Three Doors Away

13. Timeline

***

The studio floor was still cool against her bare feet, the faint scent of rosin and wood polish lingering in the expansive rehearsal hall as the final chord of her vocal scale faded into the acoustic panels. At nineteen, the fragile, hesitant girl who had once hidden behind oversized jackets and bolted doors felt like someone she used to read about in a book. The grueling hours of stage presence workshops, vocal endurance training, and choreography drills had carved away the last remnants of her old shadow, replacing them with a quiet, unshakeable poise.

Her phone buzzed against the glossed parquet floor—a quick flash of light from the group chat she had increasingly less time to stare at between recording sessions and performance labs. She barely had a second to drop her wireless earbud back into its case before grabbing her duffel bag.

“Text y’all later!! Have fun!” she tapped out in a rush, not even waiting for the three cascading typing bubbles to detonate across her screen before shoving the device into her pocket.

Across town, three distinct university phones lit up almost simultaneously.

Ezren paused midway through adjusting his glasses, his dark eyes instantly fixing on the brief, hurried text as his analytical mind began cross-referencing her usual response patterns.

Too short, he noted with a subtle, fractional tightening of his jaw, his fingers hovering over the glass screen to draft a demand for her current GPS coordinates before he caught himself.

Rodyn let out a soft, low huff of amusement that didn't quite reach his eyes, his hazel gaze darkening with a quiet, restless focus as he twirled his fountain pen between his fingers. She was slipping through the cracks of their carefully timed check-ins more and more lately—always busy, always rushing off to "study groups" or extracurriculars at a campus they still assumed was her old secondary school.

And Flynn didn't hesitate at all. His phone was back in his pocket within a fraction of a second, his heavy stride turning abruptly toward the exit of the lecture hall. He didn't care about the university seminar ending or what the syllabus demanded. Her replies were getting too distant, too independent.

***

The afternoon light filtering through the tall, mullioned windows of the teahouse cast long, amber rectangles across the polished teak tables, illuminating lazy drifts of jasmine-scented steam. At twenty-five, Madeleine moved with a quiet, grounded grace that belonged entirely to the woman she had fought to become. The fragile, hesitant girl who once hid behind oversized jackets in hostile hallways had been thoroughly unmade and rebuilt in the crucible of vocal academies, rigorous stage training, and the demanding, beautiful rhythm of the hospitality and arts world.

She stood behind the long cedar counter, her fingers deftly arranging a row of ceramic gaiwans before sliding a steaming pot of oolong toward a regular patron with a warm, genuine smile. Working at this secluded sanctuary—situated in a vibrant, artistic pocket far across the city from the familiar, suffocating borders of Casula—had become her sanctuary. Here, no one knew her past, no one whispered about ancient childhood dynamics, and her name was associated only with the rich, complex tasting notes of rare leaf infusions and the haunting, melodic hum of her voice during closing hours.

Her phone, resting silently beside the register, remained dark.

Years had bled into one another in a blur of vocal warm-ups, composition notebooks, late-night shifts, and the exhilarating, terrifying pursuit of a career in the entertainment industry. In the fierce momentum of building an independent life, the old group chat had long since gone dormant. The digital tethers that once bound her to Ezren, Rodyn, and Flynn had withered away under the sheer weight of diverging timelines, adult responsibilities, and geographical distance. Their paths—firmly entrenched in corporate law, high-stakes finance, and corporate dynasties—had veered completely away from her world.

To Maddie, they were ghosts of a previous lifetime, figures from a childhood chapter she had securely closed and shelved.

With her twenty-fifth birthday came a quiet, practical milestone: a lease renewal looming in a distant suburb that no longer made sense with her grueling schedule at the teahouse and her early-morning studio sessions.

During her mid-afternoon break, she pulled a worn leather notebook from her tote bag, flipping past pages of lyric drafts and chord progressions to a clean sheet. At the top, she neatly penned a single objective: Apartment hunting – proximity to the teahouse.

She needed something small, independent, and entirely her own. A place with hardwood floors where she could practice her range without disturbing neighbors, a kitchen small enough to keep cozy, and—most importantly—an address completely disconnected from the neighborhood where three shadows used to wait for her. As she circled three potential listings within a ten-minute walking radius of the shop, a profound, steady sense of peace washed over her. For the first time in her life, every single square foot of her future belonged exclusively to her.