They started walking again, slower this time, closer without meaning to be.
When they reached the gate, Erin clipped Leo’s leash and turned toward her car. “Thanks for coming,” she said quietly.
“Thanks for letting me.”
Erin hesitated, like she wanted to say something else, then shook her head. “Goodnight, Jamie.”
Jamie’s voice was steady but soft. “Goodnight.”
Erin walked away, Leo trotting beside her, tail swinging steady and content. Jamie watched until they were out of sight, her breath fogging faintly in the cool air.
The park lights flickered on overhead. Dogs barked in the distance. Somewhere down the block, a car horn sounded twice and fell quiet. She felt like she was standing in a world that was still moving but had just slowed enough for her to catch her breath.
She replayed the conversation in her head. Erin’s voice low and guarded, the way her hand had trembled just slightly when she’d clipped Leo’s leash. The way she’d saidyou mean them, and the softer, quieter part that came after:I’m not ready to hear them yet.
That single word looped in her mind.Yet.
Jamie hadn’t realized how starved she’d been for something to hold onto. It wasn’t forgiveness. It wasn’t even a promise. But it was proof that Erin hadn’t shut the door completely.
She walked back to her car slowly, the gravel crunching under her shoes. The park was almost empty now, one couple near the far gate, their dog chasing shadows. The sky had gone violet, the air damp and sharp.
She slid into the driver’s seat and gripped the steering wheel, letting the cold leather bite into her palms. She could still smell grass and rain and Erin’s shampoo when the wind shifted.
Her hands still shook, but not from panic anymore. Something else was there, something small and steady that felt suspiciously like hope.
She leaned back, eyes closed, the memory of Erin’s voice running through her head like static:I’m not ready to hear them yet.
Yet.
It wasn’t a door slamming shut. It was one left cracked open, just enough for light to get through.
Jamie let out a long, uneven breath. The ache in her chest didn’t fade, but it stopped feeling like punishment. It felt like proof that she still cared enough to hurt.
For the first time in weeks, she didn’t want to run from it.
She started the car, headlights sweeping over the empty park. As she pulledonto the road, she caught her reflection in the mirror, eyes red, mouth curved into something that wasn’t quite a smile but wasn’t defeat either.
She whispered it again, softer this time, like a secret between them. “She said yet.”
And for the first time since everything fell apart, the word felt like enough to keep going.
Forty Five
The squad room felt louder than it used to. Phones rang, chairs scraped, the copier clicked itself awake every ten minutes like it had a pulse. Erin kept her head down and her cursor moving, tabbing through a stack of follow-ups that no one else wanted. She answered two public-records emails, flagged a media request for legal review, and rewrote a line in a release three times because every version sounded like she was apologizing for breathing.
“Calhoun.” Sergeant Collins paused at the corner of her desk. “You good on those backlog tickets?”
“Getting there,” she said.
“Take your time. Better clean than quick.”
He meant it, which somehow made it worse. She nodded anyway and went back to work.
Her monitor was split down the middle. On the left, an inbox that never emptied. On the right, a draft window with a blinking cursor and three bullet points that were supposed to turn into a plain-language summary about road closures and a water-main fix. She reached for her mug and drank cold coffee without tasting it.
Her phone buzzed. A calendar alert for a meeting she wasn’t invited to. She watched it fade and kept typing. Street names. Detour routes. The nuts and bolts that held the city together when no one was looking.
The release printed with a soft clatter behind her. She stood, stretched until her shoulders cracked, and crossed the room. Someone had left a paperclip inside the output tray. She fished it out and turned it over in her palm. Small, bent at one end, useful because it kept things from slipping apart.
