15. Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Fifteen
Lila
Two hours later, I was sprawled in my hotel suite with damp hair, clean pajamas, and the stability of a chair missing one leg.
I honestly thought I had at least a grace period before they saw the video.
Silly me. My parents were terminally online.
Mom had TikTok alerts set for any mention of my name or hers, which was apparently what happens when you were a celebrity baker with a blue check and a chronic oversharing problem.
I’d just finished a very important post-cry shower when someone knocked. I opened the door, and there were my parents: muffins in hand, awkward energy radiating, and matching faces that screamed, they knew.
Mom held out a pastry. “Do you want a lemon blueberry forgiveness muffin or a chocolate one to cry into?”
“What’s going on?”
Dad raised his phone. “You’re trending. Again.”
Mom stepped inside like she owned the place. “So, do we hate him? Or are we inviting him to Christmas?”
“Mom.”
“I’m just asking.” She set the muffin box on the coffee table and started fluffing a couch pillow as if this were a therapy session and not an ambush. “Because that was not the face of a girl over it.”
“It was a song about my parents’ relationship.” I shut the door and tightened my grip on the towel around my hair. “Of course it got to me. I love you guys.”
“Lila,” Dad said kindly, “don’t bullshit us.”
Rude. Correct, but rude.
I stared at him for half a second, then threw my hands up. “Damn, okay. I was fine until he sang ‘Linger’ directly at my soul. With lights and smoke effects. And then the internet got involved.”
“You did look beautiful in that lighting,” Dad offered, deeply unhelpful.
“I was crying.”
He shrugged. “You’re my daughter. You’re always beautiful.”
I groaned and buried my face in the nearest muffin. Chocolate. Good choice, strong structural integrity.
Mom hovered beside me, rubbing my back the way she did when she wanted to fix something she couldn’t frost over. Dad stood a few feet away, awkward and earnest, phone still in his hand like he might be able to delete the internet through sheer paternal disappointment.
My room felt too small for all of this. For them, for me, for Evan’s voice still lodged in my head, for the clip I knew they’d seen. The one where I sat in the front row with mascara down my face while Evan sang a song the world now wanted to dissect like a frog in eighth-grade biology.
Mom sat beside me. “Honey.”
“No.”
“I didn’t even say anything.”
“You said honey in a tone.”
Dad slipped his phone into his pocket. “Your mother has several tones.”
“I have layers,” Mom said.
“You have a bakery and absolutely no boundaries,” I muttered into the muffin.
“Also layers.”
I hated that I smiled. Mom noticed, obviously. Her whole parenting philosophy ran on frosting, radar, and a strict policy against letting anyone spiral alone if there were carbs in the vicinity.
“Did you two date?” she asked.
I froze. Not dramatically, not with a gasp and a dropped muffin, although honestly, it was a missed opportunity. I just stopped chewing.
Dad’s expression changed, small and careful, like he wanted to step closer but didn’t know if I’d bolt. Mom’s hand stilled on my back. The suite went quiet except for the faint hum of the air conditioner.
I could have lied. I’d done it before, not exactly lied maybe, just omitted with enthusiasm.
But the whole internet had just watched me cry in 4K while Evan Walker sang the musical equivalent of taking a crowbar to my ribs.
My parents might be in love, ridiculous, and occasionally too invested in my snack intake, but they were not stupid.
“Yes,” I said.
Mom’s mouth parted. Dad blinked once.
“Okay,” he said, like he was trying to sound calm and had overshot into hostage negotiator. “How long?”
I looked at the muffin. The muffin, traitor that it was, offered zero support.
“A while.”
Mom’s eyes softened, which was dangerous. Soft mom eyes were where secrets went to die. “How much of a while?”
“Long enough.”
Dad sat in the chair across from me, slow and careful, like he didn’t want to startle the feral creature currently wearing hotel pajamas and shame.
“Did he hurt you?” he asked.
I almost laughed. Not because it was funny. Because the answer was too complicated for a hotel room and a box of muffins.
“No,” I said. Then, after a second, “Yes. But not like that.”
Mom nodded like she understood way too much. Of course she did. Her own love story included a wedding, a murder attempt, and enough unresolved feelings to power a small city. My definition of family normal had been broken since birth.
“I broke up with him,” I said.
Dad’s brow pinched. Mom didn’t say anything, which was worse.
I rushed to fill the silence. “He wanted to go public. I didn’t. I thought if people knew, I’d stop being me. I’d be your daughter dating the rock star who wrote songs about me, and then I got the soundtrack pitch, and I thought maybe if I did one thing on my own, I could breathe.”
My voice cracked on the last word.
“Sweetheart,” Mom said.
“I know.” I wiped under my eye with the heel of my palm. No mascara this time, slight victory. “I know it sounds stupid.”
“It doesn’t,” Dad said.
“It sounds a little stupid.”
“No,” he said. “It sounds scared.”
That was worse. I looked away.
Mom reached for my hand. “Being scared doesn’t make you wrong.”
“Maybe it made me cruel.”
Neither of them answered fast enough. That was answer enough.
I pulled my hand back and stood, because sitting still felt too much like accepting the truth. “And now everyone saw me crying, and Evan just did an interview where he said the song was written for your movie.”
Dad’s jaw tightened. Mom’s eyes flicked to him. They had seen that too. Great, wonderful, family viewing experience, pass the trauma popcorn.
“He said that?” Mom asked.
“Yup.” I grabbed my phone and opened the clip I had absolutely not watched four times. “Safe answer. Very polished. Very media-trained. Ten out of ten for not saying anything inconvenient.”
Dad watched the video, his mouth flattening more with each second. Mom’s face did something smaller and sadder.
On-screen, Evan leaned toward the microphone. “This song was written for her parents’ movie.”
My stomach twisted even though I already knew the words by heart. The host asked whether the connection people saw was because of the movie. On-screen, Evan smiled. Not his real smile. I knew that. I hated that I knew that.
“People connect songs to their own stories,” he said. “That’s the point, right?”
I turned the phone off. For a second, no one spoke.
Then Mom said, very quietly, “Ouch.”
I laughed once. “Yeah. That.”
Dad rubbed a hand over his jaw. “Maybe he was trying to protect you.”
“I know.”
“And maybe he was protecting himself.”
“I know that too.”
“And maybe both can still hurt.”
I looked at him. How dare he be useful when I wanted to be irrational in peace.
Mom squeezed my knee. “Do you want the mom answer or the woman-who-was-once-a-mess answer?”
“Those are different?”
“Oh, wildly.”
“Mess answer.”
She nodded. “The mess answer is that I understand why you wanted him to say it was about you. Even if that would’ve terrified you. Even if you would’ve been furious the second he did it.”
I stared at the carpet. Hotel carpet was aggressively ugly, all brown and beige swirls, like someone tried to hide spilled secrets and failed.
“I wouldn’t have been furious.”
Mom gave me a look.
“Okay. I would’ve been medium furious.”
Dad coughed.
“Fine. Fully furious. But also...” I swallowed. “I wanted him to want to.”
Mom’s face softened again. There it was.
The embarrassing little truth, the one I hadn’t wanted to say because it made no sense and perfect sense at the same time.
I wanted privacy. I wanted proof. I wanted my own name.
I wanted him to say it. I wanted him to know which version of me to choose when I couldn’t decide.
Healthy. So cool. Definitely not a parade of red flags or anything.
Dad leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Lila, you don’t have to turn your feelings into something useful for everyone else.”
I snorted. “Tell that to the internet.”
“I mean it.”
“So do I.”
Mom’s phone buzzed. She glanced at it. Her face changed.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
“Mom.”
“It’s just...” She hesitated, which was terrifying because Molly Russell hesitated about almost nothing. This was a woman who once went on live television with buttercream in her hair and declared war on fondant.
I held out my hand. She gave me the phone.
Another clip. Another angle. Evan singing, me crying, his gaze catching mine during the bridge.
THE WAY HE LOOKED AT HER. THIS IS NOT MOVIE PROMO. THIS IS DIVORCE WITHOUT PAPERWORK.
I handed the phone back. “I hate everyone.”
“Understandable,” Dad said.
Mom slid the muffin box closer. “Chocolate helps.”
“Chocolate is basically a Band-Aid on a shark bite.”
“But a delicious one.”
I took another muffin because principles were for people, not for those trending under #EmoTwilightIsBack.
My parents stayed for a while. Mom fussed with the pillows.
Dad pretended not to keep checking his phone.
They didn’t force me to explain every detail, didn’t ask what Evan was like when no one was watching, or whether he’d loved me well, or why I’d looked like the song had hit a locked room inside me and blown the door off.
They knew enough. Maybe too much.
When they finally left, Mom kissed my forehead, and Dad hugged me longer than usual.
“You’re allowed to want complicated things,” he said before stepping into the hall.
“Gross.”
He smiled. “True.”
The door closed. The room went quiet again.
For approximately nine minutes.
Then my phone rang at 11:43 p.m. Unknown number, Los Angeles area code. I should have let it go to voicemail. I didn’t, because apparently I had learned nothing from every horror movie ever made.
“Lila Russell?” a chipper voice said. “Hi! This is Marcie from the tour publicity team. Quick thing, no pressure, but we’re seeing a huge spike in engagement since the ‘Linger’ video went viral. Super organic. Fans are eating it up.”
I stared at the wall. The hotel art above the desk was a blurry painting of what might have been a lake or a sad gray pancake.
“Okay?” I said carefully.
“So! If you were dating Evan, and again, totally hypothetical, but if you were, now would be an excellent time to accidentally confirm it. Maybe a cryptic tweet? A blurry pic? Something that screams doomed love with history and abs.”
“Are you asking me to soft-launch my trauma for press?”
A pause. “Only if you’re comfortable! But it would be phenomenal for numbers.”
I hung up. No goodbye, no polite wrap-up, just click.
For a few seconds I stood there with the phone still in my hand, listening to the dead silence where Marcie’s corporate cheer had been.
Then rage hit. Not fear, not grief. Rage, clean, bright, and much easier to hold.
My hands shook from the sheer audacity, from the way everyone seemed to want a piece of this thing I hadn’t even figured out how to survive. The internet wanted lore. My parents wanted the truth. The tour wanted engagement. Marcie wanted doomed love, history, and abs.
And Evan had given them the safe answer. The answer that protected me. The answer that erased me. The answer I had spent years teaching him to give.
I opened Twitter. The empty post box stared back at me.
What would I even say? Nothing direct, obviously. I wasn’t going to hand Marcie a gift basket full of metrics and unresolved sexual tension. But something cryptic, something sharp, something that could mean anything and everything.
My thumb hovered over the screen.
For one second, just one, I thought about posting. Not for the numbers, not for the fans. For him. Just to see what he’d do. Just to see if he’d break the silence first. Just to see if he still belonged to me in any way that mattered.
I typed: funny how some songs know your name even when nobody says it.
Too much, but not enough, or exactly enough. I deleted it.
Typed: safe answers still bleed.
I deleted that too.
Then, because I was apparently determined to ruin my own night with literary nonsense and poor impulse control, I typed: some ghosts sing louder than men.
I stared at the words. My finger hovered over Post.
The room felt too quiet. My towel had slipped loose, damp hair cooling against my neck. Outside my window, the city glowed as if it had no idea my life was one bad decision away from becoming a viral moment.
I thought about Evan in that interview. His fake smile, his careful answer, his eyes on mine during the bridge. The girl in red at the bar. The song. The silence.
My thumb lowered. Not all the way. Just enough to feel dangerous.