Veronica's Story
Page 1 (rewrite)
She looks at her eyes first. Then her hair.
That’s always the order. Her light blue eyes tell her if she’s tired or stable. Her thick dark hair tells her if she feels like herself today. It's longer than she's ever had it, down past her waist, dyed black, with a few violet streaks she added. She doesn't fuss with it much on most days. She just brushes it through when it's messy and throws it up quite often when she's not aiming to impress. 
When she was younger, she didn’t look at herself like this. She avoided mirrors unless she had to. She spoke less than she wanted to. She stayed quiet because it was easier than being noticed. Being different felt like being lesser. Boys did not approach her, not because she lacked beauty, but because she remained unseen. That was until she started to recognize herself and the potential she always had.  
As a kid, she was quiet and anxious, never quite fitting in. She spent her leisure time listening to music while drawing animals and anime characters. Her taste in music leaned toward underground rock and punk, along with a few pop artists who were already past their moment. She did not dress to stand out. She struggled with acne that only improved slightly with treatment, and she was a little overweight growing up. She was highly intelligent, earned straight As, stayed out of trouble, and was liked by her teachers far more than by her peers.
The real change happened slowly. Not in a big moment. In small ones she chose herself. At the age of 16, she learned how to dress in ways that felt like her. She practiced music instead of just liking it. She stopped waiting to feel confident and built it out of competence and unwavering persistence. When she realized she could actually do things well, the rest followed. Even with renewed confidence and self-esteem, she still had not yet fully recognized her value.
She got her first tattoo at eighteen, a black rose on her wrist. She remembers sitting still, hands unmoving. The artist commented on her pain tolerance. For her, the decision was simple. It was about self expression. She had always loved tattoos, and she had always wanted one.
Piercings came later. She wore a nose stud, a lip ring, and a tongue piercing, paid for with money she earned babysitting and working as a cashier. Then she began experimenting with her hair and dye. She learned how to use makeup, and she became good at it. Her beauty became harder to ignore, but she was really just growing into herself. She had always been pretty, she just did not realize it until she started experimenting with her appearance and taking better care of herself.
16 was also the age where she decided to grow her hair out, and letting it grow long was the first time patience paid off in a visible way. It suited her more than she expected. Caring for it became simple, almost automatic, and she liked the quiet ritual of it. When it fell down her back, she felt more like herself, softer, feminine. It was not so much about attention, but about recognition and growth. Seeing her reflection and finally thinking "this feels right. I feel pretty as myself."
She lives in a place that lets her exist as long as she doesn’t push it. People tolerate her style when it's not too bold. They don’t encourage it. She’s learned how to move through the town without trouble. 
By then, she was starting to get attention from boys, and people at school thought she was cool. Her confidence grew quickly, and she made a small circle of friends. She liked recess best, sitting on a bench with them after lunch, just talking. The attention from boys was flattering but awkward. Still, it taught her how to be around them, and that experience helped her confidence grow.
At 16 she also picked up guitar and started playing to herself, alone in her room for hours at a time. Music is where she doesn’t compromise. It was her whole world. She formed a small band with two high school classmates called 'Average Weather' by the age of 17. She played guitar while her friend Beth sang, and her friend Riley played the drums. They successfully played at several talent shows and local events. 
One night, when she is eighteen, she is alone in her room late at night, scrolling without much thought, when a flyer stops her. A rock band called Halfway Gone. Looking for a singer. The wording is rough, confident in that early internet way, like they are still figuring themselves out. She thinks they look interesting, and she finds the lead guitarist cute. She does not usually initiate with people, but by this point she has gained enough confidence to consider it.
She clicks through to their MySpace.
The page loads slowly. Songs start playing, each with different guest vocalists. Some are fine. Some are not. What catches her attention is not what is there, but what is missing. There is space in the music. Room she can hear herself fitting into.
Part of her wishes they were auditioning guitarists instead of vocalists. But then she thinks about how long she has been practicing singing alone. How she sings in her room, in her car, through headphones. How she has never been completely sure how good she really is, but she knows she can hold a note, and she knows her friends have always said she has a pretty voice. She knows she has control.
More than anything, she believes she can excel at whatever she truly commits to. She catches her reflection in the dark screen. Calm blue eyes, smooth clear skin, long black hair falling all the way down onto her skirt. Someone she worked to become. She opens a message window and starts typing.
Page 2
The practice space is smaller than she expected. She arrives with minimal makeup, just enough to look put together without calling attention to it. Her long dark hair is pulled into a low bun, neat and unobtrusive, not distracting. 
A garage converted just enough to count. Cables everywhere. A drum kit pushed too close to the wall. It smells like dust and old amps. She stands near the door for a second, taking it in, listening to the way the room sounds even before anyone plays.
There are four of them. She clocks each one without staring. The drummer, Luke Mercer, is already tapping something on the snare, restless. The bassist, Noah Reed, smiles at her once and goes back to tuning. The rhythm guitarist, Ethan Cross, looks surprised when he realizes she’s there for the audition. He doesn’t hide it very well.
The lead guitarist steps forward and introduces himself. Maverick Rowe. He smiles like this is already going well. When Veronica sees Maverick in person, she still finds him attractive, but she is nervous being in a room full of boys, all of them older than her and complete strangers on a personal level. She is also self conscious about how she might be perceived, about being judged for being a girl, or having her ability subtly downplayed because of it.
They ask what she wants to sing. She shrugs and names a song they all know. Something easy enough to warm up with, something that won’t give away nerves if she has them. Luke counts in. She closes her eyes for half a second, then opens them again. She doesn’t need to disappear to sing anymore.
Her voice comes out naturally. Soft, but clear. She stays in control of it, rides the melody instead of pushing. She hears the way the room changes, the way the others look up without meaning to.
When she finishes, there’s a second of silence.
Ethan clears his throat. “I didn’t expect a girl to show up,” he says, sounding apologetic and not apologetic at the same time. She looks at him, confused.
“Okay?”
He quickly adds that he is fine with it, it was just unexpected.
The others exchange looks. Someone mutters something under their breath. Noah laughs quietly and shakes his head, like he already knows where this is going.
Maverick, on the other hand, looks thrilled. He makes a face that suggests he feels like he has just recruited someone he could see himself dating, even though he knows nothing about her yet. The thought excites him, and he already wants her in the band.
He asks how long she has been singing, whether she has been in a band before. She tells them the truth.
“I played guitar in my first band,” she says. “Only band.”That gets Maverick’s attention.
“Really?” he says, a little too impressed. “That’s cool. You don’t really seem like—” He stops himself, then grins. “I mean, you have a great voice.”
She shrugs. “I mostly just sing along to songs. On my iPod. I don’t know how good I am.”
That’s not false modesty. It’s just where she’s at.
They step aside to talk. She pretends not to listen, but the room is small and voices carry. Ethan looks unconvinced, visibly uncomfortable with her presence. Luke says something she cannot quite hear. Noah says she sounds really good, then adds that she is hot.
Maverick says she is really pretty and clearly talented, that she has star power, and that her showing up to audition feels unreal, like something they cannot afford to mess up. He says it loudly enough that she could hear it. It leaves her feeling flattered and slightly alarmed, but not unsettled.
Maverick comes back first. He asks what kind of music she likes, what she listens to, where she is from. She hesitates, then names a few of her favorite rock bands, all of them underground. Maverick recognizes most of them and seems genuinely shocked by her taste.
He leans in a little too close. Compliments her again, careful not to focus on her looks this time, shifting instead to her voice and her ability. She responds politely and keeps her distance. Male attention is still something she is learning how to navigate, especially since it has only started coming her way recently.
When they tell her they want her to come back and jam with them, she nods like she expected it. Inside, something lifts. She thinks about the drive it will take to get here. The time. The risk. How much of herself she’s willing to bring into a room full of strangers, men.
She agrees anyway.
Page 3
The first few jam sessions feel tentative.
She drives out after school, then after work, timing everything so she isn’t late.  The trips are long enough that she thinks about turning around at least once every time. She never does. She arrives with her makeup undone, and her long hair up in a low bun.
At first, she mostly listens. She learns how they play together, who rushes, who drags, who fills silence because they hate it. She watches Maverick closely. He leads without asking. He’s good at it. He likes having her there, maybe a little too much.
When she sings, the songs lock in faster. She doesn’t say that out loud. She just notices. Being immedately so instrumental to the band made her feel a sense of pride. 
They practice the same parts over and over. She’s disciplined about it. If something feels off, she asks to run it again. Luke groans sometimes. Noah doesn’t mind. Ethan keeps his distance, polite but cool. 
Between songs, Maverick talks to her. About music, about touring, about where this could go. He flatters her, casually at first, then more directly. She redirects when she needs to. She’s not there for that. 
Still, she likes him. Not romantically, not yet. She likes that he listens when she talks about structure. That he asks what she thinks will work. That he shows interest in her as a person and respects her dedication, rather than over emphasizing her looks. 
After a few weeks, the drives feel shorter.
She starts bringing a notebook. Writes down keys, tempos, lyrics that need adjusting. No one asked her to do that. No one stops her either. In fact Maverick notices her dedication and finds it inspiring. 
At one rehearsal, Maverick asks if she wants to make it official.
She pauses longer than he expects.
Travel is the part she’s not sure about. Leaving her routines. Being that visible. Being locked into something that could go wrong. She thinks about the girl she used to be, the one who stayed quiet to stay safe.
She also thinks about how tired she is of holding herself back.
“I’m in,” she says.
The way the room reacts is subtle but telling. Maverick looks excited, almost overjoyed. Ethan’s expression is unreadable, as if she unsettles him or makes him feel exposed. Noah seems openly interested and eager to get to know her. Luke appears indifferent, though aware that she is very good.
They run through the set again, tighter this time. Her voice slips into place more easily now, like it has been waiting for this shape. She adapts quickly, instinctively, and that ability makes her feel natural, like this is something she has always known how to do.
On the drive home, she feels something she has not felt in a long time.
Not excitement exactly.
Momentum. Purpose.
Page 4
Things move faster after that.
Small shows at first. Friends of friends. Rooms half full that end up packed by the second song. People start singing along to choruses she didn’t realize had stuck yet. She learns how to work a mic without thinking about it, how to pace her breathing between songs.
The attention creeps in quietly.
At shows, people come up to her first. Compliment her voice. Her look. Ask for pictures. She redirects when she can. Pulls the others into conversations. Says “we” instead of “I” without having to think about it.
When the band photos come back, she notices the framing right away.
She’s centered. Slightly forward. It’s not dramatic, but it’s there. She points it out, casually. Her beauty naturally makes her stand out in all of their photos. No one seems bothered at first. Maverick says it just looks better that way. She feels dismissed but stays quiet.
Interviews follow. Mostly small blogs. The questions drift toward her faster than she expects. How long has she been singing. Where does her style come from. What inspired her look. 
She answers carefully. Keeps bringing it back to the band. Talks about writing together, about chemistry. About sound.
Still, the headlines don’t reflect that.
Her name starts getting mentioned separately. As if she’s an addition instead of part of the whole.
She feels it most in rehearsal.
Nothing is openly hostile. No one says anything sharp. But eventually there’s a shift in the room. A hesitation when she suggests tightening a bridge. A pause before someone agrees with her. Ethan often speaks less when she’s talking. The truth is that he feels insecure around women, especially beautiful women with unmistakable talent. He never directly tells her this, instead he subconsciously tries to make her feel small in his presence.
She starts editing herself.
Not silencing, just softening. Letting things go that she would normally push. She doesn’t want to be the reason tension builds. She believes if she stays fair, things will stay fair.
They sign a deal. It feels unreal. Contracts spread across a table. Handshakes. Smiles that last a little too long.
She plans to drive home after the day’s jam session, but Maverick convinces her to stay. He takes her out for a nice gourmet dinner that he fully pays for and he opens up to her, telling her how cool and special she is, how her voice and her presence make her a star. He admits a fear he has been carrying, that she will outgrow the band, that her talent and the attention she draws will eventually pull her away.
She reassures him. She tells him she is loyal to the band, that he does not need to worry, that she has been consciously redirecting the attention she receives back toward the group. Although one thing does make her uneasy. She wonders whether Ethan dislikes her, his lack of warmth hard to ignore, but she is too hesitant to ask Maverick directly.
They talk deeply, about their lives, their values, their desires, meaning, and their struggles. When they part, he hugs her before they go their separate ways. Their moment together was nice, but later that night she lies awake replaying the day.
Not the success, but the feeling that something is already tilting. Her unease about Ethan is part of it. She tells herself she is overthinking. She is good at noticing patterns, but not every pattern is a warning. Some are just growing pains.
She falls asleep still telling herself that.

Page 5
It doesn’t happen all at once, but it gets worse over time. At shows, people start aiming questions at her instead of the band. Not maliciously, just lazily. They ask about her voice, her look, if she's taken or dating someone, where she wants to take things next.
She redirects every time. She brings Noah into the conversation. She gestures toward Luke. She talks about arrangements, about how everyone contributes. When someone compliments her alone, she corrects them gently. “It’s all of us,” she says. “That’s the point.”
Online, she does the same thing. Tags the band instead of herself. Answers interviews by saying “we.” Pushes back when people frame her as the center. She thinks this matters. At first, the resentment stays quiet.
Then Ethan posts something after a show. Vague, but pointed. About bands losing themselves when one person becomes the focus. About image overtaking effort. About how recognition doesn’t always reflect reality.
She doesn’t respond. She never responds. People do it for him.
She finds out because someone messages her asking if everything’s okay.
The more she sits with it, the more convinced she becomes that her suspicion about Ethan is right. That he does resent her. That he never liked her. The realization makes her angry in a quiet, focused way.
At rehearsal, she brings it up directly. Calm, but firm.
She tells him she saw his post about bands losing themselves when one person becomes the focus. She tells him she knows it is about her.
“If you have a problem with me,” she says, calm but clearly irritated, “I would rather you say it to my face instead of pretending it’s some abstract observation about the industry. I did not ask for the attention, and I have gone out of my way to make sure the band benefits from it. So if you’re frustrated, at least be honest about what you’re actually upset with.”
Ethan laughs, sharp and humorless. He says he is just being honest. Says people are thinking it anyway. Says he likes playing with her live, but it is not his fault if the truth makes her uncomfortable. He adds that he knew this would happen, that bands with cute female singers always end up like this, and that he chose to roll with it.
“It’s not personal,” he says. “It’s just a real problem.”
“I have been defending this band,” she says. “Publicly. Repeatedly.”
He shrugs. “That doesn’t change how it feels.”
She exhales through her nose, clearly holding herself back.
“It matters,” she says. “Because intent matters. And effort matters. I didn’t walk in here trying to replace anyone.”
He snaps that she does not get it. That everything shifted after she joined. That the band stopped feeling right almost immediately. That decisions feel made before anyone else even speaks.
She listens longer than she should, tucking the long loose strands that have fallen across her face back behind her ear.
“I didn’t ask for the attention,” she says. “And I’ve gone out of my way to redirect it. I am not erasing anyone here. If that’s how it feels, then you’re reacting to how it looks, not to what I’m actually doing.”
He looks at her like that is exactly what she would say. Says she likes the attention. Says no one in her position wouldn’t.
That is when something in her hardens. Her face warms, color creeping up her neck.
“You don’t get to decide my motives for me,” she says, voice tighter now. “And you don’t get to punish me for something I’ve actively tried to prevent.”
The others watch as the tension sharpens. Maverick and Noah step in, trying to slow things down, to keep it from spilling further. Luke stays back, observing with a faint, almost amused detachment. Maverick steps in, talking about pressure, about growth, about how this happens to a lot of bands. Noah stays quiet. Luke watches without comment.
Ethan says he is done. Says he will not stay in a band where he feels invisible.
He leaves that night, apologizing to the others before turning to her and telling her she should be happy now, that she can finally put her guitar to good use.
It does not make her feel any better. It only irritates her more.
“I never wanted you gone,” she says evenly. “I wanted honesty. And I wanted respect. If you needed to leave to feel better, that’s your choice, but don’t pretend this was something I asked for.”
The rest of the band is left conflicted. Ethan was well liked, if emotionally distant. He played well. He had the look. She worries this has driven a wedge between her and the others, but Maverick reassures her that no one is angry with her, that he hopes she can carry what happened without letting it discourage her.
She sits in her car afterward, hands on the wheel, eyes unfocused. She is not sad he left. Not after the way he treated her, and not after the others stood by without defending her when she knew she was right.
She is furious that defending the band was not enough to stop him from turning her into the problem. Furious that loyalty did not protect her. And she knows, softly and without arrogance, that she is the main reason the band has begun to succeed.
She tells herself this is the worst of it. That now things can stabilize. That once resentment is named, it loses its power. That she will keep improving, keep proving herself, keep making the band proud.
Still, the disrespect lingers. Being reduced to a threat when all she did was work hard and help them win is not something she can easily sit with, even when she tries to understand it as jealousy, or envy, or fear dressed up as principle.
She slowly came to feel, deep down, that she was neither respected nor truly safe in the band, yet she kept telling herself that if she endured it, stayed respectful, and worked hard enough, it would all turn out fine.
Page 6
They don’t replace Ethan right away.
At first, they try to work around the gap. Practice without him. Rework parts. Simplify arrangements. It’s obvious something’s missing, even when no one says it.
Veronica fills in more than she means to.
She brings her guitar to rehearsal and starts covering rhythm parts while singing. It feels natural to her. Familiar. She played guitar before she ever thought of herself as a singer. She doesn’t announce it, just does it when the songs need it.
Maverick doesn’t mind. He actually seems relieved. He respects that her musical talent is diverse.  
Luke is quieter about it. She notices the look on his face when she picks up the guitar. Nothing confrontational. Just a tension she recognizes now.
He catches her reaction and, after a moment, decides to say something. He asks if she is really okay with overextending herself.
“I am,” she tells him, measured but sincere. “Not because I feel like I have to prove anything, but because I can handle it. If it ever starts costing the band more than it gives, I’ll be the first to step back.”
He hesitates, then asks if she realizes that playing two parts will only cement her as the face of the band.
She nods. “I know how it looks,” she says. “But right now the band needs stability more than optics. I’m not trying to be the center. I’m trying to keep us moving forward.”
He studies her for a moment, then admits her response is reasonable. He leaves it there, choosing not to push further and risk more tension.
She is left feeling aware. Not threatened, not guilty, just more conscious of the invisible lines she now has to walk, where competence and restraint have to exist at the same time.Later, Maverick pulls her aside. He tells her they are still looking for a rhythm guitarist, that the guitar part is temporary so she can “focus on vocals.”
She nods.
“I get it,” she says evenly. “If that’s what ends up being best for the band, I’m fine with it.”
She does not say that she already is focused. That playing and singing at the same time does not split her attention. That she knows she can carry both. She trusts that Luke and Noah are comfortable with her visibility, and she convinces herself Maverick is just trying to protect her from burning out.
They hold auditions.
Two people stand out.
One is a guy with the right look for what they have been doing. Dark hair, sharp angles, emo in a way that feels effortless. He plays well. Tight. Confident. Tall enough to match the image without trying.
The other is a girl.
Short. Blonde. Alluring green eyes. Long, wispy bangs that frame her face perfectly. She dresses softly, old fashioned in a way that feels stylish, ruffles and ribbons and skirts that do not chase edge. Fishnets under pastel. She smiles nervously when she plugs in.
Her name is Amy.
Amy does not play quite as clean as the guy. She is good, but newer, having transitioned from piano to guitar. There is less polish, more instinct.
Afterward, they argue.
Luke likes the guy. Says he fits the sound better. Noah agrees but likes both. Maverick hesitates, caught between practicality and something he has not named yet. He has always been more open to women joining the band.
Veronica speaks last.
“She’s not as finished,” she says carefully, “but she listens. She adapts fast. And she’s already thinking in terms of arrangement, not just parts. That matters more to me long term than who sounds perfect right now.”
They look at her.
She does not say the rest. That she is tired of being the only woman in the room. That sharing that weight would change the dynamic. That two girls might stop everything from orbiting around her by default.
They vote.
It is split.
Maverick looks at Veronica who's smiling beside him and waits.
She chooses Amy. Noah's vote was split, so Amy won the popular vote.
Amy gets the call. She is thrilled. She joins the band the following week.
At first, it works.
Amy is kind. Grateful. Easy to talk to. Veronica feels herself relax around her in a way she did not realize she had been missing. Someone to share dressing rooms with. Someone she never has to worry about objectifying her. 
Amy glances over at her, then smiles, a little shy.
“You know,” she says, “you’re really pretty. And you’re insanely talented. It’s kind of intimidating, honestly.”
Veronica laughs softly. “Thank you. That’s really sweet. And for what it’s worth, you have this calmness about you that makes people feel at ease. You also listen in a way most musicians don’t.”
Amy’s shoulders relax at that. “I’m still catching up on guitar,” she admits. “I feel like I’m behind sometimes.”
“You’re not,” Veronica says. “You think musically. That matters more than anything."
They end up talking for a long time after that. About bands they grew up loving, the ones that made them feel understood. About learning instruments alone in their rooms. About feeling out of place in the scene and finding small pockets of social confidence.
Eventually it drifts to boys, what feels flattering and what feels uncomfortable, the difference between being liked and being seen. They talk about values, about boundaries, about wanting to be taken seriously without becoming guarded.
By the time they leave, it feels less like a conversation and more like the start of something familiar.
The band continues writing and rehearsing, each member’s input counted. Veronica pushes back hard when she strongly disagrees, which causes occasional friction with Luke. They rehearse for their second full length album.
After practice, they order pizza and watch movies. Veronica does not usually stay long, but this time she does, sitting with Amy as they talk easily, like they have known each other longer than they have. Maverick saves extra slices for both of them. They both turn the pizza down.
Luke, delighted, eats the remaining two slices of pepperoni without hesitation and thanks them.
Another thing that frustrated Veronica in a quieter way was when she came down with the flu and had to cancel a few shows.
It was not even the cancellations that upset her. She understood that bodies fail sometimes, and she would have pushed through if she could. What stayed with her was what followed.
No one from the band checked in.
No one asked how she was feeling. No one told her to rest, or that they hoped she would recover quickly. The silence settled around her in a way that felt heavier than any criticism ever had.
The only person who reached out was Amy.
Veronica noticed it immediately, and she noticed it again every time she picked up her phone and saw nothing from the others. She thought about bringing it up to Maverick, about asking gently if it had crossed his mind at all. But she did not.
She chose silence instead.
Not because it did not matter, but because she did not want to beg for care, and she did not trust that asking for it would not make her feel smaller afterward.
It made her feel strangely alienated, like she was only visible when she was useful.
What she did not know at the time was that Maverick had interpreted her growing distance as disinterest. He assumed that if she wanted to talk, she would reach out. He mistook her quiet for indifference, and his hesitation for respect.
They both misread each other.
And in that space between those misunderstandings, something fragile thinned out.
This is one of the few times Luke ever shows her genuine warmth, and she does not know how to feel about it. She has sensed that he carries some of the same discomfort toward her that Ethan did, but with Luke it feels more contained. Less personal. Their friction seems limited to rehearsal, to moments where she steps in to impose structure when Maverick hesitates.
Page 7
The tension seemed quiet for a while, but it never fully disappeared, only simmered. Long rehearsals. Small irritations. Luke starts drinking earlier than usual before shows. Not enough to stop functioning, enough to be noticeable. Veronica clocks it every time and says nothing until she can’t ignore it anymore.
The night it happens, they’re running late.
The venue is loud already, crowd pressing closer to the stage than usual. There’s no green room, just a narrow space behind the amps where everyone’s in everyone else’s way. The drummer has a drink in his hand when she walks over.
She hesitates.
Then she steps in.
“Hey,” she says, keeping her voice low. “Can you stop drinking. We’re about to go on.”
He smirks, dismissive. Says he’s fine. Says it helps.
“I’m not attacking you,” she says. “I just need you clearheaded. Please.”
The word please lands wrong.
His face tightens, like she hit a nerve she didn’t know was exposed.
“Why are you always on me?” he snaps, loud enough that people turn.
“What? I’m not,” she says. “I’m trying to make sure the show doesn’t fall apart.”
He steps closer. Too close. She feels it in her chest before she thinks about it. She doesn’t move.
“You think you run this band now,” he says. “Everything revolves around you.”
“That’s not what this is,” she says. “And you know it.”
Luke loses control. He shoves her, quick and sloppy. Not a punch. Not the kind of violence people picture ahead of time. Just careless force, badly placed. Impulsive.
He misjudges the difference between his strength and her weight. She loses her footing and goes down hard, hitting the floor on her side. Pain flares through her ribs, her elbow, her wrist.
For a second her vision turns blanks as her hair whips over her face, fully blocking her facials as she lands hard on her side in pain. Physically, everything hurts. Emotionally, what hits first is shock, then a hot, stunned disbelief. Not fear yet. Just the sick realization that this actually happened.
Her body does a quick inventory. Nothing feels broken. Everything hurts, but she can move. She can't see yet.
The show is about to start.
Luke freezes, immediately panicked. “Oh my god. I didn’t mean to do that. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”
Maverick and Noah stand there, silent and pale, not quite understanding what they just witnessed. Not sure if Veronica is even okay.
Veronica says nothing. She pushes herself up slowly. Her ribcage and wrist throbs the most. She hates that.
She reaches up and clears the thick curtain of hair out of her face with one sweep, revealing a calm, almost emotionless expression that Luke did not expect. She then smooths the front of her shirt where it twisted when she fell. She straightens her jacket, tugs it back into place, controlled. Refusing to look shaken.
Luke looks overwhelmed, not angry at her, not fully angry at himself either. Just scrambled. "
Her first instinct is not to protect herself. It is to stabilize the situation so the band can play.
“I’m sorry,” she says.
The words come out before she can stop them.
His face drains. “No. No, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. I really didn’t.”
“I know,” she says quietly. "It’s fine." she smiles. We need to focus. We’re about to go on.”
Her calm makes it worse. Maverick and Noah do not know what to do with it.
They go onstage.
The lights hit and instinct takes over. She sings clean, strong, controlled. She keeps her body still so no one can see the anger buzzing under her skin. The crowd loves them. The set goes off without a hitch. Even Luke plays perfectly, just like he said he would.
Afterward, she does not wait.
Everything she held down during the show finally boils over. She finds Luke before anyone can intercept. She raises her voice, loud and sharp, something she rarely does.
“You don’t touch me,” she shouts. “Ever.”
He starts talking fast, defensive and flustered. Stress. Pressure. The beers. He didn’t mean to. It was an accident. He’s under a lot right now.
“You shoved me,” she says. “I hit the floor. I could’ve cracked my ribs. I could’ve broken my wrist. You don’t get to explain that away.”
He bristles, feeling attacked now. “You’re blowing this up. You’re acting like I’m some monster.” 
“I’m not blowing anything up,” she says. “I’m asking you to acknowledge it instead of reframing it so you don’t have to.” 
“You don’t get it,” he snaps. “Everything’s about you now. You erase everyone else and act like you’re protecting the band.”
Something in her finally breaks.
“I never asked for this,” she snaps back. “I’ve been holding this together while you’re drinking before shows.”
His eyes flash. “I always play fine. So what’s your problem? Do you think you’re better than us?”
“No,” she says. “I think I’m taking this much more seriously.”
“And you think I’m not?” he fires back. “I’m a grown man. I don’t need some girl telling me I can’t have a couple beers before a show.”
If I couldn’t handle it, I wouldn’t be drinking, he insists.
That perspective does not sit well with her. Drinking has wrecked people she cared about. She knows where this logic leads.
The rest of the band stays silent, the air heavy and uncomfortable, no one quite willing to publicly choose a side in the moment. This leaves Veronica feeling even more dismissed, as if she had made a problem out of nothing. But she firmly believes her concern was real. 
Amy does step in privately, asking if she is okay, offering ice, staying close in small, subtle ways. Veronica appreciates that more than she says. Still, her frustration with the others, and especially with Luke, settles deep and does not lift.
In that moment, she understands that something fundamental has shifted. Not just with Luke. With the band itself, for refusing to step in and defend her or ask her if she's okay. Later, alone, the tension settles into her body. Not because she fell.
Because she apologized first. Because she swallowed it and kept going. Because she recognizes the pattern now. The old one. Making herself smaller so everything else can move forward.
She hates that she did it again.
The hotel room is dim and cluttered with the aftermath of a show. Jackets draped over chairs, instrument cases leaned against the wall, half-empty water bottles and takeout bags scattered across the desk. The air still smells faintly of sweat and beer and whatever cleaner the hotel used to pretend it was fresh.

Veronica had left not long ago. Drove herself, like she usually does. Said she was tired and wanted her own space. None of them argued.

Now the room feels smaller without her in it.

Luke is sitting on the edge of one of the beds, elbows on his knees, staring at the carpet like it might explain something to him. Maverick stands near the window, arms crossed, looking out at the parking lot lights, not really seeing them. Noah leans against the desk, fidgeting with the edge of a receipt.

Noah breaks the silence first.

“So,” he says quietly, glancing between Luke and Maverick. “We need to talk about what happened.”

Luke exhales sharply through his nose. “I already apologized. Like, a hundred times.”

Maverick turns from the window to face him. His voice is steady, but there is no softness in it. “This is not about the apology. What you did was not okay. It was reckless and it could have gone way worse than it did.”

Luke opens his mouth, then closes it again, shifting on the bed. “I did not shove her hard. I misjudged it. I was drunk and heated, yeah, but I did not try to hurt her.”

“That is not the point,” Maverick says. “You put your hands on a bandmate in anger. In a tight space. Right before a show. That alone is a line you do not cross.”

Amy, who has been sitting in the chair by the small table, arms folded tight against her chest, finally stands.

“And if you are going to hurt women,” she says, calm but cutting, “you should not be in this band. You should not be drinking. And honestly, we are all lucky Veronica stayed as composed as she did and finished that show instead of ending it right there and pressing charges. Because she absolutely could have.”

Luke looks up at her sharply. “Charges? Amy, come on. That is insane.”

“No, it is not,” she replies without hesitation. “You knocked her to the floor. In public. That is not nothing just because she did not scream about it.”
Noah shifts his weight, clearly uncomfortable. “She seemed fine though. I mean… she got up and dusted herself off like it was nothing. She finished the set. I figured no injuries, no bruises, no lasting stuff. Bringing it up seems unnecessary and will probably annoy her more.”
Amy stares at him. “That is what you got from that?”
“What,” Noah says, defensive but not hostile. “I am just saying, she did not look hurt.”
“That is because she is abnormally strong and disciplined for her age,” Amy says. “Not because she was not hurt. And honestly, the fact that she handled it like that makes me admire her even more. And feel worse for her.”
Luke lets out a short, bitter laugh. “Feel worse for her? She tore into me after the show like I was some kind of monster.”
“And she had every right to,” Amy snaps. “Do you have any idea how much strength it takes to get shoved like that and still walk out on stage like nothing happened? And you all just assume that means she is fine? That is ridiculous.”
Maverick raises a hand slightly. “Amy, relax a bit.”
She turns to him, eyes sharp, but her voice stays calm. “No. I will not relax about this. What she dealt with could have traumatized her. And the fact that she did not break down in front of you does not mean it did not affect her. It just means she contained it.”
The word hangs in the room.
Luke scoffs. “So now I am some kind of abuser? I told you, I did not mean it. Something just snapped in the moment. I was already intoxicated and she was on me about it and I reacted badly. That is it. I didn't know my own strength and I didn't mean to shove her either.”
“That is not it,” Amy says. “You do not get to minimize it because you regret it now.”
Luke pushes himself up from the bed and takes a step toward her. “I said I would never do anything like that again. Ever. What more do you want from me?”
“For you to actually take responsibility instead of hiding behind the word drunk,” she replies.
Maverick steps between them slightly, tension creeping into his voice. “Enough. This is turning into a fight and that is not helping anyone.”
Noah rubs his face and sighs. “Look, I do not even feel comfortable reaching out to Veronica about it. She has always seemed emotionally distant with me. I would not even know what to say.”
Maverick nods reluctantly. “Yeah. Same. She does not like talking about negative things much, or most things about the past. I think it is better to let her decide what she wants rather than re-opening the wound. If she wants Luke out, then we may have to listen to her. That's how we show her respect, not by reminding her of what happened.” 
Luke stiffens. “So that is it? She just gets to decide my future because of one mistake?”
Maverick meets his eyes. “She is the one who got shoved. So yeah, her voice matters more than yours here.”
Luke looks away, jaw clenched. There is anger there, but under it something else too. A small, unwelcome sense of relief at the thought of not having to work around Veronica and Amy anymore.
Amy watches him, expression tight but controlled. “The part that makes this worse,” she says more quietly now, “is that most of you realized tonight that she needed emotional support. That she probably felt unseen after that happened. And instead of checking on her, reassuring her, making it clear that you had her back, you all decided she probably did not want to talk about it and left her alone with it.”
Noah swallows. Maverick looks down at the floor.
“That is not fair,” Maverick says after a moment. “We did not want to push her.”
“And you think silence is better,” Amy replies. “That is exactly why some of the things she has vented to me privately make perfect sense now.”
Luke snaps his head toward her. “So now you are bringing private stuff into this?”
“I am bringing perspective into this,” Amy says. “Because what happened tonight did not happen in a vacuum. And you do not get to decide it did.” 
A long silence settles over the room. 
The low sound of the air conditioner. A car passing outside. Someone laughing faintly down the hall.
Amy disagrees with Maverick and Noah, reading their response not as malice, but as the kind of emotional ignorance that comes from never having had to think about moments like this too deeply. She hopes that by being firm and honest about where she stands morally, they will gain some perspective.
Maverick finally speaks. “We are not deciding anything right now. But this is serious. And Luke, whether you meant it or not, this changed things.”
Luke does not answer right away. When he does, his voice is quieter, but still edged. “I am not proud of what I did. But I am not the villain you are all making me into.”
Amy does not respond. She just looks tired.
And somewhere out in the dark parking lot, Veronica is already driving home alone, ribs still tender, choosing the quiet of her car over the noise of the room she no longer feels safe staying in.
Veronica sits alone in her car, processing everything that happened repeatedly, driving herself sick. Doubt still comes, because it always does. She wonders if she pushed too hard about the drinking. If she should have handled it differently. If she made it worse. That line of thinking feels familiar, almost automatic.
But underneath it, something else holds. She knows she did not imagine what happened. She trusts her own judgement. She knows being touched like that crossed a line. She knows she is not wrong for naming it.
Part of her wants things to be okay again, to smooth the edges, to make the room feel safe. But she does not want that badly enough to apologize to someone who put his hands on her, and she feels growing resentment towards her bandmates for refusing to console her during the incident and afterward.
That is where her pride lives now. Not in proving anything. In refusing to shrink herself just to keep the peace. In knowing her worth and valuing her safety and autonomy. What she doesn't know about is the private conversation that took place behind the scenes.

Page 8
She doesn’t sleep much that night.
Her ribs aches when she turns over. Her wrist feels tender in a way that makes her aware of it constantly. The physical part is manageable. She can handle plenty of pain. She has a wrist tattoo. What won’t quiet down is the loop in her head. The apology. The way it slipped out before she could stop it.
By morning, she knows what she’s going to do. She asks Maverick to talk privately. Not dramatic. Not angry. Direct.
“I don’t feel safe,” she says. “What happened can’t happen again.”
He rubs his face with both hands. Looks her in the eyes and listens. He doesn’t argue the facts. He doesn’t try to say it wasn’t serious. That helps.
Luke argues anyway.
He says it was an accident. Says she overreacted to his drinking. Says everyone’s stressed. Says she’s making it about herself again. He frames it as personality conflict, as ego, as tension that could be smoothed over if everyone would just calm down and listen.
She lets him finish.
“This isn’t about feelings dude,” she says. “You physically assaulted me. That’s a line you don't cross.”
Maverick goes quiet.
The decision doesn’t happen instantly. It takes a day. Two meetings. Long silences where no one quite meets anyone else’s eyes. Noah stays torn, trying to keep both sides intact. Amy sits next to Veronica without speaking, her presence gentle but unsure.
In the end, Maverick makes the call.
The drummer Luke Mercer is out.
He doesn’t leave quietly. He writes a particularly charged message on his myspace page.
"The last few months have been exhausting on every level. Touring, constant pressure, and tension inside the band pushed me further than I ever expected. I have been carrying stress from the road and stress from the people I was supposed to trust.
This message is directed towards one woman. I think most of you know exactly who. 
You entered my life suddenly, without warning or expectation. You had the talent, the drive, the image. Everything that made you impossible to ignore. But you were also closed off, strict, difficult to convince. Demanding in ways that left little room for anyone else.
You reshaped the band and placed yourself at its center. People started coming to our shows for you, not for us. Even with the success that followed, that shift never sat right with me. What we built together stopped feeling shared.
Now you get your relief. You pushed me out of a band that was once my home. If that gives you peace, then take it.
I will take my time finding my way back to music on my own terms. Enjoy the search for a better drummer."
Within a week, he’s playing with Ethan. A new band, announced fast, like they were already planning it. They frame it as creative freedom. As finally being heard.
The first read
She does not click it right away.
She sees the notification, sees his name, already knows what it is going to be about. Her stomach tightens before she reads a single word. Not fear. Bracing.
When she finally opens it, she reads faster than she means to at first. Skimming. Looking for accusations. Looking for something that confirms what she already expects.
“This message is directed towards one woman.”
That line lands like a dull thud. Not shock. Recognition. Of course it is.
Her eyes move more slowly after that.
As she reads the middle
At first, she feels oddly detached.
She notices how carefully he’s written it. How measured it sounds. How it avoids the shove entirely. How “assault” has been replaced with stress, pressure, exhaustion. How the band is abstracted into forces instead of people.
She clocks the manipulations immediately, even if part of her wishes she didn’t.
He centers her without naming her.
He praises her before criticizing her.
He frames himself as overwhelmed, not responsible.
He reframes her boundaries as control.
She notices the phrase “difficult to convince” and feels something cold settle in her chest.
That word sticks.
Not because it’s inaccurate, but because she knows exactly what he means by it.
She thinks, I didn’t bend.
And she realizes that, to him, that was the original offense.
The part that actually hurts
It is not the accusation that she reshaped the band.
She already knows that’s true, even if not in the way he means it.
What actually hurts is this line, even if she would never admit it out loud.
“What we built together stopped feeling shared.”
Because she did want it to feel shared.
She thinks of every time she redirected attention.
Every “we” she said on instinct.
Every moment she softened herself to keep things calm.
Every time she stayed later than she wanted, listened longer than she had energy for, swallowed irritation so no one would feel pushed aside.
And the thought that comes up is not anger yet.
It’s this.
None of it mattered.
That lands harder than the shove ever did.
The rage, delayed
The anger does not hit immediately.
First comes a sharp clarity.
He is punishing her publicly for a boundary she set privately.
He is rewriting her refusal to tolerate harm as ambition.
Her seriousness as ego.
Her competence as domination.
And then something in her snaps into place.
She realizes he is never going to say he was wrong.
Not to her.
Not to anyone.
He is going to carry this version forever.
That is when the anger finally shows up, clean and sharp.
Not explosive. Focused.
She thinks, You put your hands on me. And this is how you frame it.
What she does outwardly
She does not comment.
She does not post a rebuttal.
She does not message him.
She does not defend herself publicly, even though she could dismantle the post line by line.
She knows something important here.
If she responds, she validates his framing.
If she stays silent, people will project whatever they want.
And she has learned that she cannot control either outcome.
So she does the hardest thing for someone like her. She lets it stand. She tells Maverick she’s seen it.
She tells him she will not address it publicly.
She makes it clear that she expects the band to handle any fallout as a unit, not leave it on her shoulders.
That part matters to her more than the post itself.
What stays with her afterward
Later, alone, the reaction changes.
She rereads the post once more, slower this time.
And what lingers is not his anger.
It’s the realization that he genuinely believes this story.
That he has folded her into his identity as a problem to be solved, a disruption to be expelled.
She thinks about how often women like her are told, implicitly, that excellence is aggression.
She thinks about how easy it is for people to accept a story where the visible woman is the cause of imbalance, rather than the mirror reflecting it.
And finally, she feels something very quiet and very final.
Relief.
Not relief that he’s gone.
Relief that she no longer has to contort herself to prove she belongs.
The lasting impact on her character
This moment does not break her.
But it does close a door.
After this, she stops apologizing first.
She stops assuming good faith where there is none.
She stops mistaking endurance for integrity.
She does not become colder.
She becomes firmer.
And when people later describe her as “hard to work with” or “intimidating,” it no longer confuses her.
She knows exactly what they mean.
They mean she won’t disappear to make things easier.
And she is done paying that price.
The replacement drummer is unexpected. Caleb, the emo guitarist who almost got the rhythm slot, turns out to play drums too. He’s competent. Professional. Keeps his head down. Doesn’t ask questions he doesn’t need answers to. 
Caleb’s style of playing the drums is different from Luke’s in a way that quietly reshapes the band’s entire sound.
Luke always played with more edge and groove. His drumming leaned into swagger, heavy backbeats, loose fills, and a slightly behind-the-beat feel that gave the early material a raw, live-wire energy. It made their older songs feel dangerous and physical, like they could tip into chaos at any moment, which was part of what people loved about them.
Caleb, on the other hand, plays with far more precision. His timing is tight and strong, his ghost notes crisp, his fills clean and mathematically placed rather than explosive. He favors sharp transitions, controlled dynamics, and intricate hi-hat and kick patterns that lock perfectly with the bass instead of overpowering it. Where Luke drove the band through feel, Caleb drives it through structure and constant improvement. This discipline resonates with both Veronica and Amy, and he's very warm and friendly.
With the band’s material growing more layered and ambitious, this shift actually worked in their favor. The songs began to breathe differently, cleaner, sharper, more intentional, allowing the guitars and vocals more space to shine without losing intensity.
Their first single with Caleb in the lineup, “Glass Veins,” became an unexpected hit, praised for its tight rhythm section and refined aggression, marking a clear but successful evolution in their sound. On paper, the band is functional again. In reality, something has shifted.
There is a better atmosphere, but conversations are careful now. Trust no longer flows the way it once did. Veronica remains herself, yet emotionally guarded, even more difficult to get close to than she already had been.
 Maverick keeps a closer eye on her, as though trying to catch issues before they take shape. Noah says less and less, feeling that approaching Veronica privately is risky when she seems emotionally distant from everyone but Amy. He feels a gender bias from her.
Amy tries to smooth things over in small ways, shared snacks, light jokes, staying close.
Amy and Veronica bond through shared interests and routines, a closeness that slowly places Veronica just outside the others' reach. She shows warmth toward Caleb and Maverick, and occasionally Noah as well, but she does not seek them out or pursue connection with them in the same way she does with Amy. 
To the rest of the band, this reads as quiet distance, reinforcing the sense that she does not want to be bothered. It is a perception Veronica never consciously considered, shaped by their vantage point more than her intent, and complicated by the very real reasons she had for keeping her guard where she did.
Page 9
Despite the bad memories and the constant stress of being on the road, Veronica feels a sense of stability beneath the nerves and the unresolved frustration. Caleb turns out to be a genuinely positive addition to the band, and she gets along easily with both him and Amy. 
They release several singles, then another full-length album called Stardust Tears. Most fans take a liking to Caleb's style of drumming, though many older listeners miss the raw, edgy sound from their earliest days. Touring becomes routine. Cities blur together. So do hotels, stages, and long drives in the dark.
Veronica adjusts.
Outwardly, she keeps pace. Inwardly, stress builds quietly, and unresolved trauma continues to work its way through her, slow and persistent. She tells herself it is manageable. Temporary. Something she can outlast.
Gradually, she eats less. Sleeps less. Feels everything take more effort. Her energy thins out, piece by piece, but she keeps going anyway, because that is what she has learned to do. She had come to take pride in how little it seemed to take to keep her standing, even when everything around her felt unstable.
Despite everything, she continues to improve as a singer faster than she ever expected. Not just in confidence, but in actual ability. Her range opens. Her control deepens. She learns how to sing harder without losing clarity, how to push without shredding her voice. She learns different kinds of screams too, shaping distortion instead of letting it consume her.
Singing night after night sharpens her in ways she never could have planned for. Her body learns what her mind never set out to master. And it is this progress that keeps her spirits high, even as, internally, she is slowly coming apart.
She gets curious.
Her listening shifts. Heavier music. More demanding arrangements. Symphonic layers. Voices that move fast and wide and still stay clean. She practices quietly on her own, in warm up rooms and empty hallways, late at night with her headphones on. The work excites her in a way she has not felt in a long time.
Maverick and Noah do not share that excitement.
They have grown used to her softer voice, the one that fits neatly into the sound they already have. When she suggests trying something heavier, they hesitate. Maverick says it is interesting that she's improving so much, but maybe not right for this project. Noah worries about alienating fans, though he is otherwise open. Caleb stays neutral. He can see both sides. Personally he welcomes it. Amy welcome it privately.
Veronica listens, then speaks.
“I know what we do works,” she says. “I’m not trying to dismantle it.”
She takes a breath.
“But I’m developing. I'm maturing as an artist. If that never shows up in the music, I’m going to feel like I’m pretending. I don’t want to shock anyone, and I don’t want to lose the people who already care about us. I just want space to stretch a little.”
She looks at them, calm.
“I’m not asking to change everything. Try one song. If it doesn’t fit, we let it go. But ignoring growth because it’s comfortable isn’t good for me, and it’s not good for the band long term.”
She does not apologize.
“I don’t want to outgrow this,” she says. “I want to grow with it.”She adapts. She always does. She's especially careful about refusing to push her ideas if the band doesn't agree now. 
On record, she keeps it restrained. Live, she pulls back when she feels herself wanting to go further. She edits herself mid-phrase, mid-idea. She tells herself this is compromise, not shrinking. That they are a band, and it's only fair for her to pacify the other members. That she will show everyone the true extent of what she's capable of eventually.
The fans still respond to her the most.
She notices the way people talk about “her voice” as if it isn’t something she worked for. As if it just appeared fully formed. She keeps defending the band in interviews, keeps saying “we,” keeps redirecting praise.
It doesn’t change the narrative.
Privately, she feels increasingly out of place and she can't continue to deny it. She feels like she’s wearing a version of herself that no longer fits, but looks good enough that no one wants her to change it.
She starts feeling tired in a way sleep doesn’t fix.
Burnout creeps in quietly. Depression doesn’t announce itself. It just flattens things and she feels it underneath everything. Music feels heavier to carry. Touring feels endless. Even maintaining her beauty starts to feel like a challenge. The discipline that once grounded her starts to feel like obligation.
By the fourth album, she knows.
She does not want to fight anymore. Not about sound. Not about space. Not about being understood.
She has been carrying things quietly for a long time. Burnout she never named out loud. The frustration of knowing she has more to give but feeling unable to fully express it. The anxiety of being labeled controlling when all she really has is vision, and no one else seems willing to hold it with the same weight.
She feels like she has been carrying the band on her back, even when she never asked to. Layered beneath all of it is what she has never resolved, the moment Luke put his hands on her, and the resentment Ethan carried from the beginning. His refusal to treat her with basic respect, despite everything she gave to the band, wore at her slowly. Luke shoving her to the floor, nearly breaking her bones, and the band standing there in silence as she apologized for being the one hurt, stayed with her in ways she could not name.
She knows her worth. That is not the problem. The problem is how much of herself she has spent proving it, and how tired she is of having to.
She sits alone in her room through most of the night, the lights off, the city faint through the window, thinking about leaving the band. About ending the constant tension that has begun to feel inescapable, like something woven into the air around her rather than into any single moment.
The thought comes and goes in slow waves. She pushes it away, then finds it drifting back again, quieter but more persistent each time.
She cries a few times. Not all at once. It catches her in short, unexpected bursts, the way a body finally lets go when it has been holding too tightly for too long. The stress she had packed down for months loosens all at once, and tears spill out without drama or warning, sliding down her face and dropping silently onto the floor.
It almost feels like drowning, not because it is violent, but because it is streaming steadily and inescapable. There is no sobbing. No shaking. She does not collapse into it. She just lets it happen, breathing slowly, eyes unfocused, as if observing something her body is doing rather than something she is choosing.
She does not vent. She does not reach out. She folds it inward, the way she always has, letting the weight settle quietly instead of scattering it outward. It is confusing, that this kind of stillness can hurt so much and yet feel so clarifying.
By the time the tears stop, something inside her has shifted. Not healed, not resolved, but unmistakably decided.
And by morning, leaving no longer feels like a challenging question. Guilt presses in just as hard as the relief does. She does not want to hurt anyone. Not Maverick, who believed in her. Not Amy, who feels like the one soft place she has found inside the band. The idea of disappointing them makes her chest ache.
But she knows she has been storing too much misery for too long. Carrying it carefully has not made it lighter. It has only made it harder to breathe around. A part of her still does not want to leave, but she can see what staying is doing to her. She sleeps less. There is a constant tightness in her chest that never quite goes away. She starts losing weight when she was already slim, already fragile.
Her long, thick hair, once soft and sleek, begins to look dry, dulled by neglect. The shine it used to catch in bathroom light has faded into something flatter, more tired. She notices a single gray strand in the mirror.
At first she thinks it is just the light. She leans closer, tilts her head, then parts her hair carefully until she finds it again. She isolates it between two fingers and draws it forward over her shoulder, letting it fall against her chest like it does not belong there.
She brings out a small magnifying glass, the kind meant for reading fine print, and holds it up with a steady hand. The strand sharpens into focus. Pale. Unmistakable.
She studies it for a long moment, not touching the rest of her hair at all, as if disturbing it might make the reality blur again. The bathroom is silent except for the faint sound of the light overhead.
She cannot believe the stress has done this. A gray hair, at twenty one.
Not because it is catastrophic, but because it makes something invisible suddenly undeniable.
She feels less like herself and more like a shell moving through familiar routines, carried forward by a kind of numb momentum rather than intention. Days pass because they have to, not because she is choosing them.
The sight of it makes her think about time in a way she never has before. About the body quietly keeping score. About how fragile and temporary everything suddenly feels. The thought unsettles her more than she expects. Mortality is not something she thought she would have to reckon with at twenty two.
And now, for the first time, it is close enough to feel real. Seeing a gray hair at her age unsettles her deeply, and she cannot stop thinking about what else might change if she does not rein in the stress eating at her. 
The next day, she decides she has to quit. Not because she wants to, but because she does not feel safe continuing like this. When she tells the band she is leaving, she keeps it simple and doesn't show emotion.
Burnout. Mental health. Needing time. 
She does not list grievances. She does not point fingers. She thanks them, and she means it.
They say they understand.
She is not sure they do.
Privately, part of the band feels abandoned. Aside from Amy, feelings toward Veronica begin to shift, slowly and quietly. She had been their star, the source of their momentum, the most disciplined and hardworking member of the group, generous with her time and energy. And now she is gone.
She thought keeping her explanation simple was the right thing to do. Instead, it leaves the rest of them confused, filling in the gaps themselves, most feeling betrayed by a departure they do not fully understand.
Page 10
She leaves cleanly.
There is no dramatic announcement. No scorched earth interview. Just a statement about burnout and needing space. People speculate anyway. They always do. She does not correct them.
For a while, things are quiet.
She sleeps. She eats regularly. The weight she lost comes back. She runs to burn off stress and ends up getting good at it. She starts spending more time at home with her animals.
Her Shiba Inu, Kiko, has a habit of trailing her through the apartment like he is just coincidentally heading the same way. He never fully crowds her, always leaving a small space between them, but he is there when she stops, when she sits, when she changes rooms. She talks to him absentmindedly while making coffee or rinsing dishes, not expecting a response, just letting the sound of her own voice exist without pressure. Sometimes he rests his head against her leg, and that small weight feels more comforting than anything anyone says to her.
Her black cat, Nyx, is more particular. Nyx chooses her moments. She hops onto the couch beside Veronica and pretends not to care, then slowly leans closer until her side presses into Veronica’s arm. Veronica scratches behind her ears or under her chin, slow and gentle, knowing exactly when to stop before the cat gets overstimulated. When Nyx curls up against her at night, purring low and gently, Veronica finds herself breathing more evenly without really thinking about it.
She also keeps a small fish tank on the counter, nothing fancy. Just a few tetras moving through the water in quiet loops. She feeds them in the mornings before she leaves and again at night when she gets back. Sometimes she stands there longer than she needs to, watching them drift back and forth, their movements repetitive and calm. It gives her something to focus on that is not her phone, not her thoughts, not the band.
With them, she does not have to be articulate or composed or useful. She just has to show up, refill bowls, clean the litter box, change the water. Simple care. Physical, ordinary, real.
And that is enough, most days.
She draws again, a hobby she had as a little girl, and people respond to it enough that it starts bringing in real money. She avoids adding new men into her life. She lets her nervous system settle in ways she did not realize it needed.
Music returns slowly. Without pressure.
Then a call comes.
Members from two recently disbanded indie groups she has admired from a distance reach out. One from Black Axiom. Another from Seraph Bloom. They talk about sound. About scale. About building something heavier and more expansive from the start. They tell her they saw her potential early, that they could tell she was holding back more than she realized.
She feels it immediately. A fresh start. Equal footing. Respect.
This time, she does not adapt herself to an existing container. She helps design it.
They rehearse in a different kind of room. Bigger. Quieter. More professional. She lets her voice do what it has been wanting to do for years. Faster passages. Wider range. Power without restraint. It feels like breathing properly for the first time in a long while.

The band announces itself as Orison of Storms. They release a single without buildup. No soft launch. No apology.

It lands hard.

Fans respond immediately, not just to her, but to the whole sound. People talk about her voice like it is something new, like she has evolved overnight, even though she knows this is something she has been building toward for years.

She feels proud. Relieved. Appreciated.

A month later, they release another single. It gains traction too. She starts to look healthy again. Not just recovered, but stronger. More herself than she remembers being.

The reaction from her old band is not congratulatory.

Instead, they announce a retrospective release. Old demos. Early live recordings. Framed as a celebration of their history.

When she listens, her stomach tightens.

Her vocals are mixed lower. In some tracks, replaced entirely with guest takes. The choices are subtle enough to deny, deliberate enough to register immediately.
Interviews follow. Comments about how difficult she was to manage. About how success can go to someone’s head. About how the band existed before her and would exist after.
No one names her directly.
They do not need to.
She stops reading after the third article. There is no rush of tears. Just a cold, hollow pressure settling behind her ribs.
What hurts is not missing the band. It is the precision of the betrayal. The way they are rewriting her role, sanding her down, quietly punishing her for leaving instead of breaking.
She sits on the floor that night with her phone in her hand, staring at nothing. Her jaw aches from how tightly she has been holding it.
She does not cry much. When she does, it is brief and frustrated, like something leaking rather than breaking.
She does not tell her new bandmates. Not yet. She does not want to give the old story more oxygen. She files it away instead, another thing she will have to metabolize on her own.
The realization lands slowly and painfully: they did not just let her go. They needed to diminish her to feel whole again.
And that changes something in her. Permanently.
What hurts more than the articles is the silence.

Amy does not call.

She does not post anything either way. No defense. No congratulations. Just nothing. This is deeply unsettling, given everything Amy had been to her up until that point. Veronica tells herself not to read into it, that Amy was probably coerced or pressured or simply overwhelmed, but she does anyway. Silence has weight when it comes from someone you brought with you.

Later, she finds out why.

Former members reach out to Amy privately. Not threatening. Careful. They tell her to keep her head down. To stay neutral. To not get pulled into drama. They frame it as protection. As concern for her future. As advice from people who have already been burned.

Amy listens.

Not because she agrees with them, but because she is afraid they might be right.
She likes Veronica. She always has. She benefited from being in the band with her, but more than that, she believed in her. And now she is watching the story get flattened into headlines and comments, reduced into something cruel and loud and impossible to correct once it spreads.
Amy is terrified that if she speaks, she will only make it worse.
That she will turn Veronica into something to be argued over instead of someone who walked away on her own terms.
So she stays quiet.
She likes a few posts that do not say much. She avoids saying anything that could be quoted. She types messages and deletes them. She defends Veronica in rooms Veronica is not in.
Veronica notices all of it.
It hurts more than open hostility would have.
Meanwhile, the former drummer and Ethan start talking. Not publicly, not directly. They reach out to promoters, journalists, people in the scene. They tell their version. About how Veronica pushed people out. About how everything revolved around her. About how hard she was to work with.
They sound convinced. That’s the part that sticks with her. They aren’t lying in their own minds. They’re protecting themselves from the version where they weren’t blameless.
When she finds out, her first reaction isn’t anger. It’s a quiet, sinking recognition. This is how people survive stories they don’t want to face, by reshaping them until they can live inside them.
She doesn’t argue with it publicly. She doesn’t chase corrections. She goes very still instead, filing the information away, understanding now that some damage isn’t meant to be confronted, only outgrown. Months pass.
Then Maverick messages her.
He says he’s sorry. Says he wishes things had ended better. Says he misses what they had musically. He asks if she’d ever consider a reunion performance. Just one show. For closure.
She reads the message twice before replying.
She thanks him for reaching out. Says she hopes he’s doing well. Says she doesn’t think a reunion would be healthy for her.
He accepts it. Politely. Or so it seems.
A few weeks later, she sees the interview.
“I tried to make amends,” he says. “But some people just want to move on and rewrite history.”
She stares at the screen longer than she needs to.
That’s when it clicks.
He didn’t want reconciliation. He wanted control of the ending.
He wanted to be able to say he tried.
She feels it land like a delayed bruise. Not sharp, just deep.
What hurts is not the implication, it is the familiarity of it. The way closeness turns conditional the moment she does not comply. She realizes he did not want closure. He wanted permission.
She does not respond. She closes the screen and sits with the disappointment until it dulls, knowing now that even the people who felt safe were only safe as long as she stayed useful.
He chose the band narrative over her humanity.
He wasn’t neutral. He just waited to see which version of the story would survive.
That’s the revenge. 
Page 12
She keeps going.
Orison of Storms tours for several years. They do well. Her bandmates respect her, especially the vocalist Jerry. She performs at a level she once thought might never be possible, finally surrounded by musicians who can meet her where she is. Night after night, her voice holds. Fans show up. The work is real.
Still, something in her never fully settles.
She trusts more slowly now. She notices shifts in power almost immediately. When something feels off, she does not talk herself out of it anymore. She steps back sooner. Leaves earlier.
She gets along easily with her bandmates, an unforced familiarity settling in over time. They are protective of her, especially when she talks about her previous band, defending her without hesitation. At the same time, they can see the toll it took on her. They understand that getting close to her is not easy, that she keeps a large part of herself private, careful about what she lets anyone hold.
In person, she came across as strong and self-possessed, confident in rehearsals and onstage, she was striking, beautiful, talented and fierce. But away from performances, she often seemed distant, emotionally drained, like she was running on reserve. Her ability to stay consistent when performing was remarkable given the emotional rollercoaster she dealt with, from the way her bandmates had treated her to unprocessed early childhood trauma that occasionally ached at her.
It wasn’t that she was cold, more that she kept people at arm’s length. Her moods could shift quickly, not dramatically, but noticeably, and it left some of them unsure how to reach her. She also felt uncomfortable showing vulnerability, preferring to privately process her stress and anxiety. A few sensed she was carrying more than she ever talked about, and that she’d learned to contain it rather than work through it. 
When Jerry tries to draw her out emotionally, she minimizes what she feels and reassures him that she is fine, even when she is not. When he offers her a drink or marijuana, she always declines. She is firmly against drug use, not moralizing, just certain.
The rest of the band indulges more freely, and while they respect her boundaries and enjoy her presence, there is a quiet distance that settles in. Not hostility, just the sense that she exists a little apart from them.
After three years of excellent performances along with three well received albums, she announces she’s stepping away. 
No drama. No explanation beyond wanting to focus on her private life. People speculate again. She doesn’t correct them. She does not talk about burnout, and she certainly does not name the trauma she has been suppressing for years.
She thanks them for reaching out and tells them she hopes they are both doing well. She says she is glad they are still making music, and that she truly wants the band to succeed.
She explains that leaving was not about the lineup or the sound, but about her health and her ability to keep going without losing herself. She says she is in a different place now, creatively and personally, and that returning would mean stepping back into something she worked hard to survive.
She wishes them well, but makes it clear she is not coming back.
A year passes. Artists across the metal scene reach out to her, and she declines each offer politely. For a long stretch, she does not listen to music at all. It is too tangled up with memory, too close to things she is not ready to touch.
One day, she realizes she is tired of running from herself.
She starts collaborating selectively, only with artists who approached her directly, only at her own pace. There are no expectations to perform a version of herself that is easy to sell. No pressure to stay smaller than she has become.
She is still skilled. Still stunning. Still in demand. Fully are of all of it. But this time, she is in control of her path, and that changes everything.
Eventually, she finds the courage to write. Not because she wants attention, but because she has too much self respect to keep carrying everything in silence. She decides the truth deserves air.
It is not a tell all. Not revenge. Just her version. What happened. What did not. What she tried to do right. What it cost her anyway. How much of herself she gave to the band while slowly neglecting herself.
The book is careful, articulate. It does well enough. Some people believe her. Some do not. By then, she no longer needs them to. A few online critics soften. Misogynists in the rock and metal scenes dismiss her outright. Most readers, especially those who already sensed something was off, accept her account without needing to interrogate it.
The damage does not disappear. It never does. It lives on in her body sometimes. In the way she stiffens when narratives shift too quickly. In how she has become with trust.
But it no longer owns her. But she is not destroyed.
She has her animals. A small circle of people she chose slowly. Mornings without urgency. Music that belongs to her again.
She looks at herself in the mirror sometimes. Eyes blue and calm, skin soft and clear, hair still long and healthy, eyebrows perfectly shaped. A woman who knows exactly who she is, because she fought to become her.
They never get to take that.
When news of her book reaches her former band, the reactions are mixed.
Maverick understands why she wrote it, but still feels abandoned. He believes she never fully told him how bad things were, and reading her account makes him realize how much she kept to herself. It leaves him with the uneasy sense that he never really knew her at all. He also struggles with how it reflects on him, even though nothing she wrote was untrue.
Amy’s reaction is conflicted. She cares deeply for Veronica and appreciates the kindness and empathy she receives in the book, but feels exposed by the way her silence is mentioned. Seeing herself portrayed as someone who chose not to act, even gently, makes her uncomfortable in ways she has not fully reckoned with. It makes her question her own morality, leaving her feeling ashamed of herself even though she believed her intentions were good for everyone.
Caleb remains distant. He enjoyed his time with Veronica, but learned later that Maverick had told him she chose Amy over him when he tried to turn the band against her. He notices that she does not single him out or attack him in the book, and he respects that. Still, he wishes their connection had been stronger, that things between them had not stayed so surface level.
Noah feels sympathy for her, but like the others, he cannot separate the story from its impact. Everyone in the band worries about how it affects their reputation, how it reshapes the narrative around them, especially given how beloved she had been.
What unsettles them most is not that she spoke, but that once she did, they could no longer control how the story was told.
When the news reaches Ethan and Luke, both react with anger, but in different ways.
Ethan takes it personally. He feels like she never really tried to understand him and instead flattened everything into a version where he was the bad guy. He has always believed she saw herself as more evolved than the rest of them, more disciplined, more principled, and that she quietly judged anyone who did not live the way she did. To him, the way she talked about the past feels less like honesty and more like erasure.
Luke’s first reaction is relief. She did not name the assault outright, and he assumes that was intentional, a way of protecting herself without opening up legal consequences. That relief quickly turns into resentment. He is furious about how she framed their dynamic, insisting she never respected viewpoints or lifestyles different from her own, and that she always cast herself as the only one who grew up.
In an interview with Ethan and Luke’s band, Public Nuisance, both men are drunk, loose, and clearly emotional. They mock Veronica, downplay her experience, and paint her as self-righteous and dramatic. Some people find it funny in a messy, chaotic way. Others see it as uncomfortable, like watching two people spiral on camera.
When Veronica is asked about the interview later, she pauses before answering.
She says:
“I am not going to get into that. I do not think it is productive, and I do not really see the point. I have said what I needed to say already.”
She shrugs slightly, not defensive, just done.
“I wish them well, but I am focused on my own life now.”
The interviewer moves on. She does not look back at it again.

Page 14
The internet never really forgets, it just reshuffles.
Every few months, something resurfaces. A clip. A comment. A half-remembered anecdote passed around by people who weren’t there. Someone will tag her, asking if it’s true. Someone else will argue in the replies on her behalf. She rarely engages.
When she does read, she notices how often certainty is borrowed. How confidently people repeat things they didn’t witness. How narratives harden with repetition, not evidence.
She learns which versions of the story circulate where. Which spaces are hostile. Which are just ignorant. Which are quietly sympathetic but unwilling to speak.
That last one still stings.
She used to believe that truth, once said clearly, would stand on its own. Now she understands that truth competes with convenience, and convenience usually wins.
She closes the app. Goes back to her day.
Sometimes, she dreams about the band.
Not the big moments. Not the success. Small things. Standing in line at a gas station on tour. Tuning quietly while someone else jokes. The feeling of a song locking in when everyone hits it at the same time.
She wakes up with her jaw tight, heart racing.
On those mornings, she grounds herself. Feeds her animals. Lets them climb onto her while she sits on the floor. The weight of them helps. The uncomplicated trust.
Music comes and goes in waves now. She doesn’t force it.
When she writes, it’s slower. More introspective than it already had been. She doesn’t chase momentum anymore. If something feels wrong, she stops. That used to scare her. Now it feels like self-respect.
She knows she could still lead a band if she wanted to. She knows she could still command a room. Her confidence and pride remains.
She just doesn’t want to pay that price again.

Page 15
The strangest part is the grief for the version of herself who didn’t know.
The one who believed that being fair would keep her safe. That defending others publicly would be remembered. That warning people before leaving was kindness, not leverage handed over. That all the dedication and hard work she put into her craft would be seen and appreciated more than small misunderstandings.
She doesn’t blame that version of herself.
She honors her.
Without her, none of this would have existed at all.
Occasionally, someone will approach her after a show or a reading and say they’re sorry. That they didn’t see it then. That they see it now.
She thanks them. Means it.
But she doesn’t feel relieved.
Understanding that arrives late doesn’t undo the cost of surviving without it.
Still, there is a quiet satisfaction in knowing she didn’t become cruel to endure it. She didn’t calcify into bitterness. She didn’t erase herself to be palatable.
She changed. Yes.
But she stayed intact.
And that, she’s learned, is its own kind of ending.
Aftermath, Reminiscence
Sometimes it feels like her life didn’t happen in a straight line, but in versions.
There was the quiet kid first. The one who learned early how to stay still. How to observe instead of speak. How to be invisible when being visible brought consequences she didn’t yet have the language for. She remembers classrooms more than faces. The feeling of sitting slightly apart from everyone else, already aware that she was different but not yet sure why that mattered.
That version of her didn’t dream big. She didn’t picture stages or crowds or albums. She just wanted space. Safety. A way to exist without being corrected.
Then there was the girl who started building herself.
Piece by piece. She learned what suited her through trial and error. Learned that control could feel like freedom if it was chosen. Learned that discipline wasn’t the opposite of expression, it was what allowed expression to survive.
She thinks about that first tattoo sometimes. How easy it was and how much she liked it. How sure she was. How it didn’t feel like rebellion at all. It felt like a personal contract with herself. I’m allowed to stay. I don’t have to undo this.
That girl worked hard. Harder than anyone ever saw. She practiced alone. She learned privately. She could sing while playing guitar better than many solo guitarists, and she never felt the need to prove it. She didn’t announce milestones. She didn’t demand recognition. She just kept going, trusting that if she became capable enough, confident enough, the world would meet her halfway.
In some ways, it did.
The band feels like a lifetime compressed into a few years when she thinks about it now. The early excitement. The sense of momentum. The feeling that she had finally stepped into something that fit. She remembers defending them instinctively, like it was obvious that they were a unit, like protecting the whole would protect her too.
That belief still surprises her when she looks back on it.
She didn’t want to be centered. She wanted to belong. She wanted shared gravity. She wanted something that worked because everyone held it together. She never wanted her talent or her beauty to make other people feel less visible. At the same time she didn't want to make herself feel smaller just so other people could feel better.
She thinks about the night she was shoved more than she wants to.
Not the pain. Not the fall. The apology. 
The way her body chose the show and stability over self-respect without asking her permission from her mind. The way years of learning how to stay safe overrode the woman she believed she’d become. That moment lives in her as a reminder that growth doesn’t erase old wiring, it just gives you better tools to understand it afterward.
She did everything right after that. She set boundaries. She named safety. She didn’t let it happen again.
And still, it wasn’t enough.
That’s the part she’s had to sit with the longest. The idea that integrity isn’t protection. That being fair doesn’t stop people from rewriting you when it serves them. That silence, neutrality, and delayed regret can hurt just as much as open cruelty.
With some help, she eventually recognizes that jealousy likely played a role for some of the band. She doesn’t dwell on it, just accepts it as part of what happened. It doesn’t meaningfully shape her resentment.
She thinks about Maverick sometimes. About how easy things were between them before she left, and how quickly warmth turned into distance afterward. She does not dwell on it, but she knows she deserved better.
She doesn’t hate him. She just doesn’t trust what he chose. 
She thinks about Amy too. About how badly she wanted another woman there. About how relief can turn into disappointment when fear takes over. That loss still aches in a quieter way, because it wasn’t malicious.  
The hardest thing to grieve wasn’t the band. It was the version of herself who believed that if she explained clearly enough, if she stayed generous, if she kept saying we and kept working harder than everyone else, the story would hold.
She knows better now. 
Her life after all of it is smaller, but truer. Fewer rooms. Fewer eyes. Fewer compromises. She still loves music, but she no longer needs it to prove anything. She creates when it feels right. She stops when it doesn’t. That used to scare her. Now it feels like maturity.
Sometimes she wonders who she would be if none of this had happened. If she’d stayed in that small town longer. If she’d never answered the flyer. If she’d chosen safety over possibility.
She doesn’t linger there.
Because for all the damage, she knows one thing for certain.
She's still here. She didn’t let them tell her who she was.
She grew into herself once, against resistance. She knows she could do it again if she had to.
And that knowledge, quiet and unglamorous as it is, belongs only to her.
Eventually, she goes into therapy. It works in a way she did not expect, steadily, without drama.

She stays relatively private. Single. Her world small but intentional. A few people close to her. Animals. Space to breathe. For the first time, she feels like she is honoring herself instead of managing everyone else. She knows her limits now. She listens to them. Her confidence comes less from achievement and more from trusting her own judgment.

She still feels everything deeply. That never changed. What changed is what she does with it. Instead of swallowing grief and carrying it alone, she learns how to process it, to speak it out loud to people she trusts, to let it move through her instead of settling in her body.
She is no longer interested in being seen. Or being famous. She lives a quiet life for herself, with her pets and the people she loves. She reconnects with her parents, who missed her while she was on the road and never fully understood what those years cost her.
And the clearest truth surprises her the most.
She would not take any of it back. Not the success. Not the pain. Not the losses.
She is focused on what comes next, not what is behind her. And she is proud of what she made in music, because she accomplished so much honestly, and she ultimately survived it without losing herself.

By her late twenties, her strength, courage, confidence, and hard-earned wisdom have become a real source of reassurance for her. Not something she performs, but something she relies on.
She controls her own schedule now. She does not rush into things anymore. She does not let people cross her boundaries, and when she senses someone trying to manipulate or erode them, she cuts them out guiltless, without bargaining with herself about it.
She lives with her pets, Kiko, Nyx, and her fish, and feels genuinely safe and content with them and she cares deeply for them. Over time, she comes to realize that being alone with them is not loneliness at all, but a form of peace she had been missing for years.
She still leaves the house often, traveling and spending time with a small circle of close female friends. They go on weekend road trips, visit quiet towns, hike easy trails, wander through bookstores and thrift shops, sit for hours in cafés talking about nothing and everything, give each other makeovers, and take spontaneous detours just because something looks interesting from the car window.
Her life is relatively quiet now. Intentionally so. She puts her own needs first without apology. 
And she makes herself a quiet promise: if she ever has children, she will teach them the lessons she had to learn the hard way, early, so they will not have to learn them the same way she did.