Chapter 7
Lucky
The guitar rests warm against my leg. The sun is soft. The air is quiet. And for the first time in months, I feel… almost human.
I hum a line. Then another.
It wobbles. I breathe through it.
The moment the sound leaves me, something inside loosens—like a knot I’ve been carrying under my ribs finally remembers how to uncoil.
I’m halfway through the second verse when footsteps crunch lightly across the grass.
Small footsteps.
I freeze.
“Hi,” a small voice says.
I turn slowly. Lily stands a few feet away, her loose strands of curls catching the sunlight. She’s smiling like she’s worried I’ll run.
“Sorry,” she says quickly. “I didn’t mean to sneak up on you. I just… wanted to ask if I could listen.”
My throat tightens. I tuck my hair behind my ear and try to breathe normally. “Uh—sure. If you want.”
She sits on the edge of the step, swinging her legs. Silent for a beat. Then:
“I know who you are. And I know that’s your song.”
My stomach drops.
She doesn’t say it like a threat or gossip.
Just a fact.
“I recognized your voice,” she says softly. “My mom used to play your music all the time. Especially when she was sad.”
I stare at her, heart thudding. “And you’re not… telling people?”
She shakes her head. “No. I won’t. I promise.”
Her eyes flick to the guitar. “You were singing ‘Paper Wings.’”
I blink. “You know that one?”
She nods. Takes a breath. And then—quietly, gently—she sings the first line.
Her voice is soft and a little wobbly, but there’s something in it. Something warm and open, like she means every word.
It hits me like a punch.
No one has sung my music to me before.
When she stops, she looks up shyly. “Sorry. I don’t know all the words.”
“You sounded beautiful,” I tell her. My voice cracks, but I don’t hide it.
Her whole face lights up.
She’s talented. Raw, but talented. And God—she could be so good with guidance, with time, with protection.
I glance at her white sneakers tapping the concrete. “You’ve got rhythm.”
She grins. “I do?”
I nod. “You just… feel it. That’s half the battle.”
Lily hugs her knees, thinking. Then she looks up at me.
“What happened to your girl band? Rebel June?”
I blink. The question lands harder than it should.
“Oh. That.” I shrug like it’s nothing. “We… went on a break.”
Not a lie. Not the truth either.
Inside my skull, the thoughts spiral fast:
Banks hasn’t given me any news on purpose—he calls it a therapeutic “detox.” Honestly, though, I never cared much about the other girls.
We were strangers to each other. Rebel June was put together by Jett purely as a market strategy: a rock-powered girl group, our vocals and my songs feeding his profits.
He’ll probably split them up soon, turn them into solo acts he can control one by one. He loves control.
I blocked his number on every device, every app—not because I’m done with him, but because I still can’t write anything new. The moment I touch a blank page, my brain locks up. Yet inside my head, the memories hit anyway, relentless and uninvited.
Jett’s voice, smooth and certain, issuing orders like spells: “Fix this lyric before midnight. We need another track by dawn.”
Doctors at ungodly hours, syringes and shots shoved into my arm so I could perform through flu, exhaustion, raw pain, because staying in bed to recover was not an option.
Seventeen. Myomectomy. Stitches still raw. Eighteen-hour drive to the next gig. Painkillers they injected like magic. I hit the stage anyway. Cranked. Smiling. Performing. Perfect.
And I did it, every damn time, until the machine broke me from the inside out. Thirteen breakdowns later, all hidden behind teeth and applause, all swept under carpets with more meds, more schedules, more demands.
Jett was supposed to be my mentor, the one who discovered me, but he didn’t see me. He never saw me. I was just output. Just another product.
And the thought of going back to LA? Of answering his calls? Of letting him have that kind of control again? No. Never. Not now. Not ever?
“Hey.”
Lily nudges my arm, pulling me out of the spiral. “I’ll keep your secret,” she says softly, “if you teach me guitar.”
I snort, surprised. “Wow. Blackmail. Impressive.”
She grins. “I drive a hard bargain.”
And the stupid thing is—I like her.
I like her honesty, her steadiness, her soft-but-stubborn courage. She doesn’t flinch at my weirdness. Or my quiet. Or my name.
“Fine,” I say, pointing at her. “But only if you promise one thing.”
She sits up straighter. “What?”
“You don’t go pro before you’re twenty-one.”
Her face scrunches. “Why?”
Because it will eat you alive.
Because it will take your childhood and turn it into content.
Because people will clap while you burn.
“I just… want you to enjoy being a kid,” I say instead. “Have school and friends and… normal stuff. I wish I had—” My throat tightens. “—a mentor who cared more about me than the money.”
And suddenly I’m back in that memory—the one I try not to touch.
Jett smiling like a king granting a favor.
Calling me “his prodigy.”
Telling fourteen-year-old me that I’d change the world if I didn’t slow down.
If I stopped to breathe.
If I stopped for anything.
Keep moving, Lucky. The industry never waits. You stop working, you’re old news.
Thirteen mental breakdowns later, I finally realized he didn’t mean the world.
He meant his bank account.
Lily studies my face. Quiet. Observing.
“Was your mom happy you became famous?” she asks.
The question cracks something I didn’t expect.
“She died when I was little,” I say. My voice is too tight. “So… she never saw any of it.”
“Oh.” Lily’s voice softens. “Was she sick?”
“Yeah.” I stare down at my guitar. “She was.”
I don’t explain. I can’t. Not today.
I breathe in and push the spotlight off me. “What about your mom?”
Lily picks at a thread on her sleeve. “She died in a car accident. I was… really little too.”
Our eyes meet, and a quiet shock of shared sadness passes between us—two kids who lost their mothers too early, two girls forced to grow up without a compass.
I glance at her again. She’s small, determined, honest, and at least she has Ethan, a father who would put himself in the line of fire for her.
Something settles between us then—not pity, not grief, but recognition.
And maybe—God help me—something like trust.
The sun hangs low, melting gold and rose into the lake until the whole world feels dipped in honey. The water shifts in slow ripples, catching light like broken glass. The air smells faintly of damp earth, pine, and that clean nothingness you only get near water at dusk.
I sit on the edge of the back porch, bare feet dangling above the grass, my guitar warm against my thigh. The journal lies open beside me, the paper waiting, patient, accusing. My pen hovers uselessly above the page.
Nothing comes.
I hum a line.
It breaks.
I try a chord.
It clatters in my chest like loose metal.
Every note sticks in my throat.
My fingers feel stiff and wrong, like they belong to someone else—someone clumsy, someone untrained. I’ve played through colds, migraines, fevers, heartbreaks, stages bigger than anything, studios colder than death. I’ve created songs in moving vans, airport lounges, and hotel bathrooms at 3 a.m.
But I’ve never felt this.
This emptiness.
My chest tightens, sharp and hot. The one thing that has always been mine—music, my pulse, my blood—feels like it evaporated the moment I stepped out of the world I knew.
My throat clogs with panic. I grab my phone and type with shaking fingers:
It’s gone. The music is gone.
The reply is instant. A call.
I answer on the first ring, swallowing hard. “Hello?”
“Lu—” Banks’s voice is steady, low. A grounding force. “Tell me what’s happening.”
“I’m… I can’t. It’s all gone,” I gasp, words tumbling out in a rush. “I can’t write. I can’t even hum a damn song. It’s like—like everything that ever made sense is gone, Banks. I’m broken.”
He exhales gently, the way someone might approach a wild animal, palms open.
“You’re not broken. You’re decompressing.
You’ve never… lived without pressure before.
You’re in a different environment, you’re doing things your way.
No producer. No cameras. No schedules. No Jett.
” His tone softens. “Your brain doesn’t know what to do with freedom yet. ”
I press my palm to my eye until stars spark behind the lid. “I don’t have time,” I whisper. “I don’t—everything feels empty.”
“Lu, listen to me. You’re not—”
A sound interrupts him.
Footsteps below the porch. Slow. Deliberate. Not the casual thump of wildlife or a neighbor passing by. My heart slams against my ribs.
My breath seizes.
“Banks,” I whisper, scanning the shadows.
“What? What’s wrong—”
But I’ve already ended the call. I clutch the phone like a weapon and reach for the guitar with my other hand.
I’m ready to swing. Smash. Fight.
“Wait—”
His voice cuts through the rising panic.
Ethan.
Relief punches the air from my lungs so hard I sway.
He steps into view near the stairs, not coming up, just… standing there. Watching me with careful eyes, a respectful distance between us. He’s holding a small box pressed against his chest.
“I didn’t mean to startle you,” he says quietly. “I, uh—this is for you.” He lifts the box a little. “Tinder. For your fireplace. I figured… You might need it.”
His voice is calm and even, but there’s something gentle under it. Something that doesn’t ask anything of me.
Not a rescue.
Not a demand.
Just simple kindness offered without fanfare.
I lower the guitar slowly, embarrassment burning hot in my cheeks.
He studies me for a moment, brow tightening almost imperceptibly.
“Are you okay?” he asks, and it’s the softness that undoes me; the care hidden inside the restraint.
I try to answer and fail. My throat closes around everything I don’t want anyone to see.
He doesn’t move closer. He doesn’t pry. His voice stays level, steady as stone.
“Take your time,” he says quietly. “You’re alright. Just breathe.”
I blink hard, tears spilling faster now that I’m trying so desperately to hide them. I press the heel of my hand to my cheek, but my voice still cracks. “I… I—”
He nods once, slowly. Acceptance, not pressure. He sets the box on the porch step and backs away, giving me space without leaving abruptly enough to make me feel abandoned.
The sun slips behind the treeline. The lake turns to a sheet of molten copper. The crickets begin their chorus like nothing monumental has just happened.
When he’s far enough away, he glances back. Not checking up on me—just making sure I’m not collapsing. Then he walks toward his house, that steady stride of his, leaving me with the quiet and the fading light.
I exhale shakily, my whole body trembling from the emotional whiplash. My phone vibrates—Banks calling back. I send a quick text:
I’m fine. Neighbor came by.
It’s a lie and the truth.
I pick up my journal. My hands still shake. The guitar lies beside me, silent, warm, waiting.
I write two lines. Only two. My handwriting is uneven and shaky, but it’s there.
Someone heard me today.
And it didn’t break me.
I close the journal slowly, pressing it to my chest.
For the first time in months, the emptiness inside me loosens by a fraction—small, fragile, but real.
A flicker of possibility.
A breath.
A beginning.