Chapter 22: The New Routine
The scent of lavender and mint from the shampoo was supposed to be calming. Dee had said so to the camera, her voice a bright, practiced instrument. “It’s like a spa day for your scalp, you know?”
She massaged the lather into the synthetic hair of the mannequin head, her fingers working on autopilot. The ring lights cast a sterile, shadowless glow, bleaching the color from her studio. She could see herself in the mirror behind the camera—a woman with a perfect smoky eye and a smile that looked pinned into place.
“And you really want to take your time here,” she narrated, the cadence so familiar it felt like someone else was speaking. “Gentle circular motions. No scratching.”
Three weeks. Twenty-one days of this. Wake up. Drink coffee that tasted like ash. See the clients. Smile. Laugh at their stories. Cut and color and style with a precision that felt surgical. Film the content. Post the content. Watch the metrics tick upward. Don’t think. Don’t feel. Especially don’t feel.
Her phone, set to permanent ‘Do Not Disturb,’ buzzed continuously on the vanity like a trapped fly. Notifications from platforms, emails from brands, texts from Sarah. And, occasionally, a new number appearing with a plea she’d delete unread. He’d started using other people’s phones after she’d finally blocked his primary number last week. A clean, clinical act that had given her no satisfaction.
The video wrapped. She gave her sign-off, a wink that felt like a muscle spasm. “Don’t forget to subscribe!”
She hit stop on the camera. The red recording light died.
The silence that followed was different from the silence of that night on the floor. That had been a loud, screaming silence. This was hollow. Vacant. It was the silence of a machine powering down.
She uploaded the file, wrote a caption full of emojis, and scheduled it to post. The routine was a cage, but it was the only thing holding her up.
She cleaned the sink, wiping away every trace of faux suds. The mannequin head stared at her with blank, plastic eyes. She turned it away.
Finally, she picked up her phone. Scrolling was part of the routine, too. Market research. She told herself that as she opened the browser.
The article was on a sidebar, sandwiched between an ad for curl cream and a listicle about celebrity breakups. The headline was a punch to a bruise she kept pretending wasn’t there: Matt Bomer’s Low-Key LA Outing Fuels Mystery Woman Rumors.
She clicked it. Her heart didn’t even race. It just sat in her chest, a cold, heavy stone.
Grainy paparazzi shots from a parking lot behind some vegan spot in Silver Lake. Matt, wearing a cap pulled low, holding the passenger door of his black SUV open. A woman, her face partially obscured by a curtain of long, straight blonde hair, sliding in. The caption speculated. A costar? A new love interest? Was this why he’d been so quick to shut down the ‘hairstylist rumours’?
Dee zoomed in. She studied the woman’s hand on the car door. Slim fingers. A silver ring. She studied the slope of her shoulder. She looked for details that would tell her something, anything. She found none.
It wasn’t Elara. This woman was taller, thinner.
A sound escaped her lips—a short, dry exhale that was almost a laugh. He wasn’t even hiding with the same one. It was efficient. It was practical. It was so fucking managerial.
She threw the phone onto the sofa. It bounced once and lay still.
The numbness began to crack then, not with heat, but with a deep, penetrating cold. It seeped into her bones. She walked to her station, her own reflection in the black mirror tracking her. The bright, smiling influencer was gone. In her place was a woman with tired eyes, her auburn curls piled in a messy knot, wearing a stained apron.
In her place was a woman with tired eyes, her auburn curls piled in a messy knot, wearing a stained apron. The hollow silence of the studio was a physical weight, pressing the air from her lungs until each breath was a shallow, insufficient thing. She needed a sound, a presence, anything to prove she hadn't become another still object in this room.
Her fingers, moving with a will of their own, scrolled past clients and colleagues. They stopped on a name she hadn’t tapped in months: Alex Chen. The last message was a photo of her aunt’s resurrected tomato plants, vibrant and thick with fruit, sent with the caption, “Told you she’d forgive me for the broken pane.” He’d been kind. He’d been real, kneeling in dirt without a performative bone in his body.
The phone rang against her ear, a lifeline thrown into a void.
“Dee?” His voice was warm, slightly muffled, like he’d answered while doing something else. “Hey. Everything okay with your aunt?”
“Auntie’s fine, her orchids are probably plotting a coup,” Dee said, forcing a lightness into her tone that felt like stretching a cold rubber band. “It’s me. I’m… calling in that greenhouse favor.”
“Name it.” There was no hesitation.
“I need to not be in my head for an hour. Coffee. Today. Right now, if you’re free.” The words tumbled out, sharp and naked. She winced at her own urgency, at the raw need she’d just laid bare to a practical stranger.
A beat of silence stretched, thin and taut. She could hear the faint clatter of dishes in the background on his end.
“I’m at The Grit, finishing a late lunch,” he said, his tone shifting into something easy, conversational. “I could use another cup. You know the place?”
Relief, hot and sudden, washed through the cold numbness. “I know it. Twenty minutes.”
“I’ll snag the booth in the back.”
She ended the call before she could apologize, before she could take it back. The phone stayed clutched in her hand, a concrete promise of a human interaction that wasn’t transactional. She peeled off the stained apron and let it drop to the floor.
In the small bathroom, she splashed cold water on her face. The woman in the mirror still looked fractured, but there was a new focus in her eyes, a dangerous glint. She didn’t bother with makeup. She dragged her fingers through her curls, threw on a worn leather jacket, and grabbed her keys.
The city outside was a blur of midday sun and noise. She walked the six blocks to the cafe, her boots hitting the pavement with a purpose she didn’t feel. The Grit was all exposed brick and the rich, acidic scent of roasted beans. She spotted him immediately.
Alex was in the back booth, as promised, two empty plates pushed to the side. He was sketching in a small notebook, his brow furrowed in concentration. He looked up as she approached, and his smile was an easy, welcoming thing that didn’t ask for anything.
“You made it,” he said, closing the book. “You look like you’ve been wrestling with electrical wiring.”
“Feels about right,” Dee said, sliding into the booth across from him. A half-full mug of black coffee sat by his elbow. “Thanks for this. I know it’s random.”
“The best things usually are.” He flagged down a server. “What’s your poison? Their oat milk latte is aggressively okay.”
She ordered a double espresso, something to match the jittery voltage under her skin. When the server left, an awkward quiet settled between them, filled only by the hiss of the espresso machine.
“So,” Alex said, leaning back. “The grand rescue mission. Do I need to assemble the greenhouse panels into a fort, or is coffee sufficient artillery for today?”
A genuine, startled laugh burst from Dee. It felt foreign in her throat. “Coffee’s a start,” she said, wrapping her hands around the tiny cup that arrived. The heat was a grounding burn. “I just needed to remember what a normal conversation sounded like. One that doesn’t end with a five-step plan for personal branding.”
Alex nodded slowly, his dark eyes holding hers without pressure. “Ah. The real world. It’s overrated, but the coffee’s better.” He took a sip from his mug. “I saw that clip, you know. The one with your friend.”
Dee froze, the porcelain of the cup searing her fingertips. She hadn’t expected that.
“Yeah,” she breathed out, setting the cup down. “Funny, right?”
“Not particularly.” His voice was mild, matter-of-fact. “Seemed like a guy working very hard to say nothing at all. A lot of words to convey ‘I am terrified of my own fanbase.’” He tilted his head. “But that’s just the view from the cheap seats.”
Tears, hot and sudden, pricked the backs of her eyes. Not from sadness, but from the sheer, disarming relief of being seen without having to explain a damn thing. She blinked them back, focusing on the dark pool of espresso.
“The cheap seats have a better angle sometimes,” she managed, her voice thick.
He didn’t push. He didn’t fill the space with platitudes. He just sat there, a solid, present fact in the flowery booth, while she swallowed the bitter coffee and let the simple, terrifying fact of his understanding hang between them. For the first time in weeks, the hollow space inside her didn’t echo. It just waited.