Another pause—Trish nods, and this time when she speaks her voice is worried.
“What are you planning?”
I look out the massive floor-to-ceiling windows at the neon sprawl of LA.A city that lifted me up, chewed me through, and spit me out again.
A place that was supposed to be everything.
And somehow became nothing.
“I have an idea,” I say.
“An idea,” she repeats flatly, like she’s already bracing for the fallout.
“Yeah.”
I smile, small and crooked and a little bit sad.
“Like one of my rock idols once sang, who says you can’t go home?”
And just like that, I know exactly where I’m going.
Hammonton, New Jersey.
Back to where it started.
Back to where the music first found me.
Back to where she was.
Back to the only place that ever felt like something real.
“What?”
“I’m going home, Trish.”
And for the first time in years, my heart starts to pound with something other than anxiety.
Because, yeah, I’m really going home.
And this time, I’m gonna do it right.
I just hope it’s not too late.
ChapterThree
Adrianna
The week passesby just like any other—dough at dawn, customers by seven, the usual chaos of running a bakery while trying to raise a twelve-year-old who feels everything at full volume.
Bella’s beenextra.
Not bad extra.
Just Bella extra.
More fidgeting, more sighing, more pacing around the kitchen with her script held dramatically to her chest like a Victorian heroine awaiting a tragic fate.
I assume it’s nerves about the play.
