Max stared at the blinking cursor on his laptop screen.
Word count: 2,749. Deadline: Today.
And still… nothing sounded right.
Not the scene. Not the dialogue. Not the aching line he kept writing and deleting again and again:
"He smiled, and no one noticed the bleeding behind his teeth."
Too much. Too dramatic. Too real.
He slammed the laptop shut.
His apartment was quiet. Almost too quiet like the silence was pressing in on the walls. The only noise was the soft whir of the ancient fan that buzzed like a mosquito in heat.
He should've gone out. To the bookstore. To the café. To somewhere.
But he didn't feel like putting on the Max everyone expected the sharp, sarcastic writer who ordered black coffee like a brooding cliché and joked about heartbreak like it was a hobby.
Instead, he picked up his phone.
Ellie:
Why do your words feel like warm tea and a slap in the face at the same time?
She had no idea how much that one sentence undid him.
Because for Max, words had always been armor. Shields. Distractions. He used metaphors like band-aids, stick enough of them on, and maybe no one would see the bruises underneath.
Ellie... she didn't just read his words. She felt them.
And that scared the hell out of him.
He scrolled back through their texts months' worth. Bad puns. Soft confessions. Her little rants about customers and sunburnt muffins. His replies, always snarky, always clever… always just safe enough.
But lately, her texts had changed.
More raw. More fragile.
He didn't know when it happened exactly, but he'd started waiting for them. Watching his phone light up at 3 AM. Checking his inbox before even brushing his teeth.
And the worst part?
She made him want to be honest. And he hated that.
His phone buzzed.
A message from someone else this time.
Nico (Editor):
Max, I need the draft. Please don't disappear on me again. Your name's on the calendar next month.
Max didn't reply.
He tossed the phone on the couch and leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling.
He hadn't written anything real since… well, since her.
The ex he never talked about. The one who made him believe love was an expiration date and he was always the one spoiled first.
He had carved that pain into three novels.
But Ellie?
She was something else.
She was the laugh in the middle of a breakdown. The weird typo he didn't want to correct. The footnote he wanted to become the story.
And it terrified him.
Because she wasn't just another plot twist.
She was the first chapter that made him want to read slowly.
Text Message – Sent Late that Night
Max:
Hey. You still up?
Ellie:
Of course. Sleep is for emotionally stable people.
Max:
Good. I need someone to tell me not to jump off a metaphorical cliff.
Ellie:
That depends. How high is it? And will you land in a metaphorical bakery?
Max:
…You're weird. I like it.
Ellie:
You're sad. I see it.
Max stared at the screen.
He didn't reply right away.
But his throat tightened.
Someone had seen him. Without him even realizing he was standing in the spotlight.