31. Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-One
Lila
Two weeks on tour can feel like a whole lifetime, or just a hallway you speed-walk down every day, eyes glued straight ahead because if you so much as glance sideways, you might unravel completely. I managed to do both at once.
We kept moving. City to city, hotel to bus, venue to stage.
The schedule didn't care that Evan and I had cracked something open in a studio booth and then slammed it shut again when the door handle rattled.
It didn't care that my chest still tightened every time I heard his voice through a wall.
It didn't care that my phone stayed face down more often than not because the internet had decided my pain was entertainment.
We didn't speak. Not once. No texts, no voice memos, no "are you okay" delivered by someone else, no accidental run-ins that turned into a fight or a kiss. Evan stayed in his lane. I stayed in mine.
It should have felt like relief. Instead, it was torture with a side of salt in the wound.
There was a strange discipline in it, a silent agreement that if we couldn't do this right, we wouldn't do it at all. If we couldn't be adults, we would be strangers.
Grant played bodyguard without the cape or the announcement.
Security started escorting me through secret back corridors I swear were built for spies or people hiding from exes.
I switched my greenroom spot twice and stopped leaning against certain walls, mostly because Evan had once looked at me there like I was the only person in the building who was actually three-dimensional.
It worked. The tour kept going.
The internet didn't stop caring, but it shifted, as it always did. A new scandal, a new couple, a new breakup. My name still appeared in headlines, in comment sections, and in rumors that outlived their welcome. But after two weeks of no fuel, the fire dulled. I told myself that was the point.
Then my song went viral, and the universe found a brand new way to light me up like a bonfire at a drama camp.
It happened on a morning when I had exactly eight minutes to pretend I was a functioning human before lobby call.
I was in the hotel bathroom, toothbrush in hand, staring at my reflection and trying to decide if my under-eye circles counted as edgy art or just a desperate plea for help.
My phone buzzed on the counter every few seconds, but I ignored it with the dedication of someone who knows doom when she hears it.
I spat, rinsed, and finally grabbed my phone, mostly because the buzzing was starting to feel like a personal attack.
Thirty-seven new tags. Two missed calls from Grant. A text from Grant: Don't panic.
That phrase is basically code for brace yourself.
I tapped into TikTok out of spite. The app opened to an edit, because the algorithm had decided my soul needed to watch someone's heartbreak montage at seven forty-three in the morning.
A slow clip of a couple dancing under string lights.
A cut to a ring in a velvet box. A cut to a girl in a hospital waiting room.
Over it, my voice.
"Rewrite Me" in its original form, the master the studio had licensed for end credits. My words wrapped around strangers' lives like they belonged there.
The caption read: if he wanted to, he would.
I blinked, toothbrush still in my hand.
Then another video auto-played. A proposal, a yes screamed into a cold night, tears and confetti and my chorus rising underneath.
Then another: a girl packing a suitcase, mascara streaks on her cheeks, throwing a hoodie into a trash bag while my voice hit the line about leaving the story that wasn't yours.
Then another: a boy holding a dog, shaking, a memorial montage, my voice turned into grief.
My stomach twisted, not because of the heartbreak montages, but because of the numbers. The views. The comments. The sound tag. The fact that my voice was suddenly everywhere.
Original Sound: Rewrite Me, Lila Russell.
My name. Not attached to anyone else.
My throat went tight, but it wasn't panic this time. Apparently, pride can bite just as hard.
I scrolled, hand shaking slightly, and it kept going. People used it for edits, proposals, heartbreak videos, and moments that mattered. My voice in a thousand bedrooms and cars and phones, filling space where I wasn't.
A knock hit my hotel door.
"Lila," Grant called. "Open up."
I dropped my toothbrush into the sink and walked out, phone clutched in my hand. I opened the door to find him standing there with two coffees, a tablet tucked under one arm, and the expression of a man who had already put out three fires before breakfast.
His eyes scanned my face. "You're breathing. Good."
"What is happening?" I asked, holding up my phone.
"Your song is happening."
"It's trending."
"Viral," he said. "Before the movie drops. Which is rare. Useful too."
"Useful."
"Yes." He stepped inside when I moved back, then shut the door behind him. "We are going to use it."
"I thought we weren't feeding the internet."
"We're not feeding the drama," he said. "We're feeding your career."
That distinction hit me right in the tear ducts.
He held out one coffee. "Drink before you start making feelings with your face."
"I hate that sentence."
"I stand by it."
I took the coffee.
He flipped open his tablet with the kind of brisk efficiency you only get from someone who's seen chaos and decided to schedule it. "They're using your song for weddings, breakups, grief, dogs. Someone even put it over a video of her sourdough starter collapsing."
I stared at him. "Emotionally appropriate."
"Exactly. That's range."
I laughed despite myself.
Grant's mouth twitched. "Also, you're getting offers."
My chest tightened. "Offers for what?"
"A solo headlining run," he said. "Small but real. Eight dates, midsize venues. Ambitious, not impossible. And there's a major opening slot on a different tour. Bigger money, bigger rooms, not tied to Evan, not tied to this."
The room went slightly blurry. I blinked hard. "They want me to headline."
"They want you in rooms because your song is moving people." He paused. "And because you're good."
I took a slow breath, but it wobbled on the way in. "They're sure?"
"People with money are sending emails. That's as sure as the music industry gets before someone asks for parking."
A laugh slipped out, but fear elbowed its way in right after. Lately, my whole sense of independence had been built on not-Evan, and my brain still tried to measure me by him, even when the universe was practically waving a neon sign that I didn't have to.
"How soon?"
"Lobby call in twelve minutes," Grant said. "So we're talking about it in the car, and you're going to pretend you're calm in public."
"I'm so calm."
"You look like you're about to chew through drywall."
"Also calm."
He gave me a dead look. I sipped my coffee.
Grant stepped toward the door, then paused. "One more thing. If anyone asks about Evan, you say nothing. You smile. You say you're focused on your music. You say you're grateful people connect to the song."
My stomach tightened. "Will they ask?"
"Yes."
Obviously. Why wouldn't they?
My phone buzzed again. A notification from a news app: EVAN WALKER SPEAKS OUT AFTER "CURSIVE CRUSH" BACKSTAGE DRAMA.
Grant saw my face shift. "Don't open it yet."
"I need to know."
"You don't need to know right now."
"I need to know if he's going to spin it."
His expression softened slightly. "He won't."
"You don't know that."
"I do," he said. "Because he fought his team on it."
That didn't calm me down. If anything, it just made my heart race in a whole new, equally inconvenient direction.
We left the hotel room and moved toward the elevator. The hallway was already full of tour movement, crew with coffee, security scanning, a couple of fans at the far end who had somehow slipped past the elevator bank and were pretending they had absolutely gotten lost on the way to the ice machine.
Grant's hand hovered near my elbow without touching. "Head down."
I kept my face neutral and my steps steady.
Outside, cameras waited behind barricades. Phones lifted. People shouted names: mine, Evan's, ours sometimes, shoved together like the crowd had a glue gun and no supervision.
I slid into the SUV and let the door shut, muffling the noise. Grant climbed in beside me, tablet already open. The car pulled away.
"Okay," he said. "Offers. Westgate wants the headline run, eight dates. The other offer is an opening slot on a stadium tour. Safer financially, but you're under someone else's name again."
"But not Evan's."
"Correct."
I stared at the tinted window, watching the city blur by. "If I headline, it's mine."
"Yes."
"If I open, it's still mine, but less mine."
"That's fair."
"I can't believe this is happening because TikTok decided to use my song for men who can't text back."
Grant made a noise that was probably a laugh. "TikTok is basically a haunted vending machine. Sometimes you get snacks, sometimes you get a career."
My phone buzzed again. Another notification about Evan's interview. I couldn't ignore it anymore. My chest was too tight.
I opened the link. A reputable outlet, a real headline, not a tabloid scream.
EVAN WALKER ON BOUNDARIES, CONTROL, AND THE COST OF GOING VIRAL.
A photo of Evan filled the screen. He sat in a studio chair, hands clasped, eyes serious. No stage lights, no guitar, no grin.
I scrolled.
The interviewer asked about the viral moment, the duet, the drama. Evan's quote stared back at me in plain text.
"I was territorial," he said. "I was possessive. I tried to control the narrative because I thought it would protect what I cared about. It didn't. It hurt someone I respect. That's my problem, not hers."
I read it again.
Not hers.
He admitted it. Publicly. No excuses, no "misunderstanding," no "the internet twisted it."
Another quote.