Chapter 37
Thirty Seven
Two days after the slip, the apartment was too quiet. Erin moved through it like she was trying not to wake something. Coffee went cold on the table. Leo followed her from room to room, nails clicking across the floor, then settled with a sigh whenever she finally stopped.
The table by the door was bare now. Her badge, radio, and notebook had all been surrendered when she left the station. The space looked wrong without them — too neat, too still. She kept catching herself glancing over, the way a phantom ache reminded you where something used to be.
She could still hear the captain’s voice in that small conference room, the careful tone from HR, the pauses to make sure she understood. Two weeks off. Reprimand in her file. Review of media protocols. She had nodded until her neck locked. She said she understood. She’d said nothing else.
The TV murmured with the morning show she always kept on. She didn’t watch it. She watched the light move across her living room as the sun climbed then faded. At some point she muted the sound and left the closed captions running. The emptiness of the words felt easier than the noise.
Her phone stayed facedown on the coffee table. She kept it on in case the department called — that was the rule she gave herself. It wasn’t for anyone else. It wasn’t for Jamie.
It buzzed anyway. Once. Twice. Then again.
She didn’t have to turn it over to know who it was.
The pattern was familiar. Late night. Early morning.
Midday, when Jamie might be between hits.
Erin could picture her pacing the newsroom, phone in hand, thumb hovering as she tried to find a new way to say the same thing.
Please. Can we talk. I’m sorry. Are you okay.
Erin closed her eyes and heard the word that started all of this — the one that leaped out of her mouth before she could pull it back.
She had watched it land, watched Jamie’s face change, watched herself reach and ask for something she had no right to ask for.
Now the phone buzzed and buzzed, and Erin let every message sit on delivered.
It felt cruel. It also felt like the only choice she could trust herself to make.
She put on running shoes and then didn’t go outside.
Leo stared up at her, head tilted. She clipped the leash on anyway and took him down the stairs.
They made it half a block before she stopped.
The air was sharp. The city sounded too bright.
Leo nosed at a patch of grass and looked back, ready to keep going.
Erin turned them around and headed home.
Inside, she fed him, scrolled through a grocery list she didn’t complete, and opened her laptop.
Case files lined the desktop. She clicked one, stared at the first page, and read the same three sentences five times without absorbing a word.
She closed it. She told herself she was reviewing.
She told herself this was what staying ready looked like.
She told herself she was in control. The truth sat heavy in her chest. She was hiding.
Around noon, the phone lit up with a new name.
Tilly: I know this isn’t my place, but I wanted to check in. You don’t have to answer. Just making sure you’re okay.
The message hovered above the others, a thin line that felt like a hand held out in a crowded room. Erin stared at it until the screen went dark. She didn’t open it. She didn’t delete it. She set the phone back down.
She made cereal for lunch because there was nothing else and because it was easy.
The spoon scraped the bowl. Leo parked himself by her knee and pretended he had never been fed in his life.
She gave him a single loop and he took it like a treasure, then dropped it, pawed it around, and finally ate it.
The afternoon stretched. She showered and pulled on clean clothes. She didn’t dry her hair. Water ran down the back of her neck and she let it. The mirror fogged and she wiped it clear with her palm. Her face looked tired. Not broken. Not strong. Just tired.
The day slipped into evening. She turned the TV volume back up and caught the end of a segment on road closures.
The anchor tossed to field coverage and Jamie appeared in a blue jacket, hair catching the wind.
Erin’s chest tightened before she could breathe through it.
Jamie’s voice filled the room, steady and practiced, the cadence Erin could pick out of any crowd.
She grabbed the remote and muted it so fast her thumb ached.
It didn’t help. The image was enough. The memory was worse—Jamie in her doorway, Jamie at her kitchen counter, Jamie laughing at Leo like he was the funniest thing she had ever seen.
The phone buzzed again. Another message landed. Then another. Erin lifted it and let the lock screen wake to a lineup of previews. She let her eyes skim the first line of each and stopped herself there. She wouldn’t open them. She wouldn’t give herself a reason to answer.
Into the quiet, she told Leo what she should have been able to tell herself.
“We’re just going to ride this out,” she said.
Her voice sounded calm. It also sounded like a lie.
Leo thumped his tail once and edged closer until his head pressed against her shin.
She scratched behind his ear and felt the familiar soft spot under the collar.
He exhaled and the whole of his weight sank into her.
She picked up the phone again, opened the messages list without tapping the thread, and scrolled to the beginning of their conversation.
It started with a time and a place and a simple reminder about a briefing.
Then the cadence shifted. Banter. A picture of Leo asleep on his back.
A blurry photo of a grilled cheese Jamie had sent late one night with a caption that still made Erin smile.
She scrolled slowly, stopping on the messages that had felt like small doors opening.
She remembered how easy it had been to walk through them.
Her thumb hovered over the top of the thread.
She selected Delete. A confirmation box appeared.
She confirmed. The screen jumped and the thread vanished.
The list closed in around the empty space.
Erin stared until her eyes blurred and tears stung hot at the edges.
She took a breath and then another. The ache settled in the center of her chest like a hand.
The trash folder wasn’t empty. She could open it. She didn’t.
By the time the sky went dark, she had done nothing that could be measured. The apartment smelled like fresh coffee and shampoo, but none of it made the room feel new. She stood at the counter where the empty table sat in the corner of her eye and wrote two short lines on a sticky note.
Stay quiet. Stay focused.
She pressed the paper to the fridge and smoothed the corners with her thumb. It looked like something an athlete would tape to a locker. It looked like a rule. It was all she could promise herself.
The phone lit up on the table. A voicemail icon appeared.
She didn’t listen. She set an alarm for the morning, for no reason other than to give the day a shape.
She put Leo’s leash by the door and told him they would try again tomorrow.
He yawned so wide she could see the pink roof of his mouth.
She laughed, soft and surprised, then caught herself.
The city hummed outside her windows. A siren rose and fell and then disappeared into the distance.
On the TV, a silent graphic flipped to headlines.
Erin sat on the edge of the couch and stared at the glow, the static light that made everything look simple.
She stayed there until her eyes stung again, until she blinked and tears slipped warm and unwanted down her face.
She wiped them away. She breathed. She looked at the note on the fridge and read it again, under her breath, like a prayer.
Stay quiet. Stay focused.
When the phone buzzed one last time, she left it facedown and let the vibration pass through the table. Leo shifted, settled, and finally slept. Erin leaned back, folded her arms, and waited for nothing at all.