Direct without a fire alarm. It buys me time to find the rest of the words. My thumb hovers while the city does what cities do and two pink lines burn a small, soft hole in my day.
Send. The whoosh sounds like stepping off the first stair in the dark and finding the floor exactly where you hoped it would be.
His reply slides down a second later:Name the time. I’m there.
Relief moves through me like heat. Fear moves with it, a twin. Both can stay. Both are honest.
I zip my tote; the sound is too loud—metal teeth closing over a secret. The test nestles beside a ChapStick and a coil of athletic tape like it belongs among tools. Sophie reappears with a granola bar like a talisman.
“Blood sugar,” she says. “You forget to be a mammal when your brain sprints.”
“Bossy,” I murmur, grateful, and take a bite that tastes of cardboard and relief. I check my calendar—the gray square atFriday 4:10 sits demure and devastating. I set a second reminder coded asmeetingbecause privacy is habit and choice.
My phone vibrates—short, insect buzz. Unknown number, local code. I let it roll to voicemail because anything real has my name on it.
It vibrates again before the notification fades. Same number. A tiny logo under the digits:CityNow—the outlet that ran the first rumor with a red dot sharpened to a blade. My stomach flips, slow and mean.
Sophie clocks it and lifts both brows. “Want me to answer and speak fluent brick wall?”
I shake my head and press the phone under my palm, as if I can pin sound to the counter. The vibration makes my bones hum. “If I pick up, they’ll make my silence their words. If I don’t, they’ll make my silence their words.” The logic tastes tired.
“Then we choose what we can live with,” Sophie says evenly. “What serves you, not them.”
I stare until the digits blur. Scripts flick:No comment. Please direct inquiries to PR. This is my personal phone; do not call again.Each is a match. Each wants oxygen.
The ringtone stops. A voicemail dings. The screen lights again—same number, more insistent. I can see the segment title already:TRAINER HIDES AS STAR STAYS MUM.The headline crawls under my skin and takes off its shoes.
“Block it?” Sophie offers.
I nod, then don’t. Blocking satisfies like a punch—solves the second, complicates the hour. My thumb hovers over the silencing moon instead. I flick it on. The phone hums like a trapped dragonfly and quiets.
In the hush, other sounds bloom: rain easing, elevator cables murmuring, Sophie’s breath syncing to mine because she’s obnoxiously good at that. Fear returns with something else—resolve, raw and a little sharp.
“I’ll tell him tonight,” I say to the room, to Sophie, to the test in my bag. Saying it lets air into a lung I’d kept empty. “I’m not letting a chyron beat me to my own life.”
“Atta girl,” Sophie says, capping a latte like she’s baptizing the plan.
The phone lights despite Do Not Disturb—CityNow punching through with a ‘priority’ flag that should be illegal. It rings, steady and patient, the sound of a stranger deciding my story is theirs to sell. I watch the seconds tick: five… eight… twelve. The voicemail icon waits, hungry.
I slide the phone into my tote beside the test and pull the zipper slow. The ring vibrates through the fabric, a dull, insistent heartbeat against my palm.
Fifteen seconds. Twenty.
“Don’t,” Sophie warns gently, knowing how close my reach is.
I hold, jaw tight, pulse louder than the phone. The call keeps going, relentless as weather, until it flashesMissedand flips toVoicemail.
A new notification blooms on top of it, cruel in its timing:Calendar — Compliance rescheduled: Today, 3:30 PM. Recording Enabled.
My mouth goes dry. The tote gets heavier on my shoulder.
The screen lights again—CityNow—and the ring slices back into the room.
I close my eyes and breathe once, twice.
Then it hits me: it’s not going to stop.
Chapter 22
