My vision blurs. The champagne has lost its sparkle, the bubbles lodged somewhere in my throat.
I blink furiously and rip open the plastic bag of complimentary headphones, cycling through the music menu with a quiet vengeance. I can listen to anything I want now.
Pop, R&B, rock, metal, rap…
Linkin Park’sNumbcatches my eye. Ellenor and I used to sing this. Me in the back seat of her car, thinking my older sis was the coolest person alive as she drove us to get milkshakes.
I hit play.
The song intro hits, haunting and familiar, and I close my eyes as the lyrics wash over me. It’s loud and raw, a little messy—exactly how I feel.
I lean back into the headrest and sink into the music, letting nostalgia settle in my bones.
When it ends, I put onDo Me a Favour. Brooding and British, the breakup song echoes my exhaustion, its bitterness fitting over me like armour.
It reminds me of when I walked away from Toby. I’ve replayed it so many times in my mind, each time wishing I wasn’t so polite when I ended things.
“You should have yelled at him,” Ellenor said after. “Iwould’ve torn him a new one. Or at least told him to fuck off.”
And it made me wonder…
Perhaps I should have screamed at him under the glare of the rehearsal lights. Let my pain echo in the vaulted ceilings of the concert hall before storming out.
But no. The Arctic Monkeys are right in their song: telling him to fuck off would have been too kind.
Walking away was the quiet win I needed. I can’t regret that.
I switch over to girl-power anthems and spend the rest of the flight buried in my new Austen book, drifting through movies, and watching clouds slide past the window.
When I check the on-screen map, the tiny plane icon is inching across the world, carrying me closer to something new.
To England.
To whatever version of myself might be waiting there.
3
A Mistake
Lily-Anne
After two exhausting flights, we finally land at Heathrow Airport.
Made it, I text Mum and Ellenor.
It’s raining outside the dark cabin window, because of course it is.
Guitar case in hand, I follow the shuffle of passengers into the terminal, humming Placebo’sEnglish Summer Rainunder my breath. My suitcase trundles behind me as I begin the long trek through customs. I consider tossing the magazine into a bin, but I change my mind at the last second and shove it in my backpack—a small badge of resistance.
I duck into a bathroom and emerge with a fresh shirt, but the ripped jeans stay, even if they’re a little ratty. I’m a musician—scruffiness adds character.
But then I see him.
Tall, broad-shouldered, with side-swept coffee-brown hair, he’s wearing an expensive blazer over a dove-grey shirt, navy slacks, and scuffed boat shoes. He radiates an effortless kind of sophistication, and it suddenly hits me—who he is and the sheer weight of his reputation.
I fidget with my cardigan, feeling far too unpolished to approach.
Until I spot the cardboard sign in his hands.LILY-ANNEis handwritten in large, neat letters with a marker. It looks so absurd with his formal attire that I can’t help but smile.
