I was blocked from viewing it, of course, but people talk.
Screenshots get shared.
My cousin sent it to me with a simple text.
I didn’t respond.
I couldn’t.
The weight of everything pressed on me.
The betrayal.
The silence.
The fact that my own mother hadn’t even called to check if I was okay.
Not once.
Not after the fake guardianship filing.
Not after the charges on my card.
Not after she slammed the door in my face.
I started having dreams about keys.
I’d be standing at a door, sometimes my apartment, sometimes my childhood home.
And no matter how many keys I tried, none of them worked.
The locks would melt, twist, or vanish entirely.
And I’d wake up drenched in sweat, heart pounding on a couch that wasn’t mine.
That was rock bottom.
Not dramatic, not loud, just a quiet, steady erosion of everything I’d built.
And then one morning, something small shifted.
It was Darren.
He was sitting at the kitchen table, sipping coffee, flipping through a tablet, and he glanced up at me.
“You still got that drill?”
I blinked.
“What?”
“The power drill. You let me borrow it when I moved in. Still works like a beast.”
“Yeah. What?”
He nodded toward the tablet.
“My landlord’s letting me redo the shelves in the laundry room. Said I could put in some custom ones if I supply the labor. You in?”
I didn’t answer right away.
But something about the way he said it, like it was normal, like I wasn’t a ghost.
“Sure,” I said. “Why not?”
It took us all of an hour. Basic install.
But it felt good to do something, to hold tools again, to measure and cut and sand.
My hands remembered the rhythm, even if my heart was still playing catchup.
The next weekend, we tackled his bedroom closet, then his kitchen backsplash.
Darren kept finding excuses to bring me into projects, and I didn’t fight it.
I didn’t talk much, but I showed up.
I worked.
And slowly, something started to come back.
Darren noticed.
One night over takeout, he said, “You ever think about doing this full-time?”
“What? Handyman stuff, repairs, installations?”
“You’re good at it, man.”
I shook my head.
“Nah, that’s just side stuff.”
“Why not? You got a knack. You’re detail oriented. You don’t cut corners. Half the guys on Craigslist don’t even bring a level. You could charge double and still get booked.”
I didn’t say anything.
But that night, I pulled out my laptop and started searching.
Handyman licensing, small business registration, website templates.
I didn’t sleep much.
But for the first time in weeks, it wasn’t from anxiety.
It was hope.
Over the next few days, I juggled work with research.
Started making lists. Tools I already had, tools I needed, services I could offer, price ranges, insurance, tax stuff.
The logistics were dizzying, but I didn’t care because for the first time in weeks, I was building something.
A few days later, Darren let me tag along on a job he was doing for a coworker, mounting a TV and fixing a broken cabinet.
I did most of the work.
Darren watched, cracked jokes, offered beer.
After the coworker tipped us both, “You’re a pro,” he said. “You do this full-time?”
I didn’t lie.
“Not yet.”
That night, I bought a domain name, hyperpixit.com.
Simple, clean, professional.
I made a basic logo, set up an email address, and started working on a one-page site.
Nothing fancy, just enough to look legit.