Page 47 of On a Deadline

“Didn’t really want to go home yet,” Tilly said, eyes fixed on their sneakers. “Can’t edit anymore. Can’t think anymore. So I came here to not do either.”

Erin nodded. She understood that kind of limbo. She folded her hands in her lap. Her thumbs rubbed a nervous pattern she forced herself to stop.

“I owe you an apology,” she said. “A real one.”

Tilly huffed a humorless breath. “For which part.”

“For all of it,” Erin said, her voice steady even as her chest tightened. “For how things ended in Washington. For how I acted. For pretending we weren’t something. And then running when it scared me.”

That made Tilly look up in a way that reached her. Their eyes were tired and sharp and wounded in a way that still held weight.

“You didn’t just run,” they said quietly. “You shut me out completely. One day we were together. The next day you were gone. No explanation. Noconversation. Just a wall.”

Erin felt the words hit with the precision she deserved. “I know.”

“You treated me like I didn’t matter,” Tilly continued, not cruelly. They were simply naming the truth. “And then I left because I didn’t know what else to do except get out of the way.”

Erin swallowed, her throat tight. “You did matter. I need you to know that. You mattered a lot. Maybe too much.” She exhaled. “You were kind to me. You were patient. You were the one person who saw I was burning out and tried to pull me back from it. Instead of letting you help me, I treated you like a threat.”

Tilly blinked hard. A small flinch of pain crossed their eyes.

Erin kept going. “I handled everything like a coward. I didn’t talk to you. I didn’t let you talk to me. I acted like we hadn’t been whatever we were. You didn’t deserve that. Not then. Not ever.”

Silence pressed in around them, cool and heavy.

Tilly rubbed their palms against their jeans. “I kept trying to figure out what I did wrong.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Erin said immediately. “I did. All of it was me.”

Tilly nodded once, their jaw tight. “Good to hear you say it.”

They weren’t forgiving her, but they weren’t pushing her away either.

Erin shifted, turning to face them more fully. “I’m not asking to go back. I’m not asking for anything. I just can’t walk into something new while I’m still carrying the shape of old damage behind me.”

Tilly raised an eyebrow. “Jamie.”

Erin didn’t deny it. She didn’t have the right to. “Yes. Jamie.”

Tilly studied her for a moment, long enough that Erin felt something inside her brace. Finally they nodded.

“You like her.”

“I do.”

“And it’s not like before.”

“No,” Erin said softly. “It’s not.”

Tilly exhaled, and some of the tension left their shoulders. “Then youshould go into it clean. Not with ghosts hanging off you.”

“That’s why I’m here,” Erin said. “Because you deserved a conversation I never gave you. And because you deserve not to carry the weight of how I treated you.”

Another long, quiet beat passed.

Then Tilly’s mouth twitched, not quite a smile but something gentler than anything she expected.

“Thank you,” they said. “For saying it. For finally saying it.”