Chapter 1: The Quiet Before
The email notification pinged before Mae even opened her eyes.
She ignored it.
The light was still soft, creeping through the thin curtains like it didn’t want to be there either. The ceiling above her bed was the same off-white it had always been, slightly cracked in one corner, like a secret no one had tried to fix. Outside, the city buzzed with a quiet that only came this early, buses sighing at stops, a dog barking in the distance, the sound of a neighbor’s keys jingling against their door.
Inside her chest, static.
Mae pulled the covers tighter over her shoulders, burying her face into the pillow. Maybe if she stayed still enough, she wouldn’t have to be anyone today. Not Mae-the-artist. Not Mae-the-daughter. Not Mae-the-friend-who’s-falling-behind.
Just air. Just fabric. Just silence.
But eventually, her bladder disagreed.
She dragged herself from bed, feet hitting the cold hardwood with a soft slap. Her studio apartment was small but curated, like a Pinterest board she forgot to finish, earthy-toned rugs, shelves lined with art books and dried lavender, and a bulletin board full of sticky notes that had lost their purpose.
On her kitchen counter, three mugs from three different mornings waited to be washed.
She bypassed them.
Instead, she stood at the window with a glass of water, watching the street below fill with commuters, coffee cups in hand, eyes on screens or nowhere at all. Mae watched them like she was behind glass. Like she was fading from the inside out.
A year ago, she had been one of them, buzzing with deadlines, carrying portfolios like armor, constantly churning out freelance commissions and sponsored illustrations for brands she didn’t care about. Her Instagram following had bloomed. Her inbox had stayed full.
Everyone told her she was lucky. Doing what she loved. Working from home. “Living the dream.”
But dreams were not supposed to feel like drowning.
Mae had stopped posting two months ago. She stopped responding to emails a week later. She kept thinking the quiet would feel like relief, but instead it felt like she had disappeared, and no one noticed.
She dressed mechanically: black joggers, an oversized sweatshirt that smelled like dryer sheets, and socks with tiny lemons on them. Her hair went into a messy bun, not the cute kind, just the survival kind.
Mae sat on the edge of her bed, her phone in hand. The emails were still there, unopened, each subject line more urgent than the last:
- Follow-Up on Contract for Q3
- Final Edits Needed – Urgent
- Client Hasn’t Heard Back – Please Advise
- Hey, just checking in! You okay?
She scrolled past them all.
Her thumb hovered over the “Select All” option. She could delete them. Start fresh. Disappear properly.
But her stomach twisted, and she tossed the phone onto her blanket instead.
Maybe coffee would help. Coffee always helped in movies.
Mae moved to the kitchen and turned on the kettle. The hum of it filled the silence like something solid. The warmth from the stove crept up her arms, reminding her she was still here. Still breathing. Still trying.
She stared at the corkboard above her desk as she waited. Once, it had been alive with sketches, character concepts, colorful thumbnails, and client notes scribbled in red marker. Now it was half-empty. One of the pushpins hung crooked, a single faded post-it note still clinging to it.
You’re allowed to rest.
She had written that to herself months ago. At the time, it felt revolutionary. Now it felt like an apology she kept repeating without believing.
By ten a.m., Mae had managed to water the plants and respond to a single message, from her landlord, reminding her rent was due by Friday. She replied with a polite, “Got it, thank you.”
It was the most productive thing she did all day.
The rest of the morning passed in fragments. She opened her sketchpad. Closed it again. She clicked through social media and muted three more people. One had just landed a book deal. Another had posted their “cozy morning routine” in Paris. The third shared a quote about discipline and greatness and hustle.
Mae tossed her phone onto the couch and curled into a ball.
She wasn’t angry at them. Not really. She was angry that it used to be her. Or at least, she pretended it was. She remembered the perfectly filtered photos, the witty captions, the illusion of balance.
Back then, she could draw ten hours a day and still smile.
Now, even thinking about picking up a pencil made her chest feel like it was caving in.
Around lunchtime, the ache behind her eyes returned. It was familiar, dull and heavy like a second skull. She filled a glass with water, drank half, then opened the fridge and stared at a half-eaten salad she didn’t remember buying.
She closed it again.
Instead, she sat at the windowsill with a slice of toast, dry and unbuttered. Below, a teenager was skateboarding down the street with headphones in, his laughter trailing behind him. A woman walked her golden retriever in a yellow raincoat, talking softly into her phone. Life moved around her like she wasn’t part of it anymore.
Mae used to fill her notebooks with people like that—tiny slices of life, captured in watercolor and ink. It used to bring her joy.
Now she couldn’t even finish a line.
She wiped her hands and opened her sketchbook. Blank page. Crisp. Clean.
She stared at it for five minutes. Then ten.
Her hand moved to the pencil without meaning to. A faint outline of a figure appeared, a woman, back turned, sitting in tall grass. Mae paused. Her chest felt tight, but not in the usual way. Not panic. Something else. Something quieter.
She closed the sketchbook again.
By mid-afternoon, the light changed.
It always did around three. The sun filtered through her curtains like gold dust, hitting the wall above her bookshelf, scattering itself across the floor like it knew exactly what it was doing.
Mae watched the way it moved.
For a moment, the silence felt holy.
She remembered being six years old, lying in her backyard on a summer afternoon, watching the clouds and wondering if anyone else felt like a ghost in their own skin. She had never known how to explain that feeling. She still didn’t.
But it had followed her. All this time.
At four-thirty, her phone buzzed again. This time, it was from her friend, Jo.
Hey. Haven’t heard from you in a bit. Want to come over for tea? No pressure. Just… miss you.
Mae stared at the screen.
Jo never pushed. She was one of the few people who didn’t treat Mae like a project or a failure to be solved. Still, the thought of having to speak, to smile, to pretend she was okay, it felt exhausting.
But so did being alone.
Her thumb hovered over the keyboard. Her fingers trembled. She typed:
Maybe tomorrow?
She hit send before she could change her mind.
As the evening crawled in, Mae sat on her couch, legs tucked under her, arms wrapped around a heating pad that smelled like eucalyptus. She watched the sky bleed into indigo, the last streaks of gold fading into the buildings.
She felt like she was waiting.
For what, she wasn’t sure.
A sign, maybe. A break. A reason to believe that the heavy thing in her chest wasn’t forever.
When the first star appeared, she whispered to no one:
“I don’t want to feel like this anymore.”
There was no reply. Just the hum of the fridge. The hush of night.
But saying it out loud made it real.
Mae didn’t know it yet, but this was the beginning.
Not the kind with fanfare or fire. The quiet kind. The real kind.
The kind of beginning that feels like an ending until you survive it.
