Page 2 of Silent Shadows

Marissa snorts. “Do you even hear yourself anymore? I swear, podcast Daisy talks like the try-hard cool mom in Mean Girls.”

I laugh. “Hey, we agreed back in college that podcast Daisy would be an alter ego, remember? And it’s tested well, right?”

Marissa winces. “Eh, the latest testing is in. It’s not great. It confirms your core audience is moving on to mommy podcasts or true crime. We built the playbook for this podcast genre, but the rules of the game are changing. We have to pivot and try something new.”

What she says isn’t news to me. I knew the podcast wasn’t as successful as it once was—the show’s subscriber count has stayed flat for the past two years, and its ad sales are trending down year over year. I’ve been putting off dealing with it because I honestly don’t know what to do. I grab my laptop off the desk and find myself back at the article I’d been reading. Grainy photos. Anonymous quotes. A man named Gary who swore on his mother’s grave that something eight feet tall had screamed at him in the woods of Northern New Mexico, causing internal organ damage.

“Define new,” I say, only half-listening.

“I mean not… this.” She gestures vaguely around us—at the studio, the setup, me. “Same format. Same topics. Same recycled, basic sex questions. It’s safe. It’s polished. It’s⁠—”

“Successful,” I cut in.

She pauses. “Yeah. It was successful.”

I look up, catching the way her expression softens just a little. That’s the problem with Marissa. She’s not just my producer. She’s my best friend. Which means she knows exactly when to push and when to pull back.

“I’m not saying you’re failing,” she continues, gentler now. “I’m saying you’re bored.”

I scoff. “I’m not bored.”

“You were literally researching Bigfoot mid-interview.”

“That doesn’t mean I’m bored. It means I have layers.”

She raises a brow. “You’re gonna call that layers?”

I shrug, trying to sound casual. “We all have our own hyperfixations, don’t we? It just fascinates me. People genuinely believe they’ve seen something. There’s an entire subculture around it.”

“The last thing you found fascinating was that Mormon cult leader who did parkour on the rocks in Utah, and it became your entire personality for weeks,” she points out. “Maybe it’s time to indulge that side of yourself a bit.”

I drop back into my chair, spinning slightly as I skim another article. This one’s a forum post. Long. Detailed. Too detailed to be entirely fake… right?

“I mean, listen to this,” I say, reading aloud. “Miles_StrangeTerrain says, ‘It wasn’t just the size. It was the feeling. Like being watched by something that knew you didn’t belong.’ That’s kind of deep. Or at least just good writing.”

“Or it’s a guy who failed creative writing in high school,” Marissa says dryly.

I shrug again. “I like it.”

She studies me for a second, then sighs and pulls up a chair across from me. “Okay. I’m going to say it again. You’re so mind-numbingly over this.”

“I’m not⁠—”

“You are,” she cuts in. “And, D., it’s showing. No one new is subscribing because nothing new is happening.”

I lean back, folding my arms. “So what? Am I supposed to reinvent a decade-old brand overnight? I’m already bringing in these young girlie pops to host their own shows. They’re the future, right?”

“I mean, maybe,” she says. “But what about your future? What if we maybe… evolve it.”

I groan. “God, I hate that word.”

“I know. That’s why I used it.” She smiles sweetly. “Look, The DL with Daisy built your entire empire. But I think you’ve outgrown it, or at least this version of it.”

I glance around the studio, from the sleek equipment and glass walls to the neon sign bearing the show’s logo, glowing softly behind the desk. It’s all so… polished. Controlled. Predictable. Tired.

I can’t deny I’ve been wondering what’s next for me. I’m a podcaster known for sex and dating, and I’m still single, ten years later.

Dating, for me, has become less of a thrill and more of a pattern I can predict by the second drink. There’s always a moment—usually somewhere between him telling me I’m “not like other girls” and asking what I’m looking for long-term—when I feel myself checking out. Not physically. I’m still there, smiling and asking the right questions. But internally, I’m narrating it like it’s content: and here we have a man in his natural habitat, mistaking surface-level chemistry for compatibility. It’s not that I don’t want something real. I do. But I don’t want something that sticks to a script. And lately, that’s all it feels like—guys who’ve already decided who I am before I even open my mouth.