7. Chapter Seven
Chapter Seven
Evan
The night she left, I couldn't move.
I stayed behind the amphitheater long after she disappeared, sitting on the cold concrete steps with her goodbye still lodged somewhere mean.
The crew packed up around me. Cases rolled over pavement.
Someone laughed near the loading dock. A van door slammed.
The world kept doing its job. I sat there like mine had been canceled.
She kissed me like a memory and walked away like she'd practiced in front of a mirror. Well, except for the part where she nearly face-planted into the recycling bin. Classic Lila, painful, ridiculous, and absolutely impossible not to love.
And I let her go. Just sat there, starring in my own personal tragedy, no dramatic soundtrack required.
That was the part that gutted me most. I didn't run after her, didn't beg, didn't blow up her phone, didn't show up at her house with one last desperate speech like some guy in a rain-soaked music video who needed a restraining order and a better therapist.
Because she wasn’t picking someone else. She was picking herself. And what was I supposed to do with that? Challenge her to a duel for her own life? Not exactly a fair fight.
So I let her walk. Not because I was noble or anything. I just didn’t know how to ask someone to pick me.
I had been stupid enough to think graduation meant something else.
That once she crossed the stage, once the cap came off and the pictures were taken and the family dinner was survived, we'd stop hiding.
I thought I'd finally get to be more than her dirty little rock star secret.
I thought tonight would be a major change in our relationship.
I guess it was. Cute how the universe can technically give you what you asked for and still ruin your night. Monkey paw curls or something.
So I sat there. Let the cold creep through my jeans. Let the sound techs move around me like ghosts with headsets. Let my hand hurt from gripping my phone too hard before I opened the Notes app and typed the first line.
If this is goodbye…
The song came like a bruise, slow and blooming and mean in the places I wasn't ready to touch.
Every word was a splinter under the skin.
Every chord dragged up something I wanted buried.
Late-night fries. Blue raspberry slushies she pretended not to want until I bought one.
Chipped black nail polish on my knuckles after she'd grabbed my hand in a crowded bar and refused to let go.
Then there was the cereal song.
I don't even remember what started it. Some fight, some family thing, some moment where the world had put its boot on her chest, and she was trying to act like it weighed nothing.
She'd been crying quietly, not big sobs, not the kind people know how to comfort.
Just silent tears while she sat on my floor in mismatched socks, trying to make herself small enough that her sadness wouldn't bother anyone.
I didn't know what to do. So I sang the stupidest song I could make up on the spot. It was about cereal, ghosts, her socks never matching because "matching is a tool of the patriarchy," which was something she had said once while half-asleep and stealing my blanket.
She laughed so hard she snorted. Then she kissed me like I'd saved her life.
I'd give anything to make her laugh like that again.
That thought pissed me off. Because she left. Because I still wanted to be the guy who could make her laugh. Because part of me, the ugly part with a pulse, wanted her to hurt when she heard what she'd done to me.
The bridge wrecked me. I recorded it in one take and nearly threw up after.
Say it slow, so I can memorize the sound before you go.
I didn't write it for the movie. I wrote it for her.
So when the studio called, all bright voices and manic enthusiasm, saying they wanted my song for her parents' movie, I said no.
At first. Not because I was above it, let's not get generous.
I said no because it felt too close to letting strangers walk through a house I'd built out of everything she didn't want anyone to see.
They pushed. The label pushed. My team pushed. They talked about soundtrack placement, timing, visibility, and numbers with too many zeroes. They said the studio loved it. They said the song had heat. They said Arcadia Drive was exactly the right sound for the moment.
Then they told me Lila and her band, Cursive Crush, had been offered the opening slot for selected tour dates.
That was when the floor shifted.
I thought about refusing again, for about thirty seconds.
Then I called Grant. He was her manager, which was still one of those details that made the whole thing feel like it had been designed by a cruel sitcom writer with unresolved issues.
He told me it would help her career, get her name out there, give her the stage she'd been fighting for.
He didn't know he was talking to the guy she'd left behind the amphitheater. Or maybe he did. Grant always knew more than he said.
I told myself saying yes helped her. Maybe it did. But if I'm being honest, some part of me wanted her to hear it. Wanted her ten feet away from the damage. Wanted her to know I hadn't walked out clean either.
That wasn't love. Not the good kind, anyway. That was pride, hurt, a bruised ego with a melody.
I said yes. Even though the thought of watching her perform near me every night made my hand clamp around the guitar neck until the strings bit back.
Even though I'd have to hear her voice and not be allowed to touch her.
Even though people would ask if the song was about someone new.
Even though she'd probably act like she was fine, and I'd have to decide whether I hated her for that or loved her more.
Maybe it was always doomed. Maybe I was the song before the one that made her famous. Maybe I mistook being wanted in private for being chosen. Maybe she loved me, just not enough to say my name out loud.
I heard her before I saw her.
That voice, rough around the edges from too many late nights, but still unmistakably hers. She hit the first line like she was trying to survive it, then steadied on the second. That was Lila. Wobble first, recover fast, act like nobody saw the crack.
I saw it. I always saw it.
My hands locked on the strings, the chord turning into something that sounded like a dying cat. My foot twitched, like my body was ready to bolt before my brain could come up with a more embarrassing exit strategy.
I kept my eyes glued to the floor. Because what if I looked up and she stared straight through me? Or worse, what if she didn’t?
The fluorescent lights overhead buzzed. Cables coiled underfoot. Someone tuned a bass in the corner, the low hum vibrating through the soles of my shoes. A crew member laughed near the risers. The whole warehouse smelled like cold metal, sweat, and coffee that had given up on itself.
There was laughter behind her, Finn probably, loud and chaotic and shirtless in spirit even when clothed. Then Harper's drumsticks tapped against something hard. Their noise filled the space around Lila like armor.
She didn't say anything to me. Not even hello.
I stared at the floor and counted scuffs in the concrete until I ran out of patience for my own cowardice.
When I finally looked up, it was like taking a hit I'd stepped into on purpose.
She looked the same. No, worse. She looked better. Hair twisted into a messy knot, no makeup, oversized hoodie with the sleeves covering her hands the way they used to when she was hiding something. Under the bright rehearsal lights, her eyes looked raw.
Good, I thought. Then hated myself for it. Then thought it again.
Because I wanted proof. Proof that she hadn't set me down and walked away lighter. Proof that the song had found her. Proof that I wasn't the only idiot still carrying a body bag for a relationship she'd buried.
She looked at me.
Everything in me went still. The room didn't vanish; that would have been too generous.
I still heard the feedback squeal, the mic check, the snap of Harper's sticks.
I still smelled dust and old coffee. I still felt the guitar strap cutting into my shoulder.
But Lila looked at me, and for one second I was back behind the amphitheater watching her choose the version of her life that didn't have me in it.
I wanted to say something. Hi. How are you? Did you listen to the song? Did it hurt? Do you still think about me at 2 a.m., or did you keep that too?
I said nothing. Because what do you say to the girl who broke your heart so she could find herself? What do you say when part of you is still waiting for her to come back, and another part wants to make damn sure she sees what she left behind?
She didn't look away. Neither did I. For a heartbeat, maybe two, we stayed in that space, separated by soundchecks, cables, and the unspoken war between us.
Then she turned. Not coldly, not dramatically. Quietly. She walked toward her mic like it hadn't cost her anything to look at me.
That should have felt like a knife. It felt worse. Like I was a scene she'd already edited out of her story.
For one blistering second, I hated her. I hated that she got to leave and still look wounded. I hated that I was standing there with a song full of evidence and no right to present it. I hated that if she turned around and asked me to forgive her, I probably would before she finished the sentence.
That was the worst part. Not the quiet, not the distance. The reflex. The way loving her still had muscle memory.
Grant called for transition checks. Someone waved us into position. Lila adjusted her guitar strap without looking at me. Finn stepped close to her, handing her a granola bar like he had a license in emotional first aid.
I noticed that. Of course I noticed that.
Finn had always hovered, but now it looked different because everything looked different when you were the one outside the circle.
Not because I thought he was the problem.
Because he got to stand next to her. Because he got to know if she'd eaten.
Because I had once been the person who carried snacks in my jacket pocket since Lila forgot meals when she was nervous.
Now I was across the room, pretending my guitar needed tuning. Professional, mature, very rock star of me.
Then she started to sing.
My spine went rigid. It was one of their songs, something I'd heard once in rehearsal months ago, the kind of track she used to call "almost good enough to bully into greatness." Finn's guitar slipped under hers. Harper hit the snare sharp enough to make two crew guys glance over.
Lila leaned into the mic. Her voice came out rough at first. Then it caught.
That was the thing about her. She always found the note. Even when everything around her was ugly, even when she was scared, even when she was lying through her teeth about being fine. She found the note. The band moved with her. Finn watched her too closely. I watched Finn too closely.
Then the bridge came. The lyric bent into something familiar, and her gaze betrayed her.
She looked at me. I was not ready.
My hand moved before I decided to be stupid.
I strummed the first chords of the song, not "Linger," older than that.
The one we wrote together on her living room floor in mismatched socks and half-empty cereal bowls, laughing between rhymes.
The one that never made it past the demo folder.
The one that had felt like us before we knew how breakable us could be.
Her harmony slipped in like it belonged there. And God help me, it still did.
The sound cut through the warehouse. Finn's head turned. Harper missed half a beat, then recovered because Harper was apparently built out of spite and timing.
Lila's mouth parted around the next line, and for a second she stopped pretending. Not for everyone, probably not even for herself. But I saw it. The flash of recognition, the hurt, the anger, the want she'd rather swallow glass than admit.
Then she turned back to the mic and sang through it. So did I. Because that was what we did, apparently. We bled in key and called it rehearsal.
The band kept playing, but all I could hear was her.
Onstage, I smiled, flirted with the crowd, let strangers scream my name like it meant something. Then I went backstage and counted the seconds until I could stop being anyone. Being adored by the world was easy. Being unknown by the one person who had actually seen me? That made me mean.
So I'd play the songs. I'd smile for the cameras. I'd pretend I didn't see the way Finn hovered, or the way men looked at her from across the room, or the way she acted like she didn't feel me every time I walked past.
Maybe I'd wait. Maybe I'd be stupid enough for that. I wanted to wait.
But standing there, listening to her voice fold into mine like nothing had ever broken, I hated her a little for making me want to.