Chapter 3
Lucky
Steam curls from the sink, wrapping around me like it’s trying to soften the edges. I tug the towel from my head and stare.
Gone.
Pink is gone. My infamous Lucky Pink, neon and untouchable, the color that screamed at the world, at the tabloids, at everyone who ever thought they could own me. Replaced by mousy brown. Soft. Mundane. Unremarkable. Like a sigh I can’t stop.
I let the towel fall to the floor, water dripping onto the tiles. My fingers trace the damp strands, feeling the weight of it, the lack of resistance, the absence of chaos. It’s… lighter. Fragile almost. I don’t recognize her, but perhaps I do.
Her eyes stare back at me from the mirror, wide and cautious. Not the eyes of Lucky Pink, of the Grammy, of the world tours. Not the eyes that could set a stage on fire with a glance.
Just me. Just Lucky. Just the fourteen-year-old who wanted to create music because it mattered to her, because she believed in it before anyone else did.
I blink, and the reflection shifts like water. The corners of her mouth tilt down, the line of her jaw feels softer, more human. I study the shape of my nose, the freckles faint under the mousy brown strands, the hollow under my eyes that fame tried to erase with concealer and light.
I reach up and touch my face like I’m confirming I’m still here. Still myself. Or at least a version I can breathe with.
The mirror doesn’t lie.
I see the girl I forgot existed, hidden under pink streaks, under layers of black eyeliner and lipstick, under the chaos of everyone else’s expectations.
The one who stayed up late writing lyrics in notebooks no one ever read, the one who stole moments in silence to play guitar in an empty room, the one who loved music because it loved her back.
I inhale sharply, and the bathroom smells like wet hair and faint shampoo. The dampness sticks to my skin, but it doesn’t bother me. I let my shoulders slump, for the first time in a long time, like I’m shedding more than hair.
The color is ordinary. Safe. Boring to anyone else. But to me… it feels like a small reclamation. A quiet rebellion. A chance to touch the girl I left behind.
I glance at my hands. They’re long, calloused, worn from years of strings and keys and stage lights, and wonder if they remember her too. If they remember creating music because it mattered, not because the world expected a persona.
I stare a little longer. The reflection blinks back, uncertain, but alive.
The bathroom fades from my mind the moment the doorbell rings. It’s shrill, unexpected, pulling me out of my quiet self-reflection. My eyes dart around the room. The towel is still on the floor, dye tubes are scattered like tiny landmines. I should clean them up, but I don’t. Not yet.
I leave the mess and sprint toward the front door, heart ticking faster, hands trembling just a little. I pause at the peephole and peek out.
A delivery truck sits in the driveway. Two men are unloading boxes onto my porch. One pushes a dolly stacked with rectangular shapes; the other carries a familiar, battered black case, edges scuffed, stickers peeling, a road map of every city I ever played.
Confused, I swing the door open.
“Hi.”
“Delivery for Miss Vale,” one says, holding out a tablet. I sign. My hand shakes.
They nod and shove the dolly back toward the truck, doors slamming. The truck growls off, leaving the boxes in a quiet, awkward heap on my porch.
I step outside, chest tight, but I don’t touch a thing. The boxes sit in the afternoon light, heavy and full of expectation I’m not ready for.
I stare. My gaze zeroes in on the old guitar case.
Something clamps down inside me. It’s the one I destroyed on stage during my last meltdown — the one that almost got me cancelled by online media and every fan who thought they had ownership of me.
The leather is scuffed, the stickers worn, the stories I lived pressed into every scratch.
My fingers itch to grab the guitar case, to hold it, to undo everything it represents, but I don’t. Not yet. I can’t.
The memory of smashing it flashes — anger, shame, loss, the roar of the crowd, Jett’s relentless voice in my head, the click of cameras, the hashtags and tweets that followed me like knives.
I glance around. And still… a flicker of dread snakes up my spine. Feels like eyes on me. Watching. But it’s just the wind, the trees, the animals. For now.
I press my hands to my thighs to steady them, trying not to give anything away to the open air.
I step back, leaving the boxes exactly where they are. Don’t touch. Don’t open. Not yet.
Inside, my phone buzzes. I grab it, heart still racing. A message from Banks:
Thought you might need some stuff. Had your guitar fixed, looking like new. Hope you find some inspiration up there…Jett Langford’s been going apeshit about your disappearance. Don’t worry. I haven’t told him where you are.
I exhale. Relief mixed with a faint spike of panic. Jett. The millions of messages, the calls, the pressure — all of it still drags at the edges of my mind. I need space. I need silence. So I blocked his number and everyone associated to him and Rebel June.
Distance is what I need. From Jett, from the madness, from the pressure — but I don’t know how. The tie is invisible, threaded through contracts, loyalty, history, and expectation.
I close my eyes.
For now, I breathe. I inhale and taste the warm summer air. I need this break. I need space. Silence. The girl in the mirror, my music, the chaos—all temporarily held at bay. I exhale.
I hear it before I see it, a faint motor, low and steady, rolling closer. My pulse ticks a little faster. I stand and move toward the front door, pressing a hand against the frame, peeking out.
Yellow and black. A school bus. It pulls up and stops in front of the house next door. The door swings open, and a young girl hops down, landing lightly on the pavement. She waves vaguely toward the garage, then leans closer to the house.
And there he is.
A man, tall, contained, moving with quiet purpose in what looks like a garage-turned-office. Papers stacked neatly, tools laid out, laptops open, screens glowing — a workspace that somehow feels like an extension of him. He doesn’t notice me yet.
I study him for a moment, recalling last night. Not rude, not welcoming either. Reserved. Protective of his silence. A man who clearly doesn’t want an intruder in his world, and I get it. I respect it, even if it annoys me a little.
He bends over something on the workbench, precise, deliberate. Focused. Calm. Predictable. Safe.
All the things I’m not.
And yet… he’s there. In the daylight, real, anchored in a way that makes me feel off-balance.
I look away quickly when the girl skips toward my porch, backpack bouncing. I keep watching the boxes, but my gaze keeps flicking back, drawn to him. My stomach tightens in that strange, unhelpful way it does when I notice someone like him.
The girl hops onto my porch, eyes darting between me and the boxes. She’s small, a little awkward, but her energy is bright and unapologetic. She peers at the boxes and then finally at the guitar case, as if sensing its importance without needing me to explain.
“Hi,” she blurts, tilting her head. “Is this… your guitar? And — your hair! Why is it brown? You used to have pink, didn’t you?”
Her questions tumble out like a stream she can’t stop. She’s sweet, awkward, and unpolished. She fidgets, tucks a loose strand of hair from her braids behind her ears, and bounces on her heels. My chest softens against my better judgment.
“I’m Lucky,” I say finally, tilting my head back to meet her gaze.
“Lucky? That’s… interesting!” she says. “I’m Lily. My dad’s Ethan.”
The name clicks in my mind. The man in the garage. Ethan. I nod.
“Lucky,” I say again, like confirming it to myself.
Her eyes widen. “That’s such a cool name. Did you choose it?”
I tilt my head, a wry, private smile curling in my chest.
“No. My mom… was creative,” I say lightly.
Inside, I know she was probably high on whatever her dealer boyfriend fed her arms with when she filled out my birth certificate, naming me whatever she liked.
I don’t tell Lily that.
The bus rumbles faintly in the distance again. I hear a voice, and it’s deep, calm, clipped. Ethan. Talking on the phone. Lily jumps slightly.
“I have to go,” she says, suddenly aware. She waves quickly at me, then dashes back toward her house.
I watch her go, backpack bobbing, waving one last time. Quiet returns. The porch feels emptier, softer.
I glance at the boxes again. My fingers twitch, itching to lift the flaps, to peek inside, but I stop myself. Not yet. Not fully.
The guitar case is closest. Its weight, the rough leather, the familiar stickers — each one a city, a stage, a memory I buried under pink hair and chaos — calls to me.
My hand hovers over it. I can almost feel the echo of smashing it on stage, the roar of the crowd, the camera flashes, the hashtags cutting through my chest. I pull back, inhale slowly.
I settle on a smaller box instead. I lift the lid just a fraction, careful, almost reverent.
Inside are my journals, music notebooks, and lyric sheets I thought I’d lost. Ink smudges, scrawled lyrics, doodles on the margins.
These are the chaotic traces of me before fame, before the Grammys, before the tours. My chest tightens.
A flash of memory hits. The nights I stayed up writing, the arguments with Jett about what I should be recording or performing with Rebel June, my band, that escalated until I felt like I was drowning, the panic, the stage, the meltdown.
My fingers curl around the edge of the box, trembling.
I close it almost immediately. Not ready. Not ready to confront it all yet.
I leave everything exactly where it is. Untouched. The guitar case, the boxes, the journals — all waiting on the porch for me when I am ready.
Inside, I close the door. Click. Safe. Quiet. Controlled.
I lean against it, breathing. For a moment, the past, the chaos, Jett, the fans, the media can’t touch me. Here, I exist only for me.