Twenty Four
Savannah told herself she was fine.
She repeated it every time she inhaled.
Every time she typed.
Every time someone walked past her desk, she flinched like she’d been caught doing something wrong.
She wasn’t fine.
She’d known that since the car ride.
The newsroom buzzed around her in that late-afternoon way where everyone was half tired and half wired. She tried to drown herself in the noise. Tried to let the phones ringing and printers humming bury whatever was clawing at her ribs.
It didn’t work.
Nothing worked.
She’d barely made it through logging her script before something in the back hallway caught her attention. A laugh. Familiar. Warm. Rough around the edges.
Tilly.
Savannah’s heart kicked hard and stupidly.
She didn’t turn her head. She didn’t have to. She knew that laugh too well now. Had felt it against her mouth. Had heard it in the truck, soft and close and nothing like the way they sounded now.
Happy.
Relaxed.
Talking to someone else.
Savannah’s fingers tightened around her mouse until her knuckles hurt. She forced her eyes onto her screen, but her ears wouldn’t cooperate. She could hear the cadence of Tilly’s voice, that easy steadiness they didn’t use with her anymore.
Someone else got it.
Not her.
Her throat closed tight.
She clicked the timeline in her edit project too fast, dragging a clip three frames off sync without meaning to. The audio clicked wrong. Savannah’s frustration snapped.
“Come on,” she muttered, slamming the space bar. “Why can’t anything work today?”
The system lagged. A red error popped up.
And that was it.
“Are you kidding me?” she snapped under her breath, shoving her chair back too hard. Her knee hit the underside of the desk. Pain shot up her leg.
Perfect.
Great.
Why not.
Harper appeared beside her like she’d teleported. Savannah didn’t know how she did that. “Okay. What was that?”
“Nothing.”
“That was not nothing.”
Savannah kept her eyes on her screen even though the text was blurring. “I’m working.”
“Savannah. You’re shaking.”
Savannah froze. “No I’m not.”
“Yes, you are.”
Her chest stuttered.
Harper lowered her voice. “This is about Franklin.”
“No,” Savannah said instantly.
“Savannah.”
“It’s not,” she insisted, even though her voice cracked on the last word. Humiliating. She swallowed hard, cheeks heating. “It’s not. I don’t care.”
Harper’s gaze softened in that infuriating way she did when she wasn’t buying a single word. “You do.”
Savannah pushed her chair back again, this time slower, more controlled. “I need air.”
“You need to talk.”
“No,” Savannah said, grabbing her bag. “I need to go home before I say something stupid.”
“You can’t avoid them forever.”
“Watch me.”
Harper stepped in front of her. “Savannah.”
Savannah blinked, vision blurring for a second, she prayed Harper didn’t notice. “Please move.”
Harper studied her for a long beat. “Savannah, this isn’t you.”
Savannah’s head snapped up. “You don’t know me.”
Harper blinked, taken aback. “I know you better than you think.”
“No,” Savannah said, voice tight and shaking with fury she didn’t want to examine. “You know the version of me that’s convenient. You don’t know anything else.”
“Sav—”
“Move,” Savannah said, louder this time.
Harper stepped aside slowly, hands raised in reluctant surrender.
Savannah didn’t wait. She walked fast, head down, keeping her eyes fixed on the exit so she wouldn’t accidentally collide with Tilly in the hallway.
She yanked one glove off as she pushed through the side door, fingers too hot, too restless. It slipped from her grip and landed somewhere near the lockers. She kept moving, already digging for her keys, already trying to outrun the pressure in her chest.
She made it outside.
Cold wind slapped her cheeks.
Her eyes stung.
Her throat ached.
She didn’t cry. She refused.
She opened the car door and sat behind the wheel, gripping it until her fingers went numb.
Her breathing wouldn’t settle.
In through her nose.
Out through her mouth.
Again.
This was manageable.
It had to be.
The dashboard clock ticked forward one minute at a time. Each second felt louder than the last.
Savannah pressed her forehead briefly against the cold leather of the wheel and shut her eyes.
Focus.
Drive.
Get home.
She started the engine.
The drive home felt longer than usual. Every red light stretched. Every slow car in front of her made her jaw clench. Her chest felt too tight for her body. Her nails dug crescents into the steering wheel.
By the time she pulled into her apartment lot, her hands were shaking again.
She killed the engine and sat there, breathing hard. She tried to talk herself down, tried to swallow the heat crawling up her throat, but something inside her was already cracking under its own weight.
She went inside.
Shut the door.
Locked it.
Dropped her bag on the floor, where it fell sideways.
The quiet was wrong.
Too empty.
Too much space for her thoughts to echo.
Her coat hit the back of the couch and slid to the floor. She kicked her shoes halfway across the living room. The first one hit the wall with a thud. The second bounced off the side of the table.
None of it helped.
Savannah grabbed a stack of mail off the counter. Useless flyers. Credit card offers. She slammed them down again hard enough to scatter envelopes across the floor.
Still not enough.
She slammed the fridge shut when she opened it and realized she didn’t want anything inside. She slammed the cabinet after reaching for a glass and pulling her hand back like it had burned her.
The apartment absorbed all of it without complaint.
She dragged both hands through her hair and paced the length of the kitchen.
Too fast. Too tight. Too much noise in her head.
This was ridiculous.
It was work.
It was just work.
Her chest didn’t believe her.
She stopped at the counter and braced her palms against the surface, breathing hard, trying to force her pulse to slow.
Get it together.
Why did she care this much?
Why did it matter that Tilly laughed with someone else?
Why did it hurt that Tilly couldn’t look at her?
Why did the whole day feel like a bruise she couldn’t stop pressing?
She reached for her phone on the counter.
Her thumb hovered over Alana’s name.
For one tiny second, Savannah imagined it.
Her sister picking up.
Asking what was wrong.
Telling her to breathe.
Telling her to come home for the weekend.
And then reality hit just as fast.
Alana wouldn’t get it.
She would not understand the storm in Savannah’s chest.
She would tell Savannah to focus on work, or to give it time, or that it wasn’t a big deal.
She couldn’t talk about this without sounding unhinged.
Savannah locked her phone and tossed it onto the couch like it had offended her.
Her chest tightened again. She pressed a hand over her sternum like she could hold herself together by force alone.
But her eyes burned.
And she couldn’t stop the hollow ache tearing through her.
She slid down the side of the counter until she was sitting on the floor, legs pulled in, forehead pressed to her knees.
She didn’t cry.
Not really.
Just a few hot, angry tears she wiped away fast enough to pretend they never fell.
Then she sat there in the quiet of her apartment, breathing hard, feeling the last of her anger burn down into exhaustion.
For the first time all day, she let the truth settle.
She wasn’t mad because Tilly hurt her.
She was mad because she cared.
And that was so much worse.