Chapter 28 The Static
Time, for the past three weeks, had become a thick, viscous substance. It didn’t pass so much as it congealed. Leo’s apartment, once his vibrant sanctuary, the chaotic, colorful nest of his personality, had become a cage. A museum of ghosts.
He’d wake up when the light outside became too bright to ignore, and he’d move from his bed to his lumpy, comfortable couch.
And there he would stay, adrift in the silent, stagnant air, until the light faded again and it was acceptable to return to bed.
The days bled into one another, a monotonous gray smear of existence.
His phone was a dead weight on the coffee table, a constant, silent accusation.
The screen would light up with calls he never answered.
His mom, mostly. Her name would flash—Mom Calling—and a wave of shame so profound it was nauseating would wash over him.
How could he tell her? How could he admit that her son, the one she worried about, the one she was so proud of for finally landing a “real job,” had been fired for being a fraud?
So he let it ring, and with each missed call, the chasm between him and the outside world grew a little wider.
The apartment reflected his internal state.
A graveyard of takeout containers littered the kitchen counter.
A fine layer of dust coated every surface, dulling the bright colors of his books and prints.
The plant Julian had once commented on was now a sad, brown skeleton in its pot.
The whole place felt like it was holding its breath.
Every object was a memory, a landmine of grief.
The worn spot on the rug where they had lain together, tangled and happy.
The coffee table where Julian had patiently explained the economics of a business proposal.
The doorway where they had almost kissed, where they had said their last, real goodbye.
The ghosts were everywhere, and they were relentless.
He was at rock bottom. The core wound he’d spent his entire life trying to outrun—his deep-seated, unshakable fear of being a failure—was no longer a fear.
It was a fact. He had reached the pinnacle of his professional life, had been offered everything he ever thought he wanted, and it had all been a lie.
He wasn’t just a failure; he was a disgrace.
The self-deprecating humor that had been his armor was gone.
There was nothing funny about this. This was just the bleak, silent truth.
He was staring at a particularly interesting patch of ceiling when a loud, insistent knocking echoed from his front door. He didn’t move. It was probably the landlord, another battle he didn’t have the energy to fight. The knocking continued, harder this time.
“Leo Hayes, I know you’re in there! I can smell the despair and old pizza from the hallway! Open this door or I swear I will pick the lock. Don’t test me, I’ve been watching YouTube tutorials!”
Maya.
A tiny, fragile flicker of something that wasn’t numbness sparked in his chest. He ignored it. The knocking stopped. He heard a faint scratching sound at the lock, followed by a string of creative curses. A moment later, his phone buzzed on the table.
Maya [1:14 PM] FINE. But I’m not leaving. I will sit here and order increasingly fragrant and delicious food to be delivered to your doorstep until the smell drives you insane. Your move, Hayes.
He stared at the message. A ghost of his old self, the one who loved a witty challenge, surfaced for a brief second.
He sighed, a long, rattling sound that seemed to come from the very bottom of his lungs.
He pushed himself off the couch, his joints protesting.
The world tilted for a second as he stood. He was a ghost in his own apartment.
He shuffled to the door and unlocked it. Maya stood on the other side, her arms laden with two heavy grocery bags. She wasn’t smiling. Her expression was a carefully balanced mixture of profound concern and absolute, no-bullshit determination.
She walked past him without a word, her gaze sweeping over the wreckage of his apartment, her lips pressed into a thin, unhappy line. She went straight to the kitchen, set the bags down with a thud, and started unpacking. Milk. Bread. A carton of eggs. An absurdly large bag of oranges.
“You look like shit,” she said, her back to him. It was the kindest thing anyone had said to him in weeks.
“I’m cultivating a look,” he replied, his voice a hoarse croak. “It’s called ‘post-apocalyptic chic’.” The old banter felt foreign on his tongue, a language he barely remembered how to speak.
“It’s not chic, Leo. It’s a biohazard,” she said, turning to face him. She leaned back against the counter, her arms crossed. Her eyes were soft, but her voice was firm. “How long has it been since you’ve been outside?”
He shrugged. “Tuesday? Maybe the Tuesday before that? The sun and I are on a break.”
“And your mom? She’s called me three times. She’s worried sick.”
Guilt, sharp and familiar, twisted in his gut. “I know. I just… I can’t talk to her. Not yet.”
“Okay,” Maya said, nodding slowly. She wasn’t pushing.
She was just stating facts. She walked over to him, stopping a few feet away.
“I’m not here to give you a lecture. I’m not here to tell you to get over it.
I’m just here to make sure you’re still alive.
” She gestured around the room. “This… is not a sustainable life support system.”
She walked over to the windows and, with a decisive tug, yanked the curtains open. Bright, unforgiving sunlight flooded the room, illuminating the dust motes dancing in the air. Leo flinched, raising a hand to shield his eyes.
“There,” she said. “Vitamin D. Step one.” She started gathering the takeout containers, her movements efficient and purposeful. “I’m not going to clean for you. But I am going to throw this stuff out before it achieves sentience.”
He just stood there, watching her, a strange, overwhelming wave of gratitude washing over him. She wasn’t trying to fix him. She wasn't offering empty platitudes. She was just… here. A solid, real presence in his house of ghosts. A lifeline.
When she had cleared the worst of the trash, she came back and stood in front of him.
“I miss you,” she said, her voice quiet and achingly sincere. “Your actual, stupid, funny self. He’s in there somewhere, right?”
Leo couldn’t speak. He just nodded, a lump forming in his throat.
“Good,” she said. She gave him a quick, hard hug, a hug that was less about comfort and more about reminding his atoms that they were still held together. “Eat the oranges. I’ll text you tomorrow. You have to answer.”
And then she was gone.
The apartment was quiet again, but the quality of the silence had changed. It was no longer a suffocating blanket; it was just an empty space. A space filled with bright, intrusive sunlight. Maya’s visit had cracked the window of his self-imposed tomb, letting in a sliver of the outside world.
The numbness had receded, leaving behind the raw, throbbing pain of his heartbreak.
He looked around the room, and the ghosts were still there.
Julian’s laugh echoed in the sunbeams. The memory of his hand on Leo’s was a phantom weight.
The pain was so intense it was a physical thing, a crushing pressure in his chest.
He had to do something with it. He couldn’t just sit here and let it consume him. The thought was a new one, a tiny spark of defiance in the darkness.
His gaze fell on his tablet, lying on the coffee table where it had been since the day he was fired. It was covered in a thick layer of dust, its screen dark and lifeless. He walked over to it, his movements slow, and picked it up. He wiped the screen clean with the hem of his shirt.
He turned it on. The screen flickered to life, showing his last project: a mood board for the Northwind campaign. A monument to his own spectacular lie. He quickly closed the file, his stomach churning.
He stared at the blank home screen, his finger hovering. He didn’t know what he was doing. He just knew he couldn’t stay still. He couldn't keep drowning.
He opened his drawing app. He created a new canvas, a perfect, blank, intimidating white square. He stared at it, the emptiness of it reflecting the emptiness inside him. What was there to create? He wasn’t a designer. He wasn’t a strategist. He was a fraud.
But he was an artist. That was the one thing, the only thing, that had ever been real.
He felt an overwhelming, visceral urge. It wasn’t a gentle wave of inspiration; it was a desperate, clawing need. A need to take the howling, formless grief inside him and give it a shape. To take the pain and make it into something he could see, something he could understand.
He selected a color—a deep, bruised, midnight blue. His stylus touched the screen.
The first line he drew was jagged, angry, a tear in the fabric of the white canvas. He didn't think. He just felt. He let the heartbreak guide his hand. He channeled all of it—the shame, the regret, the gut-wrenching memory of the cold, empty look in Julian’s eyes—into the digital page.
He drew a figure made of brilliant, fractured light, a being of pure, chaotic color.
And he drew a world of perfect, gray, geometric shapes, a fortress of clean lines and cold logic.
And he drew the figure of light standing outside the fortress, his hand outstretched, a single, vibrant tear tracing a path down his cheek, turned away, shut out in the darkness.
He wasn’t creating for a client. He wasn’t creating for a portfolio or for a job application. He wasn't creating for validation.
He was creating for himself. It was the first honest thing he had done in months.
And in the silent, sunlit cage of his apartment, surrounded by the ghosts of what he had lost, Leo Hayes finally, painfully, began to paint his way back to life.