The Girl I Made Up

When I found out Avril Lavigne married Chad Kroeger, I felt something collapse a little. Not devastated—more like watching mythology turn into ordinary life.

She was the skatergirl everyone wanted to be. The one who made rebellion seem effortless. And then this. Married to the guy from Nickelback, of all things. A band that became shorthand for everything bloated and false about mainstream rock.

They made a duet called Let Me Go. I listened once. It’s exactly as soulless as you’d imagine—two people from completely different musical worlds trying to connect over a ballad that sounds designed to fail. All the edges sanded off, all the personality gone.

Part of me wants to feel betrayed, like she gave up something that mattered. But the truth is sadder: the rebellion was always just something I heard in her songs. She was never mine to lose. She married someone she loved and made music with him, and it happens to be boring and weird and impossible to explain to anyone who doesn’t already know both of them.

I won’t be listening to it again. Not because I’m mad—just because there’s nothing there.