Page 173 of Silent Shadows

I’ll finish the podcast from here. I should finish the podcast from here.

When I got back to LA last week, smelly and puffy-eyed, Marissa took one look at me and went straight into best friend mode. I told her everything, and after giving me a little shit for falling for my subject, she apologized nonstop for pushing me on this side quest. Of course I assured her it isn’t her fault. It isn’t.

She’s done everything she can to give me space and time, making excuses about an extended mysterious illness I picked up on location.

I sigh and roll over again. The crew is better off without me. Miles is better off without me. And I’m better off alone than with someone who chooses cryptids over me.

I keep rolling and the bed swallows me whole. Too much space. Too much softness. Too much silence. Somewhere in the back of my brain, memory starts flickering whether I want it to or not.

Rain on the RV roof. Soup on the couch. Thermal footage casting a rainbow glow from the monitors. Miles half asleep, glasses crooked, wrapped in two blankets and pretending he wasn’t dying.

My throat tightens. I squeeze my eyes shut harder. Then, because my brain wants me to suffer, memories keep coming. The shower. Warm steam. His hand brushing my bruised hip.

I don’t know how to do this and not worry about you.

The fight. The rain. The look on his face when I stepped back. Like I’d knocked the air out of him.

I slam a pillow over my head, yelling into it. This has to stop. We are not crying at eight in the morning.

I get out of bed and make the mistake of looking at the floor-length mirror. Hair wild. Eye bags heavy. Both sweatpants’ legs pulled up like I’m a colonial paper boy.

My apartment greets me with immaculate silence. How does my own home feel staged, as if I walked onto the set of my own life? I used to love this, didn’t I? Maybe love is too generous. Maybe I just got good at acting like I loved it, performing even in the comfort of my own space.

I groan and flop backward onto the bed again.

I hear keys jingling and know it’s Marissa, so I stay put in my cocoon.

“Wake up, babe! I know you're in here!” She comes waltzing into the bedroom, two coffees in hand.

“Okay, today’s the day we turn this around. This—” she says, waving her hand at me—“is seriously depressing. I haven’t seen you like this since… actually, I haven’t seen you like this ever.”

I sit up. “Okay, that’s true.”

Marissa plops down next to me with a puff sound that only the best down comforters make.

“Talk to me. What’s going on?”

“I can’t stop thinking about him. About them. I feel like I let them down. Well… I let me down.”

“How?”

“What do you mean?

“Let’s unpack that.” Riss hands me a coffee. “I’m serious. I’m taking my producer hat off. Best friend hat on. Let’s figure this out.”

I groan again and take a sip of the perfectly crafted, overpriced latte. I pout about it, of course. “Even coffee is ruined for me. Miles’s crappy coffee was better than this.”

My best friend blinks slowly, shaking her head. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that since that cost me, like, $15, but sure, girl.”

I sigh. “Okay, so, what are we unpacking?”

“How did you let those guys down?”

I pop the lid off the latte and glare down at it. The foam art is offensively beautiful. Meanwhile, somewhere in Arizona, Miles Adler is drinking coffee with one sugar and a splash of milk out of Taylor’s HOT GIRLS BELIEVE mug.

My chest hurts.

“I don’t know,” I say finally, curling farther into the comforter. “I just…”