The ghost was quiet.
For once, it wasn't because it was brooding, or calculating, or lurking in the background with its usual weathered detachment. No. It was quiet because it was… satisfied. After the Thorne call, it had nothing left to correct. No notes. No red ink. No lessons to whisper through Alex's ribs. For the first time in weeks, the teenager and the ghost were walking in step.
Alex felt the afterglow of that synergy like heat still radiating off a forge. Not just from the win—he had stared down a corporate titan and held the line—but from the way it had all clicked. All his instincts. All his strategy. All his courage. The boy hadn't just survived the moment. He had owned it.
It made everything feel lighter. His hoodie didn't hang so heavy on his shoulders. The fluorescent glare of the school hallways didn't feel so oppressive. Even the chaotic echo chamber of the cafeteria, usually a sensory war zone, seemed almost… manageable.
He wove through the crowd, his tray in hand, nodding vaguely at the background noise of teen chatter and slamming lockers and someone yelling about soccer practice. He was already rehearsing the story in his head—not as a brag, but as a shared victory. Leo would love this one. The way Alex had dissected the contract, the look on Thorne's face—it was gold. And Leo had been there from the beginning, from beat one. He deserved to hear it first.
Then he saw the table.
And he saw Leo.
The momentum in Alex's chest stuttered. His smile faltered.
Leo sat alone. Alone, at a table that rarely had an empty seat.
Even from across the room, something looked off. His shoulders were curled forward, like he was trying to disappear into himself. His tray was untouched—just a stack of tater tots slowly congealing under bad lighting. No earbuds. No sketchbook. No signature animated gestures or half-loud humming to whatever song was stuck in his head. Just stillness. Leo's stillness was wrong. It vibrated against the shape of the world like a missing harmony.
Alex approached quickly, slipping into the seat across from him with casual urgency.
"Dude," he said, still half riding the wave from earlier, "you won't believe the call I just had. This guy—Marcus Thorne, like, Omni Records Marcus Thorne—full-on offered me a label deal. Like, global distribution, imprint, seven figures—the works. And I turned him down."
He waited for the reaction. The wide eyes. The swear word. The "no way" that would launch them into a celebratory breakdown.
But Leo didn't look up.
He just… nudged a tater tot with his fork. It rolled an inch, then stopped.
Alex's excitement flickered, then dimmed entirely. He leaned forward, his voice quieter now. "Hey. You okay?"
Leo looked up.
And for the briefest, terrifying moment, Alex saw it.
It wasn't just tiredness. It wasn't just a bad night. It was something else. A hollow ache sitting behind his friend's eyes like a storm cloud too heavy to move. The smile he forced wasn't a wall—it was a white flag.
"Yeah," Leo said, voice flat. "Just didn't sleep much. Long weekend."
He shrugged. A weak, slumped thing. A gesture that pretended not to matter.
Alex knew it was a lie. He didn't know know, but he knew. He'd felt it before—in the waiting rooms of old studios, in the green room before interviews, on couches next to people who smiled wide and laughed loud and were slowly drowning behind their eyes. This was one of those moments. A tiny window cracked open. A chance to ask again.
He almost did.
Almost.
But then his phone buzzed.
Hard. Loud. Urgent.
It danced against the Formica table like it knew it was more important.
Alex blinked. Then glanced down.
CLAIRE: Magazine cover confirmed! SPIN wants you for the Fall issue. They need to schedule the shoot ASAP. Call me NOW.
The words hit like a cymbal crash. Loud. Career-altering. The kind of moment that punctuated timelines. SPIN. A magazine cover. Real press. Real visibility. It wasn't just a win—it was proof. That everything he'd fought for was being seen. Was working.
He felt the dopamine spike before he'd even touched the phone.
"Oh shit," he muttered, halfway to standing. "Sorry, man, I gotta—this is—"
He gestured vaguely at the screen. Leo didn't ask.
"I'll tell you later," Alex said, grabbing the phone like a lifeline. "Big deal. Like, huge. Get some rest, okay?"
He clapped a hand on Leo's shoulder. It was meant to be comforting. But it landed like punctuation. Full stop.
He walked away.
Didn't look back.
Didn't see the moment Leo's faint smile cracked, then dissolved. Didn't see his friend's eyes fall to his tray like they were made of lead. Didn't see the quiet inhale Leo took—long, shaky, barely controlled.
Didn't see the way he folded in on himself, like his entire body was trying to disappear.
In the far corner of the cafeteria, Alex pressed the phone to his ear. His voice was steady, cool, professional. The CEO voice. The one he'd borrowed from the ghost.
"Claire, hey. Yeah, I just saw it. No, that's incredible news. Let's talk shoot dates…"
He was already moving, already thinking ahead, already planning lighting setups and outfit options and promo angles. The cafeteria faded behind him.
And in the deep background of the scene—just out of focus, but heartbreakingly sharp if you knew where to look—Leo sat still. A flicker of color in a world gone gray. An SOS in a language no one was listening to.
Alex had passed a test.
And failed one, too.
The boy and the ghost had walked into that cafeteria fused. But by the time they left, the seam had started to split again. A small, quiet fracture. A silence that would echo louder than anything either of them had said.