Ten
Savannah’s apartment was too quiet when she got home.
Not the peaceful kind of quiet. Not the soft, domestic kind she sometimes imagined other people had, with low music and the clink of dishes and someone calling from the other room.
This was the kind of quiet that echoed. That made the hum of the fridge sound loud.
That made her own footsteps feel like they didn’t belong.
She dropped her keys in the bowl by the door and toed off her boots, lining them up with the others. Coat on the rack. Bag on the counter. Everything in its place. The way she liked it.
And yet.
It felt flatter without something to push against.
She poured a glass of water, took two sips, and set it down without finishing the rest. The TV flickered on out of habit, muted, light washing the wall.
A different station was running a package from the Common, some holiday pop-up glowing in the cold.
The reporter was trying too hard. Savannah caught herself critiquing the framing before remembering no one had asked.
She grabbed her phone. No new texts. A group chat from Providence, all baby pictures and heart emojis. An email from Aimee. Great work today. Thanks for the quick turn.
Nothing else.
She told herself she hadn’t been expecting anything else.
That didn’t stop her from checking again.
She set the phone down. Picked it up again a second later. Scrolled through her own clip from earlier. The standup was clean. Her hair hadn’t moved. Her voice stayed steady through the second fact. It was good. Technically, it was good.
It just didn’t feel like the housing story. That one had stayed with her, a low hum in her chest that lasted for hours. This one didn’t do that. This one sat there and waited to be forgotten.
She shut the clip off.
She paced the apartment once, then again, the quiet pressing in on her from all sides.
She wasn’t someone who got stuck on people.
That wasn’t how she’d gotten here, to Boston, to a better market, to a newsroom that cared about accountability.
She kept things light. Friendly. Professional. Neatly separated.
Tilly didn’t fit neatly anywhere, which made it impossible to file them away.
They were supposed to be another shooter. Sharp. Precise. Occasionally infuriating. Someone she adjusted to and moved on from.
Instead, she kept thinking about stupid things. The way they said part of the job, like it wasn’t a compliment. The way they’d turned their chair to face her in the edit bay and asked, quietly, “Did I do something?”
She opened her Notes app.
The same one she’d opened on her first night.
Tilly Franklin
precise, maybe too much
likes control
doesn’t talk unless it’s necessary
probably edits in silence
not impressed by charm
problem
The last bullet stared at her. Tilly was still a problem, and getting worse.
The cursor blinked like it was waiting.
She closed the app before she could type something humiliating. Before she could admit, even to herself, that the problem wasn’t Tilly at all.
Her phone buzzed. Just an email. She ignored it.
She sank onto the couch and pulled her knees up, staring at the ceiling until the light blurred. Harper’s voice echoed in her head. You two were scary good together.
Savannah shut her eyes.
She liked working with Tilly.
She liked them.
That part was easy.
Admitting how much wasn’t.
She pushed herself up eventually, poured the water out, turned off the TV, and changed into an old shirt. In the mirror, she looked younger. Less contained. Like someone who’d made a mistake and knew better than to repeat it.
She climbed into bed and lay there on her back, phone dark in her hand.
She tried not to think about the end of the night. About the parking lot. About how quiet it had been once the doors shut behind them.
She failed.
The standup came back first. The wind. The way they had stepped in without hesitation.
And then later — when they were saying good night, keys in hand, the lot nearly empty — she had leaned in and kissed them.
Just once. Just once. A quick, impulsive brush of her mouth against Tilly’s cheek.
Tilly had gone completely still.
For half a second, she had almost stayed.
Long enough to see what they would do.
Almost laughed it off. Almost said something reckless like ‘don’t make that weird.’ Almost waited to see if they would turn their head and meet her halfway.
Instead, she had panicked.
That was the part she couldn’t stop replaying. Not the kiss itself. The retreat.
Savannah rolled onto her side, heart thudding like it was trying to get ahead of her thoughts. She could still see it, that frozen second, the way she’d known immediately she’d crossed a line she couldn’t uncross.
She hadn’t explained. She hadn’t stayed. She’d gotten in her car and left.
Fearless people didn’t kiss coworkers in parking lots.
She stared at the dark wall until her eyes ached.
She thought about texting Tilly to apologize.
Or to explain. Or to pretend it hadn’t meant anything.
She didn’t.
She turned the phone face down on the nightstand and switched off the lamp.
Outside, the city kept moving.
Inside, Savannah lay awake, cheek pressed into her pillow, listening to her heartbeat try to outrun itself.
She told herself she wasn’t lonely.
She told herself she didn’t care.
She told herself she wouldn’t do it again.
Even though a part of her already wanted to.
She’d crossed a line like this once before. Not publicly. Just enough.
It hadn’t blown up. It never did. Instead, her name stopped appearing on certain rundowns. She stopped getting paired with the same people. A producer started saying things like, “We’ll keep it simple this time,” as if simplicity was a favor.
She learned quickly what impulses cost in a newsroom.