Max always walked with his hands in his pockets.
Not because it looked cool though people often said it did but because it kept them from shaking.
He didn't shake all the time. Just on days like this.
Rain-patterned sky. Too many memories knocking like unwanted guests.
He passed by the café near Linwood Avenue. The one he used to visit. Not the café where Ellie worked he didn't know that yet but this one had a similar vibe. Industrial lights, sad indie music, the soft clatter of mugs.
He paused at the door, then kept walking.
He wasn't ready to be around people pretending they were okay.
Not when he couldn't even finish a chapter.
Not when his fingers still tingled from a dream he didn't tell anyone about.
The apartment was cold when he got back.
Not in temperature the heater was on but in the way some homes just didn't feel like anyone lived in them.
His apartment had one framed photo on the wall: him and his brother, Liam. Laughing, young. A time before grief swallowed both of them whole.
Max didn't talk about Liam. Not to his editor. Not to Ellie. Not even to himself, really.
But sometimes… when he couldn't sleep, he'd put the photo face down and pretend he was just someone who didn't remember what loss felt like.
Tonight, though, he stared at it.
And said out loud, "He would've liked her."
Then immediately felt ridiculous.
Talking to a photo. About a girl he hadn't even met.
Text Message – 10:41 PM
Max:
What's your most ridiculous childhood fear?
Ellie:
Birds. Specifically ones with long necks. Like swans. Or geese. Or evil feathered demons that hiss.
Max:
Geese ARE evil. That's valid.
Ellie:
Yours?
Max hovered his thumbs over the screen.
He could say spiders. Heights. The dentist.
He didn't.
Max:
That no one would notice if I disappeared.
There was no reply for a full minute.
Then:
Ellie:
I would.
He leaned back in his chair, stunned by the quiet power of those two words.
She didn't ask questions. She didn't try to fix it.
She just... said what he needed to hear.
It didn't fix him. But for the first time in a long while, the silence in his apartment didn't feel like a threat.
It felt like a pause. A deep breath.
Later that night, Max opened his laptop.
He didn't write the chapter his editor wanted.
Instead, he started a new document.
"She wasn't lightning. She was the echo after. The proof that something powerful had passed through the air."
He didn't know what it was yet.
A poem? A scene? A letter he'd never send?
All he knew was, Ellie was in it.
Even if she didn't know yet.