Every time someone walked past her desk, she flinched like she’d been caught doing something wrong.
She wasn’t fine.
She’d known that since the car ride.
The newsroom buzzed around her in that late-afternoon way where everyone was half tired and half wired. She tried to drown herself in the noise. Tried to let the phones ringing and printers humming bury whatever was clawing at her ribs.
It didn’t work.
Nothing worked.
She’d barely made it through logging her script before something in the back hallway caught her attention. A laugh. Familiar. Warm. Rough around the edges.
Tilly.
Savannah’s heart kicked hard and stupidly.
She didn’t turn her head. She didn’t have to. She knew that laugh too well now. Had felt it against her mouth. Had heard it in the truck, soft and close and nothing like the way they sounded now.
Happy.
Relaxed.
Talking to someone else.
Savannah’s fingers tightened around her mouse until her knuckles hurt. She forced her eyes onto her screen, but her ears wouldn’t cooperate. She could hear the cadence of Tilly’s voice, that easy steadiness they didn’t use with her anymore.
Someone else got it.
Not her.
Her throat closed tight.
She clicked the timeline in her edit project too fast, dragging a clip three frames off sync without meaning to. The audio clicked wrong. Savannah’s frustration snapped.
“Come on,” she muttered, slamming the space bar. “Why can’t anything work today?”
The system lagged. A red error popped up.
And that was it.
“Are you kidding me?” she snapped under her breath, shoving her chair back too hard. Her knee hit the underside of the desk. Pain shot up her leg.
Perfect.
Great.
Why not.
Harper appeared beside her like she’d teleported. Savannah didn’t know how she did that. “Okay. What was that?”
“Nothing.”
“That was not nothing.”
Savannah kept her eyes on her screen even though the text was blurring. “I’m working.”
“Savannah. You’re shaking.”
