The door closed with the soft, final sound of someone who no longer had the energy to slam it. Mary stood for a moment in the dim hallway, coat still on, shoulders rounded under a weight she couldn’t shrug off. The day had been an unrelenting gauntlet — meeting after meeting, each one tighter with tension than the last. Every question from upstairs felt like an accusation, every phone call another stone on the pile pressing against her chest. The investigation was no longer a story she was steering; it was a storm tightening around her, and she could feel the air thinning with every hour.

Her team had looked to her for direction, for reassurance she no longer knew how to give. She’d stared at the wall during the last briefing, hearing voices but not words, calculating timelines and wondering which source might crack first. She hated the helplessness more than the anger. At least anger could keep her upright.

By the time she reached home, her throat was raw from speaking too firmly for too long, from swallowing every edge of doubt that threatened to show. Her eyes burned — not from tears she’d allowed, but from the ones she hadn’t. The makeup she’d put on that morning to look composed under newsroom lights felt heavy, as if it were holding her together more than her own will.

When she stepped into the bedroom, the low glow of a bedside lamp softened the edges of the day, but didn’t erase them. You were there, legs tucked under the blanket, a book open in your hands. The sight almost broke her. Not because it reminded her of how far she’d drifted from this kind of stillness, but because it was here, waiting, without judgment or demand.

Mary didn’t speak — she couldn’t yet. The exhaustion wasn’t just in her body; it had set into her bones, into the spaces between thoughts. She lingered at the doorway for a beat too long, as if crossing into the room meant letting go of everything she’d been holding in. Her red-rimmed eyes caught the light as she exhaled, the breath trembling on its way out. And in that quiet moment, all the noise of the newsroom, the calls, the scrutiny, faded into a dull hum at the edge of the world.