As we walked toward the register, bottles clinking in my basket, I swear I could already feel it—the faint electric hum of change. Like static before lightning. Like maybe, just maybe, I was ready to start again.
The sun was an open furnace over the parking lot, and even though the asphalt shimmered and the steering wheel could’ve fried an egg, I barely felt it anymore. Maybe I’d just burned through every nerve that registered “too much.”
Rachel followed close behind me the whole drive, her little blue hatchback glued to my bumper like moral support on four wheels. We hit the drive-thru because both of us were running on caffeine and nerves.
“Two chicken tender meals,” Rachel told the box, leaning halfway out the window. “Extra honey mustard. And fries. Because we’re making life choices today.”
The speaker crackled, monotone:‘You want to make that a combo?’
Rachel looked at me where I was ahead of her in the drive-thru, one eyebrow up.
“Always,” I called.
I paid at the window despite Rachel’s protests from behind me. When the bag hit my lap, it was hot enough to sting through the paper. Grease and salt and something like normalcy filled the car. I managed to not eat the fries on the way back—barely.
When we finally pulled into my complex, the parking lot was half-shadowed, a rare mercy. I scanned the spaces automatically. No Maddy’s car. No slick black Lexus that belonged to Mr. Standish. Just my dented Toyota and an empty stretch beside it.
Hope flickered—small, trembling, but alive.
Rachel parked next to me, and for a second, neither of us moved. I sat there, fingers gripping the bag of food, feeling the heat bleed through it into my palms.
“Okay,” I said finally, exhaling. “Let’s do this.”
Inside, the apartment was still, the kind of quiet that pressed on your ears. Then the chorus began—three distinct meows, layered like a choir of complaints.
“Tiddles, Tory, Tabby,” I sighed, crouching as they circled me in figure eights. Tiddles, sleek and black, rubbed against my shin like he’d been starved for attention for years. Tory, white and skittish, hovered close but nottooclose. And Tabby—my fat, sassy drama queen—jumped onto the couch and immediately started licking her paw as if to say,You’re late. Feed me, peasant.
Relief hit like cool water after a long run. They were safe. The place was intact. No sign of intrusion, no perfume that wasn’t mine.
Until I saw it—the note on the fridge. My name in Maddy’s handwriting.
My stomach dropped.
Rachel followed my gaze. “Want me to read it?”
I blew out a breath that felt like it scraped my lungs. “Am I being a coward if I say yes?”
She shrugged, casual but fierce. “You’re protecting yourself. Anyone who calls you a coward for that is gonna get a throat punch.”
Somehow, violence had never sounded so comforting.
I smiled, shaky. “Let’s do my hair first. Then we’ll eat and read it after. That way, if it messes up my mood, at least it won’t be permanent.”
Rachel gave a mock salute. “Strategic emotional management. I like it.”
She set the food aside and started pulling bottles and gloves from the bag while I dug through my drawers for something sacrificial to wear.
“Got a towel or two you don’t mind turning purple?” she called.
“I’ve got at least three that already look like crime scenes,” I yelled back.
By the time I returned in an old button-down and pajama shorts, she’d transformed the kitchen into a mini salon—bowls, brushes, gloves, and towels all neatly arranged next to the microwave.
Rachel spread her arms wide. “Welcome toRachel Manning’s Beauty Redo Station,where sadness goes in and badassery comes out.”
I laughed, really laughed, the act cracking some of the stones weighing down my chest all day.
Just like that, between the smell of honey mustard and the sound of my cats fussing underfoot, I started to believe maybe—just maybe—purple could be a beginning, not an ending. That was until Rachel went to work with the toner on my hair.
