Tilly kept their tone careful. “You handled it well.”
She let out a small laugh. “I think your aunt decided I’m emotionally stunted.”
“That’s her hobby. Diagnosing strangers.”
“She isn’t wrong.”
Tilly glanced her way. “You did fine.”
Her reflection softened in the glass. “Thank you for bringing me. Truly.”
“Of course.”
“No,” she said quietly. “You didn’t have to. And I know I wasn’t… easy.”
“You weren’t difficult.”
“You’re being generous.”
Tilly shook their head. “If I didn’t want you there, you wouldn’t have been there.”
That ended the conversation.
They drove the rest of the way in a silence that felt almost full. Like they’d reached the edge of something neither dared to name.
When they reached her building, Savannah unbuckled slowly. She held the Tupperware to her chest like it meant more than she wanted it to.
“Good night, Tilly.”
“Night, Savannah.”
She hesitated, something catching behind her eyes like a thought she didn’t trust enough to voice. Then she stepped out of the car and slipped into the lobby, the glass door swinging shut behind her.
Tilly stayed parked, hands still on the wheel. The heater hummed quietly. Holiday lights blinked across the building’s stone entrance. Through the windshield, they saw Savannah’s silhouette pause in the lobby for a single heartbeat before she moved out of sight.
Tilly’s breath fogged the air once, then again.
But they didn’t pull away.
Thirty Six
Savannah made it three steps into the lobby before the quiet hit her. Too sharp. Too sudden. It echoed in her chest in a way she hadn’t prepared for. She stood there with the Tupperware pressed against her coat, pretending she needed a moment to warm up when really she just needed to breathe.
She could still feel Tilly behind her, somehow, even through the glass. The car idling. The hum of the heater. The silence that had settled over the ride home like a blanket she didn’t know how to hold.
She should go upstairs. That was the logical thing. That was the safe thing.
But her feet didn’t move.
Her reflection stared back at her from the dark window. Hair frizzed from the heat of the kitchen. Mascara smudged so slightly that no one else would notice. A leftover tightness in her throat from being seen tonight in ways she wasn’t used to.
She wasn’t going to ask. She had promised herself that. Tonight didn’t need to become complicated.
But the idea of walking away from the warmest day she’d had in… longer than she could admit… made something in her chest twist.
She swallowed hard, fingers tightening on the Tupperware.
If she thought about it too long, she’d lose the nerve entirely.
