Chapter 12
Lucky
The moment I’m in the living room, the quiet hits me like a shift in air pressure. I stand there, staring at nothing, letting the afterburn of Ethan’s tone settle in my chest. It’s stupid how easily it gets to me. But ever since everything happened, the edges of me feel thinner, easier to bruise.
I exhale slowly and sink onto the sofa.
He didn’t mean it. I know that. But knowing doesn’t stop the sting.
My eyes drift to the guitar leaning in the corner, half hidden in shadow.
I’ve been playing old songs all week, but haven’t produced anything new in what feels like forever — not properly.
Not since LA, when the music just… vanished.
Like someone flipped a switch in my brain, and everything went dark.
But now, something inside me shifts. A quiet ache. A pull.
Before I can overthink it, I cross the room and reach for it. The guitar feels heavier, the wood cool against my fingertips. I settle it on my lap, letting the familiar shape nestle against me.
I strum one chord. It’s rough. Uneven. Another. Better.
Then my fingers… move. Muscle memory guiding them through new sounds I haven’t touched in months. A few hesitant notes spill out, then curl into a tiny, fragile melody. Not a song — not yet — but something new. Something alive.
A breath catches in my throat.
It’s the first thing I’ve created since everything broke. And it feels like slipping a pin of light into the fog that’s been thickening in my head for weeks.
I close my eyes. Keep playing. The melody softens the tightness in my chest, unspools the tension Ethan's tone left behind.
For the first time in a long time…I feel like myself. Even if it’s just for the length of a few trembling notes.
The melody is barely a minute old when words start tugging at me — small at first, like whispers coming from far away. I blink, startled by the sudden thrum of them, the way they push forward all at once.
Oh God. This is happening.
I set the guitar down so fast it nearly slips, grab my notebook from the coffee table, and flip it open with shaking hands. The pen jumps across the page, messy, frantic. I don’t even think; the lyrics come like they’ve been waiting just behind a locked door.
“You’re close enough to ruin me, too far for me to touch…”
Another line hits me, sharp and clean.
“I reach, you pull away, and maybe that’s what saves us both.”
My breath comes unsteady. The words feel too true. Too raw. But they won’t stop, so I keep scribbling.
“Still I’m caught in every shadow that moves the way you do,”
“trying not to want the thing that never wanted to be wanted too.”
I pause, pen hovering. The room feels different. Like it’s breathing with me.
This is more than a song. It’s a pressure valve opening — everything I’ve been holding in, everything I haven’t let myself name.
Untouchable.
That’s the word that keeps circling back. A shape I can almost reach but never hold.
I sit back on my heels, staring at the page as if someone else wrote it. My pulse is still racing, but the fog in my head… It’s thinner. The heaviness that’s been wrapped around me for weeks shifts, loosens.
I swallow, letting the moment settle.
I wrote something. Something new and real.
And as much as I don’t want to admit it, as much as I don’t want Ethan to have this kind of hold over me… the spark came the moment he shut down on me, the moment the space between us snapped tight, painful, and full.
I close the notebook, hugging it to my chest.
It feels like breathing for the first time in months.
My phone pings from somewhere under a pile of throw blankets. I twitch, the sound slicing straight through the little bubble I’d been floating in.
I set the notebook down carefully — like it might break if I handle it wrong — and fumble for the phone. The screen lights up with Banks’s name.
Of course.
Two texts.
Banks: Your stalker’s parole is denied again. You’re safe.
I exhale so hard my chest caves a little. Safe. It’s a word I never trust, even when it’s true, but seeing it there… written…Something loosens in my ribs.
The second message pops up before I can reply.
Banks: Lay low a bit longer — and don’t bang the lumberjack neighbor.
A startled laugh escapes me; it’s sharp, breathy, too close to a choke. Jesus. I rub my face, shaking my head. Banks’s version of “don’t” is just his backwards way of saying “get on with it.”
Trust Banks to give me peace and havoc in the same two-second window.
I sink onto the couch, phone still in hand. My heart should be hammering after a message like that because it usually is. But instead, there’s this strange, unfamiliar warmth threading through me.
Parole denied. I’m safe. For now. For longer than now.
And suddenly… I can see it. A sliver of something that looks suspiciously like a future. One where I’m not drowning, not flinching at every shadow, not waiting for someone to drag me back into hell.
A future where my head isn’t a locked room. Where music still lives in me. Where I can breathe.
Before I can overthink it, I hit call.
He picks up on the first ring.
“Finally,” Banks says. “I was about to send a search party. Or at least a snarky follow-up text.”
“I saw,” I say, voice shaky despite me. “The parole thing.”
“Yeah.” His tone softens instantly, that warm, steady rumble he gets when he’s trying not to spook me. “You’re good, Lu. He’s not going anywhere. Judges don’t like creeps who break into pop stars' bedrooms while they sleep and, among other shitty stuff.”
I groan. “Don’t remind me of that night.”
“Sorry, sorry. Banished. No more haiku of doom.”
Despite myself, I snort.
There’s a beat of quiet, the good kind — the kind that feels like breathing, not punishment.
“You okay?” he asks.
I sink deeper into the couch. “Weirdly… yeah. I mean, my chest is doing that stupid fluttering thing, but I’m not freaking out. Not really.”
“That’s because you’ve apparently got a beefy flannel-wearing neighbor who could bench-press a small car. Of course, you feel safe.”
I roll my eyes so hard my skull creaks. “He is not— okay, he is beefy, but that’s not the point.”
Banks gasps. “Oh my GOD, Lucky Vale thinks a man is attractive. Alert the press.”
“I didn’t say—”
“Babe, you don’t say. You suffer silently and stare at him like you want to climb him like a tree.”
My face bursts into flame. “Banks!”
“Oh please. I can only imagine what he looks like. A lumberjack who’s one emotional breakthrough away from ruining your life in the best possible way.”
I bury my face in my hand. “We had dinner with his family last night.”
A beat. “You what?”
“His parents and sister showed up. British. Very British. Like Downton Abbey but with passive-aggressive comments and cashmere.”
Banks wheezes. “Oh my God, you met the in-laws.”
“Stop,” I groan.
“No, really. Did his mum give you the ‘welcome to the family’ speech? Did the sister ask when the wedding is? Did someone bring scones?”
“There were scones,” I mutter.
He loses it — full, chaotic cackling. “LUCKY. VALE. You were playing house.”
“It wasn’t— we just— they thought I was his girlfriend or something.”
“Oh, honey, it’s about time you got inside that man’s pants.”
I fling an arm over my eyes. “BANKS.”
“What? If he's built like a Greek statue and stares at you like you’re the only thing keeping his soul tethered to his body, then what’s stopping you?”
My stomach swoops. “He does not.”
“I bet he absolutely does. I’d bet a month’s rent that man makes tea aggressively just to avoid thinking about you naked.”
“Please stop talking.”
“Nope. Not until you admit you want him.”
My throat tightens. Not guilty-tight. Truth-tight.
“I… I don’t know what I want,” I say softly. “But something happened last night. Or almost happened.”
Banks goes quiet. Really quiet.
“You nearly kissed him.”
I swallow hard. “Yeah.”
Another beat.
“You okay?” he asks again, but this time it’s gentler. Bare.
I glance toward the front door — the porch where Ethan stood almost twelve hours ago, shutting down, pulling away like the moment meant nothing.
“I think so,” I whisper. “For the first time in a long time… I think I might be.”
Banks exhales like he’s been holding it for months.
“Good,” he says. “You deserve that feeling, Lu.”
I bite my lip. “Even if it’s… untouchable?”
“Especially then,” he murmurs. “Even wanting something you can’t have means you’re coming back to life.”
I press the notebook to my chest again — the lyrics humming inside me.
Maybe he’s right.
Maybe wanting anything at all is a start.
My gaze drifts to the open notebook. The half-formed lyrics. The melody still humming in the air like a ghost.
Maybe… maybe I’m not broken beyond repair.
And maybe that’s the first dangerous thought I’ve had in a long time.
Because wanting a future means wanting things inside it. And wanting things… wanting him…I close my eyes, pressing the heel of my hand to my sternum where the ache begins.
Untouchable.
Yeah. That’s the problem.
But for the first time in months, the idea of tomorrow doesn’t feel like a threat. It feels like a door I might—just might—be able to open.