I don’t move.
I just watch, quiet, contained, trying not to catalog every errant strand of hair, every curve of ankle, every thread of the chaotic energy radiating off her.
She exists in daylight now, and it makes no sense at all.
Daylight doesn’t tame her. It amplifies her.
Pretty, in a way that’s distracting, unhelpful.
Instead, I turn and step into my house, closing the door on the warm summer air and on her. Inside, everything is exactly where I left it. Ordered. Quiet. The hum of the fridge, the faint tick of the wall clock, the soft morning light spilling across the kitchen floor.
All as it should be.
But the image sticks anyway. Pink hair, messy and electric, catching the sun like it’s daring me to look away.
She’s precisely the kind of trouble I don’t need.
I step back from the door. Run a hand over my face. Shake it off. Focus on tidying the kitchen and the neat stack of containers. Morning is meant to be simple. Predictable. Safe.
And yet, something has shifted. She’s here. And she’s not going anywhere.
Chapter 3
Lucky
Steamcurlsfromthesink, wrapping around me like it’s trying to soften the edges. I tug the towel from my head and stare.
Gone.
Pink is gone. My infamous Lucky Pink, neon and untouchable, the color that screamed at the world, at the tabloids, at everyone who ever thought they could own me. Replaced by mousy brown. Soft. Mundane. Unremarkable. Like a sigh I can’t stop.
I let the towel fall to the floor, water dripping onto the tiles. My fingers trace the damp strands, feeling the weight of it, the lack of resistance, the absence of chaos. It’s… lighter. Fragile almost. I don’t recognize her, but perhaps I do.
Her eyes stare back at me from the mirror, wide and cautious. Not the eyes of Lucky Pink, of the Grammy, of the world tours. Not the eyes that could set a stage on fire with a glance.
Just me. Just Lucky. Just the fourteen-year-old who wanted to create music because it mattered to her, because she believed in it before anyone else did.
I blink, and the reflection shifts like water. The corners of her mouth tilt down, the line of her jaw feels softer, more human. I study the shape of my nose, the freckles faint under the mousy brownstrands, the hollow under my eyes that fame tried to erase with concealer and light.
I reach up and touch my face like I’m confirming I’m still here. Still myself. Or at least a version I can breathe with.
The mirror doesn’t lie.
I see the girl I forgot existed, hidden under pink streaks, under layers of black eyeliner and lipstick, under the chaos of everyone else’s expectations. The one who stayed up late writing lyrics in notebooks no one ever read, the one who stole moments in silence to play guitar in an empty room, the one who loved music because it loved her back.
I inhale sharply, and the bathroom smells like wet hair and faint shampoo. The dampness sticks to my skin, but it doesn’t bother me. I let my shoulders slump, for the first time in a long time, like I’m shedding more than hair.
The color is ordinary. Safe. Boring to anyone else. But to me… it feels like a small reclamation. A quiet rebellion. A chance to touch the girl I left behind.
I glance at my hands. They’re long, calloused, worn from years of strings and keys and stage lights, and wonder if they remember her too. If they remember creating music because it mattered, not because the world expected a persona.
I stare a little longer. The reflection blinks back, uncertain, but alive.
The bathroom fades from my mind the moment the doorbell rings. It’s shrill, unexpected, pulling me out of my quiet self-reflection. My eyes dart around the room. The towel is still on the floor, dye tubes are scattered like tiny landmines. I should clean them up, but I don’t. Not yet.
I leave the mess and sprint toward the front door, heart ticking faster, hands trembling just a little. I pause at the peephole and peek out.
A delivery truck sits in the driveway. Two men are unloading boxes onto my porch. One pushes a dolly stacked with rectangular shapes; the other carries a familiar, battered black case, edges scuffed, stickers peeling, a road map of every city I ever played.
