She had never called in sick before.
Not really. Not unless she was actually sick, feverish, or contagious, or physically unable to stand. She was the kind of person who showed up anyway. Who pushed through. Who treated work like proof she was fine.
She stared at the wall and realized she couldn’t do it today.
The thought landed quietly, without drama.
She couldn’t go in. She couldn’t put herself in the newsroom and risk seeing Tilly across the room, or worse, not seeing them at all. She couldn’t answer questions or smile or pretend she wasn’t hollowed out.
Her chest felt tight again.
Savannah sat up slowly, swung her legs over the side of the bed, and picked up her phone.
She opened her messages. Scrolled to her producer’s name. Her thumb hovered.
This was new.
Her pulse kicked up, sharp and uneasy, like she was doing something wrong instead of taking care of herself.
She typed, deleted, typed again.
Hey, I’m not feeling great today. I’m going to take a sick day.
She stared at the message for a long second, waiting for the guilt to spike. For the panic. For the instinct to justify it.
None of it came.
She hit send.
The confirmation felt strangely anticlimactic.
Savannah set the phone down and sat there, listening to the quiet of the apartment she hadn’t left the night before. The kitchen was clean. The stove cold.
Nothing to do. Nowhere she had to be.
The freedom should have felt good.
Instead, it scared her.
She pulled the blanket back around her shoulders and lay down again, staring at the ceiling, letting the day move forward without her for the first time since she could remember.
Savannah stayed in bed longer than she ever had on a workday.
The morning light shifted across the wall, slow and indifferent. She tracked it without really seeing it, counting time by the way the room changed instead of by the clock. Her phone buzzed once on the nightstand. She didn’t reach for it right away.
When she did, it was her producer.
Feel better. We’ve got coverage.
No follow-up questions. No guilt. No need for her to explain herself.
That almost made it worse.
She rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling again, the quiet pressing in now that there was nowhere she was supposed to be. The apartment felt different in daylight. Too clean. Too empty. Like a hotel room she’d checked out of but hadn’t left yet.
Her stomach twisted when she remembered the pan in the sink from the night before. Then she remembered she’d dumped it. Rinsed it. Left nothing unfinished.
Of course, she had.
