Her sheets were twisted around her legs, her pillow shoved halfway to the floor, and a dull pressure sat behind her eyes like she had spent the whole night squinting. She didn’t remember dreaming about anything. She just remembered lying there, listening to the apartment creak in the winter cold, too wide awake to settle and too tired to do anything else.
She reached for her phone out of habit.
No missed calls.
No texts.
No late-night alerts from the desk.
Nothing from Tilly.
Her thumb hesitated over the screen anyway, like she had expected something to be there.
She set the phone facedown and swung her legs over the side of the bed. Her apartment felt colder than it should have, even with the heater running. She crossed her arms against the chill and moved through her morning routine like someone following taped markers on a stage floor.
Sink. Toothbrush. Hair pulled back. Concealer under her eyes.
None of it made her feel more awake.
In the kitchen, she poured coffee into her mug, then stood there holding it against her palms until the heat soaked throughher fingers. She took a sip and flinched at the temperature, but kept drinking anyway.
She didn’t want to think about yesterday.
She didn’t want to think about the moment in the edit bay when she had said good work today and waited for Tilly to say it back.
She didn’t want to think about the look on their face when they had.
She rinsed her mug and grabbed her coat before her thoughts could loop again. If she moved fast enough, maybe her brain would keep up.
The station was louder than usual when she walked in.
Phones were already ringing. Two producers hovered over the morning rundown, arguing about transitions. Henry had a headset around his neck and a pencil behind each ear, which was rarely a good sign. Harper waved at her from across the room, then pointed urgently to one of the monitors, as if Savannah was supposed to make sense of whatever breaking graphic was flashing.
Savannah took a quiet breath and squared her shoulders. Noise was good. Chaos was good. Chaos meant she didn’t have to think.
She found Henry first.
“What do you need?” she asked.
“Everything,” he muttered without looking up. “City is pushing back the plow presser to this afternoon. Council member wants a pre-bite for the education bill. Fire wants a live at noon. Aimee is juggling show order and needs you to rewrite your tag. Also, graphics are backed up.”
Savannah rubbed her forehead. “Okay. I’ll start with the tag.”
She didn’t look toward the edit bays.
She wasn’t going to look.
She could feel exactly where they were anyway.
She lasted seven minutes before she did.
Which was longer than she expected.
Tilly stepped out of their bay, a drive in one hand, a coil of cable in the other. Their hoodie sleeves were shoved up, revealing the tattoos on their forearms, and their hair looked just slightly more chaotic than yesterday. They crossed the bullpen toward a camera cart. They didn’t see her.
Something in her chest dropped anyway.
Savannah snapped her attention back to her computer like she had been caught doing something she shouldn’t have.
