Chapter 40
Forty
She’d been here before. Same row, same hum of the streetlights, same empty feeling that made her stomach twist. Every night for the past week she’d told herself it was the last time. That she’d drive home, go to sleep, let it go.
But she kept finding herself back in this lot, parked two spaces down from the exit with the engine off and her fingers digging half-moons into the steering wheel. She told herself she was just checking. Just making sure Erin was okay.
The truth sat in her throat: she couldn’t stand not seeing her.
When the door finally opened and Erin stepped into the light, Jamie almost missed it.
For a second she thought her brain had made her up again.
Then Erin’s bag strap slipped off her shoulder and she adjusted it the way she always did, that small, practical motion that shouldn’t have made Jamie’s chest ache the way it did.
She was really here.
Jamie’s breath caught.
Erin froze halfway across the aisle, keys clutched in her hand. Jamie took one step forward, then another.
“Erin.”
Her name felt strange in Jamie’s mouth after ten days of silence. It came out raw.
Erin didn’t answer. She just turned slightly, wary, like the sound itself might hurt.
“Please,” Jamie said, voice shaking. “Can we talk?”
Erin shook her head and reached for her door. “Not tonight.”
Jamie’s pulse jumped. “Erin, please. Just… just let me say something.”
“Don’t.”
“I have to.” She took another step. “I know you don’t want to see me. I know I shouldn’t be here, but I can’t keep pretending everything’s fine. I screwed up, okay? I know I did.”
Erin’s voice came out low. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“I couldn’t just do nothing anymore.” Jamie’s voice cracked. “You won’t answer my calls. You won’t text back. I had to try.”
Erin turned then, finally looking at her. “You had to try?” she said. “That’s what this is?”
“I’m sorry.” Jamie’s chest hurt with it. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have said her name on air. I should’ve protected you.”
“You can’t protect me from something you caused.”
Jamie winced. “I didn’t mean for it to happen like that. I was trying to do my job.”
“I know,” Erin said. “That’s what makes it worse.”
The air between them felt thick. Jamie took a small step closer, desperate. “I thought you’d understand.”
“I did,” Erin said, barely above a whisper. “And I was wrong.”
Jamie felt her throat tighten. “I never used you.”
Erin’s eyes flickered. “Then why did it feel like you did?”
“I don’t know,” Jamie said, voice breaking. “I thought we were on the same side.”
“That’s the problem,” Erin said. “We never were. You’re supposed to ask questions. I’m supposed to keep things safe. I forgot that.”
“I didn’t,” Jamie said, and the words came out fast, messy. “I just… when you said please, I froze. I didn’t know how to pick between being good at this and being good to you.”
Erin’s face softened for half a second before she looked away. “You shouldn’t have had to pick.”
Jamie stepped forward. “I love you.”
Erin flinched. “Don’t.”
“It’s true.”
“That’s the problem,” she said, same words as before but quieter now.
She opened the car door, slow and final. Jamie stood helpless as the taillights bled red across her shoes.
“Erin, please,” Jamie said one last time.
Erin didn’t look up. “Go home, Jamie.”
The door shut, sharp in the quiet. The red glow of Erin’s taillights disappeared down the street until there was nothing left but the hum of the lights above her. The quiet that followed was so complete it hurt.
Jamie stood there, frozen, hand half-raised like she could still reach for her. But the space between them had already filled in. There wasn’t anything left to touch.
Her chest tightened and then folded in on itself. The first sound that came out wasn’t a sob. It was smaller, sharper, like air catching on a bruise. When she finally breathed again, it turned into shaking.
She dropped to her knees before she knew she was falling. Asphalt pressed cold against her palms. She covered her face with both hands, trying to hold herself together, but her body had already decided not to listen. The tears came fast and ugly, the kind that felt more like panic than grief.
She didn’t know how long she stayed like that. Long enough for the wind to pick up. Long enough for her legs to go numb.
When she finally pushed herself up, she felt hollow. She opened her car door, slid into the driver’s seat, and stared through the windshield. The world looked tilted, blurred at the edges.
She started the car and just drove.
* * *
The streets blurred into each other. Tremont, Boylston, Beacon. Names she still mixed up when people gave directions. Boston was supposed to be a fresh start. She’d told herself that over and over when she packed up her apartment in Colorado. New job, new city, new chance to do everything right.
Now it all felt temporary again.
She stopped at a red light outside a late-night diner she’d gone to once with the photo crew.
It was empty except for the cook leaning on the counter.
For a second she thought about going in, about sitting at the corner booth and pretending she was just tired from a long shift, but she couldn’t move.
Her hands tightened on the steering wheel.
She could still see Erin’s face when she’d said, You can’t protect me from something you caused. The words replayed until she thought she might scream.
She took a left and ended up downtown. The WCVB building rose ahead, the big red letters glowing against the glass. She pulled into the back lot out of habit, the same way she’d done every morning since she got hired. The lights were still on inside.
Through the window she could see movement, a producer walking across the floor, someone adjusting the camera at the anchor desk. It looked like a world she wasn’t part of yet, one that kept turning whether she was in it or not.
She’d been there only a few months, but she’d built her days around it.
The early call times, the late edits, the coffee runs that made her feel like she belonged.
She’d thought if she worked hard enough, it would start to feel like home.
But Boston wasn’t home. Erin had been the part that made it feel close.
Jamie sat there, engine idling, the newsroom glow catching in her eyes. The ache in her chest deepened until she couldn’t breathe right. She turned the key and let the car go quiet again.
The silence pressed in.
She wanted to call someone, Harper maybe, or Tilly, but what would she even say? That she’d fallen for someone she was never supposed to, and lost them because she didn’t know how to stop being a reporter long enough to be a person?
She leaned forward, pressing her forehead to the steering wheel. “You blew it,” she whispered. “You really blew it.”
The words sounded flat in the small space.
She stayed there until the lights inside the station dimmed and the last car in the lot pulled away. Then she put the car in gear and drove the long way home.
* * *
Her apartment was dark when she walked in. She didn’t bother with the lights. The floor creaked the same way it always did. She dropped her bag on the couch and stood there, waiting for the silence to pass.
It didn’t.
She moved to the window and looked out over the street.
Somewhere below, a siren wailed, distant and rising, then faded into nothing.
She remembered Erin saying once that every sound in the city had a story behind it.
Sirens, traffic, footsteps. Jamie wondered what story this one would tell about her.
She sat on the floor, back against the wall, knees pulled to her chest. Her hands shook. Every part of her ached to text Erin, just to see the dots appear, to prove she wasn’t gone completely.
Instead, she turned her phone over and watched the screen stay dark.
It hit her all at once then, that this was really it. Erin wasn’t going to answer. She wasn’t going to come back. Jamie had made sure of that.
Her breath caught and broke. The tears came again, quieter this time, until they left her empty.
When the clock on the microwave blinked past midnight, she pulled herself off the floor, turned off her phone, and whispered into the dark, “Goodnight, Erin.”
The words barely made a sound, but they still hurt.
She went to bed knowing the city would wake up without her tomorrow, and that Erin already had.