The rain had stopped by dawn.
But my mind hadn't.
Sleep never came, only the slow unraveling of everything I remembered and everything I now had to pretend not to.
When the light finally broke through the curtains, I got up. My reflection in the mirror was the first betrayal.
The girl who looked back at me wasn't me.
I walked to the wardrobe, pulled the doors open, and just stared.
Rows of pastel dresses, lace blouses, silk skirts, floral prints that looked like they belonged in someone else's dream.
Perfume bottles lined up like soldiers, a vanity table too soft, too pink.
The air even smelled… gentle.
But that wasn't who I was.
Not before.
Before — my hair had been a messy wolf cut, short at the back, wild around the edges. My clothes had been black, simple, loud in their silence. I'd always chosen the kind of outfits that said don't try to fix me.
Here, though — everything screamed princess.
I glanced down at my hands. Long nails. Clean, polished, natural but manicured. Even my fingers felt like they belonged to a stranger.
I sat on the edge of the bed and laughed softly to myself.
A hollow, breathless sound.
"So this is what rebirth looks like," I murmured. "A costume party."
After a while, I threw on the first thing I could find that felt remotely like me — soft shorts, a tank top. My hair fell loosely around my shoulders, too long, too well-kept.
I grabbed a tie from the dresser and pulled it into a rough ponytail.
It was the closest I could get to control.
Then I stepped out into the hall.
The house felt… too big. The kind of rich that smells like polished wood and quiet rules. Every photo on the wall was someone else's memory — smiling faces, vacation shots, a family that wasn't mine, at least not in the lifetime I remembered.
But somewhere inside me, something whispered that this was my second chance to get it right.
I found them in the sitting room — the woman who had been the first face I saw when I woke from the coma, and the man whose smile looked like the kind you practice in mirrors before meetings.
My mother. My father.
They were drinking coffee. Sunlight poured across the table, too clean for the weight in my chest.
My mother looked up first. "Ayla, dear. You're awake early. Are you feeling okay?"
Her voice was soft — like porcelain that could crack if held too tightly.
I nodded, stepping closer. "Yeah. Just… thinking."
The man — my father — smiled. "Come here, sweetheart."
When he opened his arms, I hesitated only a second before hugging him. His cologne hit me, sharp and familiar, and for a split second, I felt something like belonging.
Maybe that was how the universe fooled us — by making strangers feel like home.
I pulled back, looked between them, and said quietly, "I want to get new clothes."
My mother blinked. "New clothes?"
"Yes," I said. "I just… I need to feel more like myself."
They exchanged a quick look — the kind that says a conversation is happening in silence.
My father chuckled. "You can have whatever you want, Ayla. You know that."
He reached into his wallet and handed me a black card. "Go crazy."
I tried not to smile, but it slipped through anyway. "Thanks."
Then, almost like an afterthought, he tossed me a key fob. "And take the new Range Rover. It's just sitting there anyway."
I blinked at it. "You're… giving me a car?"
He grinned. "You're twenty-five, not twelve. You can handle it."
I stood there holding the card and key — tiny, expensive symbols of a life I didn't remember living.
"I don't want you to worry," I said finally. "I just want to start fresh. I might change things about myself — how I look, how I dress. I just… don't want either of you to think I'm being careless. I'm just trying to feel like me."
My father nodded easily, but my mother's eyes softened, glassy with worry.
"Ayla," she said quietly, "we just don't want to lose you again."
I frowned. "Again?"
Her hand trembled slightly on her cup. "The accident. You don't remember, do you?"
I forced a smile. "Bits and pieces."
She nodded, then sighed — half resignation, half relief. "Then hear me clearly, sweetheart. Whatever you want to do, just make sure it's right for you. We're done trying to control fate."
She smiled, but her eyes told another story.
I looked between them both and finally said the thing that had been clawing at my chest since I woke up.
"Then I guess this is my chance to live right — in my own skin this time."
My mother nodded faintly. My father raised his cup, half proud, half confused.
And me — I just turned toward the door, black card in one hand, keys in the other, a storm in my chest that had nothing to do with the weather.
Because I wasn't just buying clothes.
I was buying back pieces of myself.