“Let’s go now to our team out along the South End-side highways. Savannah, what’re you seeing out there?”
Savannah inhaled. Then exhaled. Then stepped directly into her reporter voice.
“Pretty rough conditions, Jamie—”
Tilly kept the camera rock-solid, but their eyes betrayed them.
Through the viewfinder, she was… different.
Too composed.
Too clean.
Too steady.
Like she’d stitched herself back together just for the audience.
But Tilly caught the things the viewers never would:
the half-second delay before she found her footing
the slight tremor in her exhale
the way her eyes avoided the lens a fraction too long
the faintest flush still lingering on her cheeks, one that the cold couldn’t fully explain
the way she blinked hard exactly once, as if erasing something she didn’t want slipping through
She didn’t tremble.
She didn’t drift.
She didn’t let a single crack show.
And somehow that made something inside Tilly twist harder — because she was still shaking apart on the inside, and Savannah was already bricking up the walls.
When the hit wrapped, Jamie tossed back to the weather, and the red tally light blinked off.
