Tilly exhaled slowly.
They weren’t done. They knew that.
They just had no idea how to apologize in a way Savannah would believe.
And that scared them more than anything else had.
Forty Four
Savannah waited until the apartment was quiet before she let herself fall apart.
Not the dramatic kind. No crying into pillows or pacing the floor. Just the slow, methodical shutting down she had perfected over years of knowing exactly how to survive disappointment without letting anyone see it.
Tilly had left.
That was the only part her brain seemed willing to hold onto.
Not space. Not a pause. Not a minute to think.
Left.
Savannah stood in the kitchen for a long moment, staring at the stove like it had personally betrayed her. The burner was still warm. The pan still smelled like garlic and tomatoes, the sauce half-finished, thickening into something she no longer wanted.
She turned the heat off. Slowly. Like any sudden movement might knock something loose in her chest.
She picked up the spoon, gave the sauce one absent stir, then stopped. Her throat tightened.
She wasn’t going to eat this.
The realization landed with a strange kind of finality. She carried the pan to the trash and tipped the contents in, watching the steam curl up and disappear. It felt wasteful and also necessary. She rinsed the pan immediately, scrubbing harderthan required, like if she cleaned it fast enough, the moment wouldn’t have time to stick.
Savannah sat on the edge of her bed with her phone in her hand, staring at the dark screen like it might light up on its own if she stared long enough. It didn’t.
She told herself not to text. She told herself she had already said enough. Said too much, probably.If you don’t want to keep doing this, then don’t.The words replayed in her head, sharp and final and impossible to soften now.
She had meant them as self-defense.
She always did.
The apartment felt wrong without Tilly in it. Too quiet. Too open. Like every sound echoed a second too long. The hook by the door was empty. No jacket. No lingering sign they had ever been there at all.
That settled something heavy and final in her chest.
She cleaned.
It was easier than thinking. Easier than sitting with the feeling that she had finally let herself want something and immediately ruined it. She wiped down counters that were already clean. Straightened pillows that hadn’t moved. Folded a blanket and unfolded it again because the crease wasn’t right.
This was what she did when things went bad.
She controlled what she could.
The note replayed in her head. The stupid note she had written months ago and never thought about again. A list. A shorthand. A way to keep herself from falling too hard, too fast.
Problem.
Her throat tightened.
It hadn’t meant what it sounded like. It hadn’t. It had been fear, not judgment. A warning to herself, not a verdict on Tilly.
