act like she was invisible, she could disappear even faster.
She walked straight to her desk, heels punching the floor harder than necessary. A producer glanced up at the sound. Savannah ignored him. Harper fell into step beside her, already staring like she knew something was off.
“You look…” Harper started.
“Don’t.”
“Okay. You look ‘don’t.’”
Savannah turned her monitor on with a little too much force. “I’m working.”
Harper crossed her arms. “You always work. You don’t usually look like you want to set someone on fire while doing it.”
“I’m fine.”
“That’s a lie.”
“I’m busy.”
“That’s also a lie.”
Savannah exhaled sharply. “Harper.”
Harper lowered her voice. “Is this about Franklin?”
Savannah’s pulse stuttered, then surged. “No.”
“You just nearly punched the keyboard when I said their name.”
Savannah gave a cold little smile she didn’t feel. “Then maybe don’t say their name.”
“Ah,” Harper said softly. “So it is about Franklin.”
Savannah opened an email and stared at the text without reading a single word. “I’m not talking about this.”
“Because you’ll cry or because you’ll scream?”
Savannah’s jaw tightened. “Neither.”
“Right.” Harper’s eyebrow flicked up.
Savannah pretended to type something. Anything. Her fingers hovered uselessly over the keys.
Two days since the kiss. One day, since Tilly wouldn’t look at her. Zero hours since Savannah decided she was done caring.
If they wanted distance, she would drown them in it.
She clicked into another tab. Then another. Then another. Her reflection stared back faintly in the monitor. Eyes sharp. Mouth tight. Something quietly breaking behind both.
She swallowed it down. She could hold this line. She could be ice. She had done it before. And if it hurt this time, that wasn’t anyone’s problem but hers.
Savannah tried to focus on her script. She really did. But every sentence she wrote turned into the wrong words. Every headline blurred. Every email felt like a mosquito whining in her ear. Her skin itched with restlessness. She tapped her pen. She stopped. She did it again.
The newsroom felt crowded even though it wasn’t. Too many voices, too many lights, too many people with absolutely nothing to do with what she was trying so hard not to think about. Her eyes flicked to the far hallway before she could stop them.
Tilly was there. Just for a second. Just walking past.
They didn’t look at her. Why would they? They were so good at not looking.
Savannah snapped her gaze back to her monitor.
Her heart was beating too fast for how still she was sitting.
Savannah’s throat tightened, the anger wobbling under the weight of something softer.
She hated that part of herself, the part that wanted too deeply and too quietly, the part that cracked open without permission.
She wasn’t built for casual. She wasn’t built for almost. She wasn’t built for reaching toward someone unless she believed — truly believed — they would reach back.
She’d made that mistake once before.
It had been Providence — a different newsroom, a different desk, a different version of herself who still believed effort could substitute for certainty.
There had been a producer she trusted, someone older, steadier, who’d gone out of their way to mentor her.
Late nights. Shared jokes. The quiet kind of closeness that felt earned instead of risky.
Savannah had told herself it was professional. That it had meant nothing.
Until the night she stayed late to help cut a package that wasn’t hers.
Until the drinks afterward, which turned into talking too long in the empty bar.
Until she said something — not a confession, not even a question — just enough to make the air change.
She still remembered the look on his face. Not angry. Not cruel. Just startled. Careful. Like she’d misstepped onto a floor that wasn’t meant to hold her weight.
The next morning, everything was fine.
That had been the worst part.
He kept things polite. Professional. Distant in a way no one else noticed. The extra check-ins stopped. The easy shorthand disappeared. When her name came up in meetings, he went quiet. When promotions were discussed, she wasn’t mentioned.
No one said she’d done anything wrong.
No one had to.
Savannah learned the lesson fast: reaching without certainty didn’t just hurt — it cost her ground. Credibility. Space she’d worked for. And the only way to survive it was to shut the feeling down so completely it couldn’t leave a mark.
She’d iced him out before he could do it to her.
She’d told herself it was maturity.
It had worked. Until it didn’t.
But she had reached for Tilly. Just for a second. Just long enough to lose her balance. Now she was convinced she had misread everything. That the moment in the truck had belonged to her alone. And that truth sat in her chest like a bruise she couldn’t stop pressing.
Harper reappeared at her desk like summoned by bad vibes. “You still look angry,” she announced helpfully.
“Congratulations,” Savannah said without looking up.
“You also look like you’re about to walk into traffic.”
“I am not.”
“You’re vibrating.”
Savannah set her pen down carefully so she didn’t snap it in half. “Can you please go away?”
Harper leaned a hip against the desk. “No.”
Savannah let her head fall back for one long, silent second. “Why?”
“Because whatever storm cloud is sitting on top of you is starting to spit lightning. And because you only get like this over one person.”
Savannah shot her a look sharp enough to kill a small plant. “Harper.”
“Oh, good,” Harper said. “We are officially at the threatening stage.”
Savannah stood fast, pushing her chair back. “I need coffee.”
“That’s a lie,” Harper said, following her anyway. “You hate coffee.”
Savannah almost tripped. “I do not hate coffee.”
“You hate the coffee here.”
“I hate you.”
“That feels inaccurate,” Harper said, breezing after her.
Savannah beelined to the break room because it was the only place she could go without getting assigned to a live shot she wasn’t emotionally capable of surviving. She pulled a K-cup from the bowl harder than necessary, shoved it into the machine, and jabbed the button.
The machine whirred loudly. Too loudly. It grated in her skull.
Harper crossed her arms and watched her. “So. Are you going to talk to them?”
“No.”
“That was very fast.”
Savannah kept her voice flat. “I am not talking to someone who refuses to even look at me.”
“Have you considered that maybe they’re avoiding looking at you because they’re trying not to die inside?” Harper asked.
“No.”
“But you should.”
“I am not doing this.”
“You are definitely doing this.”
Savannah spun toward her. “I am working. I am minding my business. I am perfectly fine.”
“Savannah.”
Her breath stuttered. She hated that. She hated that Harper could see it. She hated that she wasn’t fine. She hated that she could still feel the shape of Tilly’s hand on her coat.
She grabbed her coffee even though it burned her fingers. “Drop it.”
“No,” Harper said gently.
Savannah froze. For a second, she thought she might cry. Then the moment passed and was replaced by heat. Anger. Sharp, bright, and easier to hold.
“Franklin made it clear,” Savannah said, her voice tight. “Nothing happened. Nothing is happening. So I am going to match that energy.”
Harper opened her mouth. Then closed it. Then sighed. “You are going to hate that.”
“I do not care.”
“You really do.”
Savannah pushed past her, coffee sloshing dangerously close to the rim, and walked straight back to her desk.
She sat. She stared at her screen. She refused to look left toward the hallway. She refused to care where Tilly was. She refused to need anything.
But her jaw hurt from clenching. Her chest felt too small. Her hands shook faintly on the keyboard.
Harper was right. She was crawling out of her skin.
She typed three words. Deleted them. Typed two more. Deleted those too.
Then Henry’s voice cracked across the newsroom.
“Savannah. Franklin. I want you two together for the six hit.”
Savannah’s stomach dropped so fast she felt it behind her knees. The entire newsroom seemed to tilt. Or maybe that was just her heart.
She didn’t turn. She didn’t breathe. She just said, “Okay,” even though she wanted to scream.
A chair scraped across the room. Tilly’s.
Her pulse pounded.
This was going to be a disaster. A slow, quiet, professional disaster, she had no idea how to survive.