The vigil began on a Tuesday.
Billie showed up at the front door after school, backpack slung over one shoulder, her face set with quiet purpose. Alex's mother opened the door with red-rimmed eyes and an exhausted nod of thanks. She didn't ask questions. She didn't need to.
Up the stairs, Billie paused in the dim hallway, staring at the closed door ahead like it was a sealed vault. The air was still, muffled. Like the whole house was holding its breath.
She knocked once, knuckles gentle against the wood. "Alex? It's me. Can I come in?"
No answer. Not even a stir.
She waited—long enough for hope to stretch thin—then knocked again, softer. "I just… I wanted to check on you. We miss you."
Silence. Dense. Unyielding.
It became a ritual.
Day after day, she returned.
Day after day, she was met with the same impenetrable stillness.
Alex's parents let her come and go without interference. They didn't understand why she kept trying—but they let her try. She might reach him, they reasoned. She was a part of his world. Maybe the last piece of it still reaching toward him.
Meals continued to appear on the floor outside his door: a sandwich, a bowl of soup, a plate of rice and vegetables. Most of it was left untouched, hours later. Eventually, Billie began placing her own offerings beside the food. Not words. Not questions. Just small reminders. A bar of dark chocolate with almonds—the exact brand he always bought at the gas station near school. A freshly bagged comic book from his favorite series. A smooth gray stone, cool from the sea, its surface soft as skin.
Each object whispered the same thing: I remember you. Even if you don't remember yourself.
By the third day, she stopped knocking. Something in her understood what others hadn't—that silence wasn't a wall to be broken through. It was a drowning, and the person on the other side didn't need a voice calling out. They needed a hand reaching in.
So instead, she sat.
Every day, Billie slid down the hallway wall opposite his door and planted herself there, knees pulled up, arms draped loosely around them. Sometimes she'd do her homework, the soft scrape of her pencil the only sound in the house. Other times, she'd put in her earbuds and disappear into a low tide of music, letting the soft vibrations hum against her chest. She said nothing. Asked nothing.
She was simply there.
A quiet sentinel.
A steady pulse just beyond the closed door.
Not trying to force him out. Just refusing to let him disappear unnoticed.
Finneas came once—on a Friday. His presence filled the hallway in a way Billie's never did. He didn't sit. He didn't hesitate. He stood in front of the door, arms crossed, voice firm but pleading.
"Alex," he said, "you can't keep doing this."
No response.
"This isn't helping anyone, especially not you. We're all scared for you, man. You gotta talk to somebody. Me. Billie. Your parents. Just say something."
Still nothing. Not a creak of the floorboards. Not a sigh.
Finneas exhaled hard, running both hands through his hair. His voice broke a little on the next sentence. "You're not alone. I need you to know that."
He stood there a minute longer, shoulders tight. Then he turned, frustration written in the sharp set of his jaw, grief softening it just behind the eyes. He walked away, sparing a glance back toward his sister. She was still seated on the floor, earbuds in, eyes closed, waiting.
"Good luck," he murmured.
Billie didn't answer. She wasn't listening to him. She was listening to the silence, and the heartbeat buried beneath it.
On the seventh day, she arrived with a new idea.
She sat in her usual spot. Listened. Waited. The silence was familiar now—still thick, still heavy, but no longer frightening. It had taken shape. She had learned to sit inside it without shrinking.
Then she opened her sketchbook.
No words. No speech. Words had become brittle things. Comfort sounded fake. Encouragement felt like pressure. Neither were what he needed.
So she drew.
Her pencil moved quickly, instinctively. The image that emerged was rough, almost childish—but unmistakable in its intent. Two stick figures on a stage, crude spotlights beaming down. One figure was marked with a tiny 'A', holding a lopsided guitar. The other, labeled 'L', stood beside him with a giant, cartoonish thumbs-up and a wide, grinning face.
A memory.
Not a plea.
Not a fix.
Just: This happened. We were here. We existed like this once.
When she was finished, she didn't knock.
She knelt by the door and carefully slid the paper underneath, her fingertips brushing the carpet.
Inside the room, Alex noticed immediately.
From where he lay on the bed—motionless for what felt like hours—he saw it. A slip of white crossing the boundary under the door, disrupting the neat, undisturbed gray of the room. He didn't move. Just stared.
He heard her footsteps, soft, retreating down the hall. Then silence again.
He watched the drawing sit there.
A presence.
A rupture in the seal.
A thread tied to the world beyond.
Eventually, as if dragged from the bottom of a deep sea, Alex swung his legs over the side of the bed. His body groaned. His joints popped like breaking twigs. He moved slowly toward the door and knelt down.
He picked up the paper.
Two stick figures. A stage.
Leo's spiky hair.
His own rectangular guitar.
That impossibly big thumbs-up.
Something in his chest gave. Not a collapse. Not a cry. Just a subtle shift. A tiny break in the numbness. A ripple.
It didn't bring peace. It didn't release him from the guilt. But it did something smaller, and maybe more important.
It reminded him that someone was still there.
Waiting.
It was not a rescue.
It was a tether.
And it held.