Chapter Eleven
TALLY
The light in the penthouse was too pretty for editing photos, but there I was, doing exactly that.
Every click of my trackpad sounded accusatory, the light dancing across the tops of my hands as I moved the specs around, taunting me to stop what I was doing and lift the camera, for God’s sake.
Nancy Reagan snored beside me on the couch—dead center on one of Doyle’s poached cashmere sweaters, probably getting the stench of corn chips embedded in the deep, woven fabric.
“Oh well,” I shrugged, moving on to the next round of edits.
The fundraiser photos came out better than I could have imagined—Magnolia mid-laugh, Eunice glowing beside her husband, Jordan and Doyle in their usual, unbothered bliss. And Charlie—no. I’d cropped him out of most of them. Not out of spite. Just self-preservation disguised as composition.
My phone buzzed, and Dig’s face filled the screen, too close and upside down. He was wearing a sheet mask and what I think was a towel turban. The man commits to skincare like it’s a religion.
“Tell me you’re alive and hydrated,” he said through bites of what looked like cereal in a coffee mug. “And please say you’re not editing in 200% zoom again because that way lies madness.”
“Hi to you, too,” I said, propping the phone against a candle. “And these pores aren’t going to edit themselves.”
Dig blinked slowly. “Those are pixels, babe.”
“Semantics.”
He shifted, which in Dig language meant he was settling in for A Talk. “Okay. Give me the status report. You are currently in Savannah, the city of historic architecture and unresolved feelings. Have you kissed the carpenter yet?”
“Absolutely not. Also he’s an artist, he’s not a carpenter.”
“Tomato, tomahto, he looks like he can lift a house. What happened after the fundraiser? I heard you two were giving smolder and a half.”
“I haven’t seen him,” I shrugged. “Not since that night. Also, where are you getting this information from?” I scanned the room looking for cameras Dig might have planted on his last trip. I truly would not put it past him.
Dig paused, the cereal spoon hovering midair. “Excuse me? And Tally, what do I always tell you?”
I sighed as we both announced, in unison, “Don’t question my methods.”
“Good girl. So where has the carpenter been? Girl, if you’re going for slow burn, we are fried as hell over here.”
“He’s been… busy?” I tried, not correcting him again. “And I’ve been working. And then every time we’re in the same room, it’s like—” I made a gesture that could have been fireworks or indigestion. “Moments. Plural. Then nothing.”
“Moments,” Dig repeated flatly. “Did we make eye contact for longer than three seconds? Did a hand graze occur? Was there a meaningful silence longer than a Vine?”
“First of all, you’re ancient. Second, yes to all of the above.”
“And he hasn’t called?”
“I mean he texted. Once. ‘Great job at the fundraiser’ with two clapping emojis, which is either wholesome or deranged, I can’t decide.” I pulled my cardigan tight around me. “I feel like I’m fourteen again and refreshing AOL for away messages.”
“Sweetheart, if his emotional availability were a beverage, it would be room-temperature seltzer,” Dig said. “Flat, vaguely apologetic, and somehow still disappointing.”
I laughed, which came out more like a hiccup. “I keep thinking I made it up. The… whatever it was.”
“You didn’t make it up,” Dig said, voice gentler. “You are many things—dramatic, talented, chronically dressed like a tragic bohemian witch—but delusional is not one of them. From what I heard, the man stared at you like you’d invented light.”
I pressed my fingertips to my temple. “Then why do they always disappear?”
“Because men are obsessed with the conquest. The second you’re actually available? Crickets. It’s like their dick and their feelings can’t be in the same room.”
“I’m guessing this is coming less from a place of love and more from your newest situationship ghosting you." I quipped.
“Obviously,” he said. “But also—look at me.” He leaned so close I could count every one of his eyelashes peeking through his face mask.
“Sometimes people back away because they care more than they know how to. Sometimes they back away because they don’t.
You’ll figure out which one he is. Either way, you’re fine. ”
I swallowed. “I hate that you’re right.”
“I know. It’s my curse.”
We sat in the shared quiet you only get with the person who’s seen you ugly-cry into a martini. Savannah’s afternoon light slanted across the floor, turning Nancy Reagan’s fur into a halo.
“Oh—before I forget,” Dig said, digging around off-camera. “I’ve been meaning to tell you. I ran into that human khaki pant at McGreevy’s.”
A cold pinprick walked down my spine. “What?”
“Nick,” he clarified, then winced. “Sorry. I should’ve opened softer. He was having drinks with a bunch of his bros. I may have… gently introduced my fist to his face.”
“You punched him?” I sat up so fast the phone dipped, giving Dig an accidental tour of the guestroom ceiling and probably whatever was up my nostrils. “Diego!”
“Lightly!” He held up his hand. “As someone who has had several plastic surgery visits, you never know whose nose cost more than a Ferrari.” He shrugged.
“Anyway, he was asking about you. He’d heard a rumor—don’t ask me from where because I protect your secrets like the Holy Grail—and wanted to know if you were in Savannah and if you were, quote, ‘okay’. Which is rich.”
My skin went too hot and then too cold. “And you didn’t think to tell me when it happened?”
Dig’s mouth softened. “I didn’t want to put him in your head if he wasn’t going to be in your life. He doesn’t deserve rent-free space. But. If he shows up—call me. Or text the avocado emoji, we’ll make it a code.”
I exhaled, long and uneven. “Okay.”
“You okay?”
“No,” I said honestly. “But also… maybe.”
He smiled. “There she is.”
We stayed a little longer, talking about nothing and everything: Sutton’s drama at the catering company, Magnolia’s latest verbal takedown of a board member who thought “content creator” meant “girl with ring light,” the way my mother’s voice still lived in the corners of my brain like black mold.
I was telling their stories like they belonged to me.
Like I belonged to them. Finally Dig checked his watch and made a face.
“Go take pictures,” he said. “You’re hotter when you’re looking at beautiful things.”
“Bossy.”
“Gorgeous,” he winked.
We hung up and the apartment fell back into its expensive hush. On the black screen, my reflection looked like a woman I almost recognized—tired, sure. But still standing.
I closed the laptop and sat there for a minute, palms heavy on my knees.
Charlie’s face tried to walk into my head and I pushed it away.
I thought about patterns. About running and holding and letting go.
About how many times I’d mistaken momentum for meaning.
About how a man could look at you like a promise and then forget your name when the lights came back on.
I also thought about the night of the fundraiser—the way Charlie had hovered a breath behind me without touching me, the way my body had known he was there before my brain caught up. How safe I’d felt with him nearby.
But safe is different than saved. And I was very tired of waiting to be rescued from a life I had built myself.
“Okay,” I told the room, and possibly the hidden cameras I still wasn’t convinced weren’t planted. “New plan.”
Nancy Reagan blinked one eye, unimpressed.
I slung my camera over my shoulder, jammed my feet into sneakers without untying them like a complete menace to society, and grabbed a granola bar that tasted like sugared cardboard.
In the lobby, Hoyt asked if I was “headed out to make some magic,” which feels like a thing men say when they want to be supportive but also have no idea what you do for a living. I smiled anyway.
Outside, the air had that clean-edged chill Savannah gets right before sunset—cool enough to pretend it’s winter, warm enough to call yourself dramatic for pretending. The river breathed. Tourists argued with map apps. Somewhere a street musician was in a committed relationship with “Stand by Me.”
I started toward the water and let my camera find its way into my hands. The first few shots are always bad on purpose, like stretches before a run. A lamppost with a halo of gnats. The curve of a cast-iron balcony. A forgotten ribbon caught in a live oak.
The city gave me back my eye in increments.
A woman fixing her lipstick in a storefront reflection, not looking at herself so much as gathering.
A boy teaching his little sister how to skip stones and almost hurling his whole body into the river, causing a complete chaotic tumble with the supervising adults.
Two men sharing a carton of fries on a bench, the comfortable quiet of people who have known each other for a lifetime.
I found a sliver of light leaning across the cobblestones and stood in it until I warmed. I took a photo of my shoes and laughed at myself. I let my shoulders drop. The noise in my head dialed down from football stadium to coffee shop.
At the railing, the river shrugged by, heavy and full of life. I focused on the shimmer where the current folded over itself and clicked three times, then checked the screen. The exposures were a hair dark. I adjusted, tried again. Better.
A couple wandered into frame and didn’t notice me, which is how I like it—her elbow hooked through his like it was a promise they knew how to keep.
I caught them in the corner of the shot and didn’t hate the ache that rose in my throat.
It meant I was still here. It meant I still wanted what I’d always wanted.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. For a second my whole stupid body hoped. I glanced down.
Dig: Remember: avocado emoji if the gremlin appears.
I sent back a middle finger emoji. He replied with a bicep and a tiny boxing glove.
“Okay,” I told the river. “I’ve got me.”
The wind flipped my scarf into my face. I tightened it and lifted the camera again. The water. The lights. The long bruise of sky. Somewhere behind it all, men were making choices that would ripple through my life without ever asking first.
I could choose this. I pressed the shutter and felt, for the first time all day, like I hadn’t been left behind. The camera clicked again. And again. And again.