Max had a habit of ignoring things.
Not because he didn't care.
But because he cared too much and was feeling things fully? That was exhausting.
So, like always, he did what he did best: distract, delay, deflect.
That morning, the sunlight filtered through his half-closed blinds like it was apologizing for arriving late. Max was already awake, sitting in front of his laptop, staring at the same screen he'd been stuck on for the last three hours.
The title of his screenplay blinked back at him: Untitled Draft #12.
It had no plot. No spark. Just an opening line he kind of liked:
"You know what's worse than heartbreak? Never getting close enough to feel it."
That line was five weeks old.
Max closed the window and opened his email out of guilt. One unread thread, flagged in red:
Subject: FINAL Deadline – Rewrite Required by Friday.
He hovered over it.
Then opened a new tab and ordered a croissant instead.
He was mid-bite, scrolling aimlessly through film reviews he didn't care about, when his phone buzzed.
Group chat with his mom and sister.
MOM: Don't forget your cousin's engagement lunch. Sunday, 1pm.
DANIELLE (sister): Max won't come. He never does.
MOM: He should. Would do you good to leave the cave.
DANIELLE: Or talk to a human being without hiding behind characters. Just once?
He typed "lol" and deleted it.
Typed "I'm working" and deleted that too.
Eventually, he sent nothing. Just stared at the conversation until the screen dimmed from inactivity.
He didn't mean to listen in later that day.
But the walls were thin, and his mom's voice traveled like guilt: soft but sharp.
"He's not lazy, he's just... stuck. I just don't know how to reach him anymore."
"At some point, talent isn't enough, Danielle. You have to want the life that comes with it."
Max leaned against the wall, coffee going cold in his hand.
They always said "talented" like it was a lifeline a word thrown like a rope across the gap he'd never quite crossed.
But talent didn't write scripts. Or return emails. Or fix the quiet voice in your head that said, You'll disappoint them anyway, so why try?
By night, he was tired not from doing much, but from thinking too loudly.
Then Ellie's message came in.
Question: What's the emotional equivalent of stepping on a LEGO barefoot while someone reminds you that you're alone?
He grinned despite himself. Ellie and her oddly specific analogies.
The conversation turned playful, then honest. Too honest.
She told him about her crush the disappointment. How she'd built a hope out of nothing but "maybe"s. And how quickly it all unraveled with just one text.
He remembered that feeling too well.
"You didn't make it up. You just hoped it was mutual. That's not foolish. That's brave."
He didn't know if he meant to type that. It just spilled.
After she stopped replying for a while, he figured she'd fallen asleep. But he kept rereading her words, almost stunned at how much of himself he recognized in them.
She was a stranger.
And yet...
She was also the first person in months who made him feel like he wasn't just existing inside the draft of a life he didn't finish writing.
He opened his screenplay again.
Stared at that same line.
Then, slowly, he typed underneath it:
"Maybe some people don't fall in love.
They just fall into each other's silence and finally hear themselves again."
The cursor blinked.
And for the first time in weeks, Max let it blink back.
This time, he didn't walk away.