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 coverageand 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 selectedDelete. 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, butnone 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.
Thirty Eight
The newsroom hummed around her, a wall of sound that never stopped. Phones rang. Keyboards clattered. Someone laughed too loud near the assignment desk. Jamie sat at her workstation trying to look busy, eyes flicking between her script and the red light on the coffee maker. Her eyes stung from the studio lights even though she’d been off-air for hours. The caffeine hum sat behind her teeth, too much and not enough all at once.
Her third cup of coffee had gone cold. She took a sip anyway and grimaced. Her stomach was already in knots, but the bitter taste kept her anchored. Across the room, Harper was talking through a rundown with one of the producers. She caught Jamie’s eye and tilted her head.
“You good?” Harper mouthed.
Jamie nodded once, forcing a small smile. “Yeah. Just tired.”
It was the same answer she’d been giving for two days. It was also a lie.
She scrolled through her inbox for something to do. Nothing stuck. Roadwork update, a press release about a charity run, a follow-up on the city council’s parking vote. All of it felt hollow. Every time she typed a sentence, it sounded like someone else wrote it. She’d once loved the rhythm of newsroom mornings — the organized chaos, the energy — but now it all sounded wrong, like a song playing through the wrong speakers.
On the corner of her monitor, a sticky note clung stubbornly to the frame. Erin’s handwriting — neat, quick — still read,Don’t forget to eat before the 6.Jamie smoothed the corner with her thumb, as if touching it might make the ache go away.
Her phone sat beside her keyboard, face-up, screen dim. She’d turnedoff notifications but still checked it every few minutes, just in case. There was no new message. The last one she’d sent was hours ago.
