The Moment Before You Finally Move

The first sign wasn’t a sound. It was the way the light behaved.

Mara noticed it while she stood in her kitchen with the faucet running too long, her hands held under the stream like she could rinse off a thought. The morning should have been clean and ordinary—gray Dallas daylight, thin and patient, the neighbor’s sprinkler ticking somewhere outside—but the sunlight coming through the blinds didn’t land right. It didn’t stripe the counter in neat bars. It hovered, softened, like it was deciding whether to commit.

She shut off the water.

Nothing dramatic happened. No shiver down the walls. No whispering vents. The fridge hummed, the house settled, the air vent exhaled on schedule. The world kept its promises, mostly.

Still, Mara leaned a little closer to the window and watched the light stutter at the edge of a blind slat, as if the day was trying to load.

She told herself it was her sleep. Her nerves. Her brain making art out of nothing. She had a talent for that: finding shape in static.

Her phone buzzed on the counter, face-up, screen bright. A single message from Jalen.

You up?

It was 7:04 a.m., which was not an hour Jalen ever existed in unless he was about to do something stupid or miraculous. Mara wiped her hands on her jeans and typed back.

I’m up. Are you okay?

Three dots. Pause. Three dots again. The dots were the closest thing Mara had to a heartbeat in the room.

Can I come by?

Mara stared at the words until they started to look like a dare. She could say yes. She could say no. She could ask what happened. She could pretend she didn’t see it.

Her thumb hovered.

Outside, the sprinkler ticked. The light through the blinds held its breath.

Mara typed, Door’s open. Then, because that sounded like a trap, she added, I’m making coffee.

She wasn’t making coffee. She didn’t even like coffee. She liked the idea of having made it—something to hold, something warm to do with her hands while the universe got around to telling her what it wanted.

She filled the kettle anyway.

While it heated, she drifted through the living room, stepping around the laundry she’d been meaning to fold for three days. The couch was still wearing last night’s blanket like a shrug. A half-finished book lay open on the armrest. In the corner sat her camera bag, zipped and silent, a dog waiting for a walk it didn’t expect to get.

Mara had a habit of leaving things ready.

Not because she was productive. Because she feared the moment she’d need something and wouldn’t have it. Because “ready” felt like a spell she could cast over her own life: see, I have tools, I have plans, I could go if I wanted. She just… hadn’t wanted yet.

Or hadn’t found the right beginning.

The kettle clicked, and she flinched like it had shouted.

She poured water into the French press—she owned one because people in her life had once believed she was the kind of person who used a French press—and watched the steam curl up and vanish. The steam felt honest. It didn’t pretend to be anything other than temporary.

A car door closed outside.

Mara’s mouth went dry. She didn’t move right away. She listened for footsteps, the gate latch, the familiar heavy pause before a knock—because Jalen always knocked even when he didn’t have to, like he didn’t trust his own right to enter.

But there was no knock.

The front door eased open, slow, like it was shy.

“Mara?” Jalen’s voice floated in, careful. “You said door’s open.”

Mara walked to the entryway and found him standing just inside, both hands on his backpack straps, like he’d traveled farther than a ten-minute drive. His hair was damp, as if he’d showered in a hurry. His hoodie looked slept-in. His eyes—usually bright with jokes he couldn’t wait to make—were wide and blank in the center, like a TV screen between channels.

He smiled anyway. The smile had the shape of a smile but not the weight.

“Hey,” Mara said, and immediately hated how small it sounded.

“Hey.” He glanced past her shoulder, into the house, like he expected to see something. Or someone. “I didn’t know where else to go.”

“You could’ve called.”

“I did.” He lifted his phone, then seemed to remember he hadn’t, then lowered it again. “I mean, I almost did.”

That was so Jalen it would’ve been funny if it didn’t feel like he’d brought a thin fog with him. Mara stepped aside and let him in further.

“You want coffee?” she asked.

He blinked. “You don’t drink coffee.”

“I’m… starting.”

Another almost-smile. “Right. Starting.”

He followed her into the kitchen, moving like his joints were stiff, like he’d been packed away somewhere and was just now unfolding. He sat at the table without being asked. His backpack stayed on his shoulders until Mara said, gently, “You can put that down.”

He looked surprised, as if he’d forgotten he could. Then he slid it off and set it at his feet with care.

Mara busied herself with mugs, sugar, anything that let her keep moving. “So,” she said, too bright, “what’s going on?”

Jalen stared at the countertop, at the water droplets from her hands. He traced one with his eyes as it slid toward the edge.

“It’s nothing,” he said.

Mara waited. The kettle’s click was still echoing in her body.

He tried again. “It’s not nothing.”

“Okay.”

He swallowed. “I think… I think I’m at the edge of something.”

Mara’s fingers tightened around a mug. “Like what?”

Jalen shook his head, quick. “I don’t know. That’s the problem. I don’t know if it’s a beginning or just—” He flexed his hand, opened and closed it. “—the feeling you get before you miss a step.”

Mara set the mug down, slower than necessary. “Did something happen?”

“Not exactly.” He looked up at her finally. His eyes were red around the rims, like he’d spent a long time not crying. “It’s more like… everything that hasn’t happened yet is getting too loud.”

That landed in Mara’s chest. She knew that sound. She’d been living next to it for months—years—like a neighbor who played music just soft enough to make you doubt you were hearing it.

Mara sat across from him.

He took a breath, and his shoulders rose with it. When he exhaled, they didn’t fall all the way.

“I quit,” he said.

Mara blinked. “You quit your job?”

Jalen nodded, but it looked like his head was too heavy. “This morning. I walked in and I said it. I didn’t plan to. I was supposed to just… make it through the day. Make it through the week. Make it through whatever.” His laugh broke off early. “But I walked in and the fluorescent lights felt like they were pressing on my skull, and my boss started talking and I heard myself say it. I didn’t even recognize my own voice.”

Mara’s mind immediately began stacking consequences like boxes: rent, insurance, the little cushion Jalen didn’t have because he always gave his extra money away, the way his mom would react, the way he would panic later.

“What did you say?” Mara asked.

Jalen blinked, like he hadn’t been asked that yet. “I said… I said I can’t keep pretending that this is my life.”

Mara’s stomach flipped.

He leaned forward, elbows on the table. “And then—this is the weird part—nothing happened. Like, nobody tackled me. The building didn’t collapse. My boss just stared at me like I’d spoken in another language, and I walked out.”

Mara nodded, even though she didn’t know what she was agreeing with. “Okay.”

He rubbed his face with both hands. “I thought I’d feel free. Or terrified. Or something. But I just feel… unfinished.”

“Yeah,” Mara said softly. “Beginnings don’t feel like movie beginnings.”

Jalen looked at her. “Is that a thing you’ve been thinking about, or—”

Mara gave a quick shrug. “I don’t know. I just…” She paused, feeling stupid, then decided to say it anyway. “This morning the light in here looked wrong.”

Jalen’s eyebrows lifted.

“Not wrong,” Mara corrected quickly. “Just… hesitant.”

He stared at the blinds like they’d betrayed him. “That’s exactly it,” he said, very quiet. “Hesitant.”

The coffee sat between them, steeping into darkness. Mara watched the timer in her head tick, even though there was no timer. She wanted to do something. Fix something. Tell him what to do next. That was what she did: she found the right steps, the right sequence, the checklist that would turn fear into action.

But Jalen hadn’t come for a checklist. He’d come because the air felt thin around the future and he needed someone else to stand in it with him.

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” Jalen said. “I keep telling people I’m going to start my own thing. My music, my—whatever. But every time I get close, it’s like my body… resists. Like I’m trying to walk through water.”

Mara held his gaze. “Maybe you’re tired.”

“I am tired.” He laughed again, sharper this time. “But it’s not just tired. It’s like… I’m afraid if I start, it’ll become real. And if it becomes real, it can fail.”

Mara’s throat tightened. She thought of her camera bag in the corner. Of the YouTube channel she’d started and stopped and started again, each attempt a careful toe into the pool before she yanked herself back.

She hadn’t told Jalen about the drafts. The scripts. The footage she’d filmed and never uploaded because the thumbnails didn’t feel right or her voice sounded strange or she didn’t know what the “point” was.

She’d said she was “thinking about it.” She’d been thinking about it for so long it had become a place she lived.

“I get that,” Mara said.

Jalen’s eyes softened. “Yeah?”

Mara nodded. “Yeah.”

The silence that followed wasn’t empty. It had weight, like two people sitting on the same couch without speaking but both aware they were there.

Jalen reached into his hoodie pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. It was creased hard, folded and unfolded too many times. He slid it across the table like it might bite.

“What’s that?” Mara asked.

Jalen didn’t answer right away. He watched the paper as if it was alive.

“It’s… a thing I wrote,” he said. “Last night. I don’t know why I wrote it. I just couldn’t sleep, and it came out. And now I can’t tell if it’s the start of something or just… a tantrum.”

Mara didn’t touch it yet. “Do you want me to read it?”

Jalen’s jaw worked. “I want you to tell me if it’s stupid.”

Mara finally reached out and took the paper. It was warm from his pocket. The handwriting was Jalen’s—looping, fast, like he was racing himself.

There were only a few lines.

Not a poem exactly. Not a plan. More like a promise he wasn’t sure he was allowed to make.

Mara read it once, then again, slower.

When she looked up, Jalen was watching her face like it was an answer key.

“It’s not stupid,” she said.

His shoulders sagged a fraction, relief or disappointment—she couldn’t tell.

“It’s… honest,” Mara added.

Jalen let out a breath that sounded like it hurt. “Honest doesn’t pay rent.”

“No,” Mara said, and then, because she didn’t want to lie to him with hope, she added, “but it’s usually where stuff starts.”

Jalen stared down at his hands. His fingertips picked at the edge of a cuticle until it reddened.

“I don’t know how to start,” he said. “I keep waiting for the moment where I feel ready.”

Mara thought of the word she always used: ready.

She thought of her camera bag, zipped and silent. She thought of all the days she’d told herself she’d start “next week,” as if the calendar held permission.

“You don’t get ready,” Mara said, surprising herself with how firm it came out. “You just… begin badly.”

Jalen laughed, genuine this time, a quick burst. “Begin badly.”

“Yeah.” Mara slid the paper back to him. “You begin messy. You begin with the wrong equipment. You begin with your voice cracking. You begin with five views and one comment from your aunt.”

Jalen’s smile lingered. “My aunt doesn’t even have YouTube.”

“Then she’ll figure it out,” Mara said, and the joke warmed the room a little.

Jalen leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling like he was looking for instructions hidden in the drywall.

“I drove past the lake,” he said suddenly.

“Which one?”

“Grapevine.” He paused. “I don’t know why. I just… turned.”

Mara waited.

“I stopped at the edge,” Jalen said. “You know that part where the water’s right up to the rocks, and you can stand there and it feels like you’re not in the city anymore? I stood there for a long time. And I kept thinking: if I just step in, if I just do something, maybe it’ll change.”

Mara pictured it: Jalen on the shoreline, hoodie up, hands in his pockets, the sky too big.

“And did you step in?” she asked.

Jalen shook his head. “No. I just stood there. Like an idiot.”

Mara didn’t like the word idiot. She didn’t like how quickly people punished themselves for being human.

“You stood there,” she corrected. “That’s… something.”

He looked at her, skeptical.

Mara shrugged. “It’s the edge. That’s what the edge is for.”

Jalen’s phone buzzed on the table. He didn’t look at it.

Mara didn’t ask who it was. She could guess. His boss. His mom. The universe, calling to collect.

Jalen stared at the phone until it stopped. Then he said, almost to himself, “What if I already ruined it?”

“What?”

“What if quitting was the wrong move?” His voice tightened. “What if that was me being dramatic, and now I can’t go back, and now I have to make something work because I said I couldn’t pretend anymore?”

Mara leaned forward. “You can go back.”

Jalen’s eyes snapped to hers. “I can?”

“Yeah.” Mara spoke carefully, because she didn’t want to hand him an escape hatch if he needed a door, but she also didn’t want him to drown in a false cliff. “You can go back. Or you can not go back. But the world is not a single-choice menu.”

Jalen’s brow furrowed. “That sounds like something you tell yourself.”

Mara’s mouth twitched. “It is.”

They sat with that.

The coffee had gotten cold, and neither of them cared.

Mara stood and moved to the living room, gesturing for Jalen to follow. He hesitated, then got up, backpack in hand, and trailed after her like he didn’t trust his place in the house.

Mara picked up her camera bag and set it on the coffee table. The zipper gleamed.

Jalen eyed it. “You filming today?”

Mara swallowed. “I don’t know.”

He stared at her, and something in his expression shifted—recognition, maybe. The way you see a friend standing in the same doorway you’ve been pacing.

“What are you working on?” Jalen asked.

Mara laughed, short and defensive. “Nothing.”

Jalen didn’t let it slide. “Mara.”

She sighed. “I have footage.”

“Of what?”

“Of… stuff.” She gestured vaguely, as if “stuff” was a genre. “A video I started. About… the way everything feels like it’s running on the wrong settings. Like the world keeps asking you to be optimized, and I’m just trying to be… alive.”

Jalen blinked slowly. “That doesn’t sound like nothing.”

Mara looked down at the camera bag like it was accusing her. “I haven’t posted in months.”

“So?” Jalen said. His voice had an edge now—not sharp, but awake. “You think the beginning is the upload?”

Mara opened her mouth, then closed it.

Jalen stepped closer to the table. He didn’t touch the bag, but his hand hovered near it, respectful. “Is it edited?”

“Mostly.”

“Is it good?”

“I don’t know.”

Jalen nodded, like he understood that answer more than any other.

He sat on the couch and pulled out his phone again, this time unlocking it. The screen lit his face from below, making him look younger, like a kid sneaking a flashlight under a blanket.

“What if,” Jalen said, “we just… do something small?”

Mara watched him.

“Not a whole plan,” he added quickly. “Not a life overhaul. Just something. Like… you hit export. Or you make a thumbnail. Or I record a verse. I don’t know.” He looked up at her, almost pleading. “Just something that proves the edge isn’t a wall.”

Mara’s heart thudded.

She wanted to say yes. She wanted to say no. She wanted to say later.

Her mind tried to find the safest answer, the one that wouldn’t risk embarrassment, the one that wouldn’t make her feel exposed. Her mind always did that.

But her body—her hands, her chest—felt tired of hovering.

Mara sat beside him, close enough that their shoulders almost touched. “Okay,” she said.

Jalen’s smile was small, but it was real. “Okay?”

“Okay,” Mara repeated, and reached for her laptop on the side table.

The screen flickered awake. Her desktop was a mess of folders with names like FINAL_final2 and edit_new and DO NOT DELETE. She clicked one without looking too hard. The file loaded slowly, a spinning wheel, like the machine itself didn’t want to commit.

Jalen watched, silent.

Mara’s throat felt tight as the timeline appeared. Clips, cuts, audio waves. Her voice on the track, visible as peaks and valleys. She hated seeing it, hated how concrete it looked.

“Hit play,” Jalen said gently.

Mara hesitated.

Then she did.

Her own voice filled the room. Not polished. Not perfect. But hers. Talking about a morning where the light felt reluctant. Talking about waiting for a beginning that never arrived like an announcement. Talking about how the world keeps moving and you either step with it or you get dragged.

Mara’s cheeks warmed. She reached for the trackpad to stop it, but Jalen’s hand—careful—touched her wrist.

“Don’t,” he said. “Let it run.”

Mara let it run.

For two minutes, they listened. The video was rough. The audio peaked in places. The cuts were too quick in one section, too slow in another. The ending—she hadn’t finished the ending.

It just… stopped, mid-thought, her voice trailing into silence like she’d walked away from herself.

When the clip ended, the room felt louder than before.

Mara stared at the paused frame: her own face in soft focus, eyes looking slightly past the camera, like she was watching something just behind it.

“It’s unfinished,” Mara said.

Jalen nodded. “Yeah.”

“I don’t have an ending.”

“Maybe you don’t need one,” Jalen said.

Mara huffed a laugh. “That’s not how YouTube works.”

Jalen shrugged. “Maybe it is for you.”

Mara looked at him, and for the first time since he arrived, she saw color returning to his face. Not happiness exactly. But movement.

“Do you have anything recorded?” Mara asked.

Jalen blinked. “My music?”

“Yeah.”

He hesitated, then pulled his phone up and clicked through folders. He found a voice memo and held the phone out like it was fragile.

Mara took it and pressed play.

Jalen’s voice poured out, low and intimate, singing a melody that sounded like driving at night with no destination. The lyrics were incomplete, half-formed, like he’d stopped mid-sentence, too.

But what was there was beautiful. It didn’t resolve. It didn’t conclude. It just reached forward.

Mara listened, and something behind her ribs loosened.

When it ended, she handed the phone back without speaking.

Jalen swallowed. “It’s not done.”

Mara nodded. “I know.”

Jalen stared at the screen. “I stopped because I didn’t know what comes next.”

Mara looked at her laptop again, at her own paused face, at the timeline stretching forward into empty space.

“Maybe,” she said quietly, “we’re not supposed to know.”

Jalen leaned back against the couch. His knee bounced, then slowed.

Outside, a car passed. A dog barked once. The world kept making its ordinary noises like a soundtrack that refused to react to their internal drama.

Mara’s finger hovered over the export button.

She didn’t press it yet.

She opened the settings anyway. Set the resolution. Named the file something less desperate.

Jalen watched her do it, like watching someone step onto thin ice.

“What are you going to call it?” he asked.

Mara stared at the title field. The cursor blinked, patient, waiting for her to decide.

“I don’t know,” she admitted.

Jalen nodded, oddly relieved. “Yeah. Same.”

Mara typed something temporary. A placeholder. A title she could change later.

Edge of Beginning.

She laughed under her breath. “That’s cheesy.”

Jalen grinned. “Cheesy is a start.”

Mara glanced at him. “You want to go back to the lake?”

Jalen’s grin faltered. “Now?”

“Not to do anything dramatic,” Mara said quickly. “Just… be there. Maybe record something. Maybe just stand at the edge again, but different.”

Jalen stared at the wall, thinking. His phone buzzed again. He ignored it.

“I don’t want to promise anything,” he said.

Mara nodded. “Me neither.”

They sat, both holding the same reluctant shape.

Then Jalen stood.

He picked up his backpack, then paused and set it back down again, like he was practicing putting weight down.

“Okay,” he said.

Mara’s chest tightened, not with fear exactly, but with the sensation of a door opening somewhere inside her.

She saved the project. Closed the laptop. Grabbed her keys, then hesitated, then grabbed her camera bag too. She slung it over her shoulder, feeling its familiar pull.

Jalen watched her do it like it was a brave thing, though it shouldn’t have been.

At the door, Mara paused, hand on the knob.

The light through the blinds shifted again, finally landing in clear stripes across the floor, like it had made a decision.

Mara stepped outside anyway, before she could change her mind.

The air was cool, carrying the smell of wet grass and distant exhaust. Jalen locked his car with a beep that sounded too loud in the morning.

They walked to their cars in parallel, not quite together, not quite separate. Two people moving toward something they hadn’t named.

Mara opened her driver-side door and looked back.

Jalen stood by his car, one hand on the handle, staring down the street as if he could see the day unfolding. His shoulders were still tense, but his eyes were awake now, focused on the horizon like it was a question he was finally willing to ask.

Mara didn’t call out. She didn’t make a speech. She didn’t promise him—or herself—that everything would be okay.

She just lifted her keys, a small signal.

Jalen nodded once, then got in.

Engines started. Tires rolled.

They pulled out onto the street, turning toward the lake, toward whatever waited at the edge, the world ahead unspooling without instructions—unfinished, in motion, and finally, unmistakably, beginning.