just to hear the echo…
just to find her name again.
The words pour out messy, uneven, raw. Not polished. Not “Lucky Pink™.” Just… me. The me I buried under stage lights, tabloids, and managers who told me who I needed to be.
I grab my guitar next — the one that still smells like cedar and home — and I strum a chord. It doesn’t sound like anything I’ve played before. Softer. Lower. Hurt and hope tangled together.
A melody forms under my fingers, hesitant at first, then sure, sharp, honest. My foot taps the floor. My breathing steadies. Something inside me unclenches that’s been tight for years.
And then — like lightning — I know.
This isn’t Rebel June.
This isn’t Lucky Pink.
This is me.
Just me.
Music without the noise. Without the spotlight. Without the brand.
Music that feels like waking up after drowning.
I sit there in the quiet kitchen, morning light spilling across the floor, the lake glittering outside like nothing bad ever happened, and for the first time in… God, forever…
I feel alive again.
Not famous.
Not hunted.
Not broken.
Justalive.
I keep writing. Keep playing. Keep breathing. Every note feels like a piece of me I get to reclaim.
I don’t know where this goes. I don’t know what it becomes.
But I know what I want now.
My music.
My voice.
My way.
And that feels like the first real truth I’ve had in a long, long time.
My hand lands on something cold under a pile of notebook pages — my phone.
It vibrates against my palm the second I pick it up — like it knows it’s been abandoned.
No new calls this morning, but the screen still shows what it showed last night:
81 missed calls. 123 messages.
All Banks.
