“Hey,” someone said from the next bank of desks. “You see the noon pieces?”
“I’m avoiding the noon pieces,” Erin said.
The reply was a low laugh. “Fair.”
She slid the papers into a folder. “Any fires I should know about?”
“Only metaphorical ones.”
“Good. I’m out of water.”
The hallway to the break room smelled like cleaner and old paint. Someone had taped a handwritten sign above the sink reminding people to rinse their dishes. Erin filled her bottle and watched the slow swirl of bubbles as it climbed. She didn’t want to check her phone. She checked it anyway.
Nothing from Jamie. Good, Erin told herself. Safe.
But the quiet that followed wasn’t relief. It was an empty space she hadn’t learned how to sit with.
Back at her desk, she opened her notebook. The top page still had the words she’d written after the last press conference, when she’d promised herself to slow down. Be careful. Under it, smaller:Don’t ad-lib.She traced the edge of the paper with her thumb and thought about the park—the way Leo had decided for them, dropping the stick like a treaty. The way Jamie’s smile had held, unsteady but real. The word that had hung between them and refused to leave.Yet.
Erin closed the notebook and stood. Motion helped. She carried a stack of interoffice envelopes down to Records, signed for a flash drive, and took the long way back. In the lobby, a couple argued about a parking ticket. A kid pressed his forehead to the glass case of old parade photos and left a smudge in the center of a mayor’s face. Life kept happening around the places she had stalled.
When she returned, the message light on her desk phone was blinking. She listened, took a note, and called back. Her voice found the even, polite tone people expected from a PIO—the one that said she understood and would follow up by end of day. She did those things because that was her job. It felt good to do a job well. It was proof she still knew how.
By three, she needed air. The sky hung low, gray and close. A few reportersshe recognized were standing outside the courthouse, swapping notes. One lifted a hand. She lifted hers back and kept walking.
She thought about the park again—about Jamie saying she couldn’t turn it off, and how Erin had told her not to say things like that. She hadn’t meant it wasn’t true. She’d meant she didn’t know what to do with it without breaking something else in the process. Honesty was a tool. You could fix a door with it. You could also crack a window if you swung too hard.
At the corner, a woman wrestled a grocery bag into a rideshare trunk. The driver hopped out to help. Two people, one heavy thing, an unspoken agreement about how to move it without tearing the handles. Erin felt the smallest tug behind her ribs. Two people, one thing between them, both hands required.
Back inside, she paused at the bulletin board. Someone had tacked up a flyer for a charity 5K for fallen officers. She straightened it without thinking, pressing the corner flat. The small act steadied her—something in her control, something she could fix.
At her desk, she opened her inbox and drafted a note to Facilities about the broken copier tray. She didn’t need to. Someone else would’ve reported it eventually. But it felt good to send something simple and useful. It was proof she could still take care of small things, even if the big ones were out of reach.
The afternoon slipped away. Someone passed out leftover cookies from a retirement party. She ate one because it was there. By five, half the room had emptied. She finished the detour release, queued it for the website, and packed her bag.
The building was quieter than it had been all day. She walked through the empty bullpen, lights humming overhead, and pushed through the glass doors into the lot. The air was damp and cool, the kind that smelled like rain but never quite delivered it. She unlocked her car and stood for a moment before getting in, breathing in the quiet like it was something she’d earned.
Then she took out her phone.
Hey.
She erased it. Typed again.
I’m free tomorrow after six. If you want to talk.
She let that sit, then added:
Not the park.
She watched the words until they stopped making her nervous. She could pick a place. She should pick a place. Neutral, public, not too loud. Somewhere that didn’t belong to either of them yet.
The Public Garden, Arlington gate. Bench by the pond. 6:30.
She read it through like she would any message she sent in her professional life—clear, simple, actionable. Here are the facts. Here is the plan. Here is where to find me.
She didn’t ask for forgiveness. She didn’t offer promises she wasn’t sure she could keep. She offered a place and a time and the understanding that this only worked if they set it down carefully. Two people. One heavy thing. Both hands required.
She hit send.
