“Lucky? That’s… interesting!” she says. “I’m Lily. My dad’s Ethan.”
The name clicks in my mind. The man in the garage. Ethan. I nod.
“Lucky,” I say again, like confirming it to myself.
Her eyes widen. “That’s such a cool name. Did you choose it?”
I tilt my head, a wry, private smile curling in my chest.
“No. My mom… was creative,” I say lightly.
Inside, I know she was probably high on whatever her dealer boyfriend fed her arms with when she filled out my birth certificate, naming me whatever she liked.
I don’t tell Lily that.
The bus rumbles faintly in the distance again. I hear a voice, and it’s deep, calm, clipped. Ethan. Talking on the phone. Lily jumps slightly.
“I have to go,” she says, suddenly aware. She waves quickly at me, then dashes back toward her house.
I watch her go, backpack bobbing, waving one last time. Quiet returns. The porch feels emptier, softer.
I glance at the boxes again. My fingers twitch, itching to lift the flaps, to peek inside, but I stop myself. Not yet. Not fully.
The guitar case is closest. Its weight, the rough leather, the familiar stickers — each one a city, a stage, a memory I buried under pink hair and chaos — calls to me. My hand hovers over it. I can almost feel the echo of smashing it on stage, the roar of the crowd, the camera flashes, the hashtags cutting through my chest. I pull back, inhale slowly.
I settle on a smaller box instead. I lift the lid just a fraction, careful, almost reverent. Inside are my journals, music notebooks, and lyric sheets I thought I’d lost. Ink smudges, scrawled lyrics, doodles on the margins. These are the chaotic traces of me before fame, before the Grammys, before the tours. My chest tightens.
A flash of memory hits. The nights I stayed up writing, the arguments with Jett about what I should be recording or performing with Rebel June, my band, that escalated until I felt like I was drowning, the panic, the stage, the meltdown. My fingers curl around the edge of the box, trembling. I close it almost immediately. Not ready. Not ready to confront it all yet.
I leave everything exactly where it is. Untouched. The guitar case, the boxes, the journals — all waiting on the porch for me when I am ready.
Inside, I close the door. Click. Safe. Quiet. Controlled.
I lean against it, breathing. For a moment, the past, the chaos, Jett, the fans, the media can’t touch me. Here, I exist only for me.
Chapter 4
Ethan
Thewomanintheyard isn’t the one I met the other night.
For a second, I honestly think I’m looking at someone new — someone quieter, softer, almost… normal.
But then she turns, and I recognize the shape of her, even if the rest is wrong.
Her hair isn’t pink now.
It’s brown.
Brown and partially tied up in a loose knot like she twisted it there mid-panic. No makeup. No hat. None of the loud armor she arrived in the other day.
It throws me more than it should.
She’s swallowed by another oversized black sweater, sleeves half-covering her hands, and her boots are so big they look borrowed. Still, it’s her. Lucky. Or whatever her real name is.
Lily didn’t shut up about her over breakfast.
I lean on the railing of my front deck, arms crossed. From here, I have a clear view of the mess she’s pretending isn’t happening. Four unopened boxes still sit exactly where they were left yesterday on her porch. In the sun and untouched.
