Chapter 19
Tilly
I tiptoe down the hallway, careful not to make the floorboards creak.
Tate McRae is blasting from Yana’s room, which, in her language, means one of two things: she is either cleaning or getting ready to emotionally destroy someone with her outfit.
It also means Zara isn’t there.
When Zara is home, the soundtrack is always soft indie songs that make you want to lie in the grass and think about your life choices.
I have my own room. Mostly because I’ve lived here before everyone else moved in.
This apartment was my fresh start after leaving Melbourne — my attempt at independence that somehow turned into a found-family sitcom.
I knock gently.
“Come in!” she singsongs, her voice already too full of energy for ten in the morning.
Balancing the cherry cake in one hand, I open the door.
“Hey.”
She turns around. “What's that?”
“Happy five hundred k followers,” I say, grinning.
She gasps like I just handed her an Oscar. “Stop. You’re actually the sweetest person alive.”
“You say that now,” I say, “but wait till you taste it.”
“There’s no way you baked this by yourself,” she says suspiciously.
“I might’ve had some help from Luca,” I admit. As much as I don’t want to, he deserves half the credit.
Ok, maybe seventy percent.
Her lips curve into a smirk. “Oh? Might have?”
I ignore her and change the subject immediately. “So, are you getting ready for something?”
She shrugs, brushing blush onto her cheeks. “Not really. Just bored. Thinking of filming a few videos, maybe going to the mall. Wanna come?”
“Yes, please. Luca randomly decided to go to Italy for three days, Matt’s doing some fitness event, and Zara’s probably off painting sunsets somewhere.”
“She is,” Yana says, tapping her nose. “She told me she’s painting in the park with her art crew. I swear, that girl was born to wear overalls and smell like paint water.”
“Sounds like her,” I smile.
Their shared room is such a perfect split between worlds that it almost looks staged.
Zara’s side feels like a forest dream — ivy climbing along the walls, fairy lights hanging from the ceiling, paint-splattered jars filled with brushes.
Her desk is covered in sketches, watercolor palettes, and tiny clay sculptures that never fully dried.
Yana’s side is all sharp lines and confidence.
Clean white bedding with a deep red throw blanket at the end. Her vanity glitters with gold perfume bottles, lip glosses, rings, and a half-open makeup bag spilling with color.
The air smells faintly of vanilla.
The one thing they agree on.
“Sit,” she says, rolling Zara’s paint-stained chair next to her vanity. “I’m in the mood to glam someone up.”
I sit, laughing. “You act like I’m your project.”
“You are. My favorite one,” she brushes the hair out of her eyes.
Yana’s makeup sessions always feel like therapy disguised as girl talk.
Her room glows softly under the warm lights, and she hums along to the music while brushing foundation over my cheeks.
This is girlhood at its finest.
I can almost forget the heaviness sitting in my chest.
I haven’t told her about the night I broke down to Luca.
Or about how he held me while I cried, whispering things I didn’t know I needed to hear.
I haven’t told her that he said you’re enough, and that it hasn’t left my head since.
And I feel horrible.
“So,” Yana asks, like she’s reading my mind, “how are you and Luca?”
My stomach tightens.
“It’s been weeks. I’m fine.”
She gives me a look. “Right. And I’m secretly a nun.”
“I’m serious.”
She sets down the brush and crosses her arms. “Tilly, you’ve been weird ever since he told you how he feels. You get this face every time someone says his name.”
I laugh weakly. “Maybe I’m just tired.”
“Or maybe,” she says, “you’re catching feelings and refusing to install the update.”
I groan. “You are so dramatic.”
She grins. “I learned from the best.”
She finishes the makeup and hands me a mirror, finally letting me look at myself.
I blink at my reflection.
I look different.
My features are no longer soft, and I look older.
“You like it?”
I nod slowly. “I—yeah.”
“Good,” she says simply, turning back to her vanity.
But my thoughts don’t stop spinning.
They just keep looping back, like a song I don’t want to replay.
It has been a couple of days since the breakdown, and it has been the only thought circling through my head all day, every day.
All I can think about is him.
About the way he just sat there and listened. He showed me a kind of respect I never got from anyone before.
He gave me exactly what I needed without me putting it into words.
Hell, I didn’t even know what I needed.
I shake my head, trying to blink it away.
No.
No, no, no. We are not doing this.
He’s Luca.
My Luca-but-not-really-anymore.
The guy I told, I feel nothing.
I pick at a thread on my jeans, forcing my brain to focus on anything else.
One thing I will be eternally grateful for is that when Yana is focused on one thing, she is focused only on that thing.
Right now, she is oblivious to my emotional warfare.
Because my mind is playing tricks on me, it’s replaying moments I have no business remembering.
I frown.
My heart does this weird, skippy thing.
Is this guilt or..?
Maybe it’s nostalgia.
Yeah.
Nostalgia.
You spend enough time with someone, your brain just replays things sometimes.
It doesn’t mean anything.
Except, it feels like something.
My chest tightens, and I try to stretch my shoulders back.
It gets hot suddenly.
“Stop fidgeting,” Yana mumbles, blending highlighter.
“Sorry.” My voice comes out thinner than I wanted.
My head is replaying all those moments, and it won’t stop.
I feel like a broken toy. I want to hit my head like you would a CD to make it function properly.
The memories keep replaying, and my vision blurs.
It looks like a movie, zooming in on one person.
I shake my head.
This is wrong, wrong, wrong.
So why is my heart screaming right!
Why is my heart screaming anything, period?
Last time I checked, my heart stays silent while my mind takes control.
So why is my mind playing tricks?!
Once my vision clears, I see my reflection. My eyes look blurry, and my face is red.
I feel a tiny flutter in my stomach.
I feel it in my bones as well.
I am aware of my heart, in a good way.
I know it’s there and I can feel it… blooming?
My heart is pulling me down a path I never saw before. A path I somehow knew was always next to my path, but I was always oblivious to it.
The path is one I have never taken before, because my brain is always in control.
So what changed?
I look at Yana and feel a sudden urge to throw up.
Oh no.
Nope.
Nope, nope, nope.
I press my palms into my thighs, trying to ground myself.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
Don’t spiral.
But my brain doesn’t listen. It’s already spiraling.
What if that’s why I can’t stop thinking about him lately?
What if that’s why my chest hurts when he smiles at someone else?
What if’s run through my brain, each one worse than the other one.
My stomach drops like a roller coaster.
Oh no.
No, this can’t be right.
I would know.
You recognize love when it hits you.
Is it easy, right?
How would I know?
My only experience with love is movies and books.
Suddenly, I have the strongest urge to meet the author of my own story, so I can read it in a perfect, edited version.
My pulse quickens. My throat tightened.
Oh no. Oh no, no, no—
I’m panicking.
Over the boy who looks at me like I hang his entire sky, and I told him I don’t care.
Because I don’t ,
Lie.
Truth.
Lie.
Truth!
“Oh no,” I whisper before I can stop myself.
“What?” Yana asks, curling her lashes.
“Nothing,” I say way too fast.
She gives me a side glance but goes back to her mirror.
But it isn’t nothing.
It’s everything.
I get up and run to the bathroom. I kneel over the toilet and rethink everything.
My chest feels tight.
Because now that I admitted it — even silently — it’s like the words engraved themselves onto me.
That’s really bad.
It’s wrong.
It’s messed up.
It’s a mistake.
It’s not right.
It’s right.
It’s perfect.
It’s-
Damn my stupid, stupid heart.
“Hey, you good-” Yana walks in and stops when she sees me.
“Yep.” It comes out in a whisper. I try to get up and wobble, but manage to stand straight. “Just dizzy.”
“Right…” she gives me a concerned look. “You want to eat something before we go?”
“Yeah,” I echo.
My stomach is gone.
If I eat anything right now, it will probably plummet to the bottom of my legs, because there is nothing left inside of me.
My thoughts are loud.
And before I can stop myself, I say it.
Barely above a breath.
“I think I like him.”
“Huh?” Yana glances over, confused.
“Nothing,” I say quickly, walking out. My heart is pounding like it’s trying to escape.
The hallway feels cold.
I let myself admit it once.
I’d fallen for him.
That’s it, because he’s no longer mine to fall for anymore.
I shut my door behind me and just stand there. For a second, I don’t move.
The silence feels like a punch after the noise of Yana’s music.
Too still and too sharp.
The air in my room is colder, like even it knows I just admitted something I’m not supposed to.
I sink onto my bed, fingers gripping the blanket until my knuckles go white.
“I don’t like him,” I say out loud.
The words sound stupid.
Stupid and weak.
Like, even my voice doesn’t believe them.
I laugh a little, a dry, pathetic sound. “See? That’s proof. I’m literally fine.”
But my chest doesn’t feel fine.
It feels full.
Like something has been living there for a long time, and I only just noticed.
Every memory with him starts flickering through my head, and it feels like the seven seconds you have before your death.
Maybe this is the seven seconds before death.
This feels like death.
I bury my face in my hands.
“Oh my God,” I whisper into my palms.
Because once you see it, you can’t unsee it.
All those times I swore I didn’t feel anything — maybe it wasn’t that I didn’t.
Maybe I just didn’t want to.
Because liking Luca means risking something.
Something I valued a lot.
I hate risks.
I like knowing what will happen as much as possible. Taking risks means taking a step out of your comfort zone, and nine times out of ten, you will regret it.
I prefer not to experience the one percent.
I press a pillow over my chest like that can make it stop.
How can I be so stupid?
I told him I feel nothing. I said it to his face, and he believed me.
Because I believed myself.
Now he’s gone, in Italy, probably forgetting about me, while I’m sitting here realizing I—
I swallow hard.
The words won’t come out, but they are there.
I like him.
I like the way he makes everything easier, even when it isn’t.
I like the way he says my name, in a way that never makes me feel small, even when I’m falling apart.
I like him so much it actually hurts.
I roll onto my back, staring at the ceiling.
The tiny glow-in-the-dark stars from when I first moved in are still there, faded but holding on.
Just like me, apparently.
Maybe I always liked him.
Maybe it was there in the way I trusted him first.
I looked for him in every room.
Maybe it was there when I liked being in his presence.
In the way he caught my eyes in his and instantly calmed the storm brewing in them.
Maybe I was too scared to admit it because if I did, it would mean something real.
Real things break.
A tear slides down my cheek, burning my face in its way.
Every time I cry, it feels like the tears scrape my skin off, leaving deep scars.
Deep, unremovable, ugly scars.
I wipe it away before it can fall onto my pillow.
“Too late,” I whisper.
Because he’s gone.
Because I told him not to wait.
Because now, even if he still cares, I’ve ruined the timing.
Like always, I feel stupid.
Why do I always feel stupid?
Last time, the feeling was gone before it could leave a proper impact on my heart.
Because Luca was there.
I turn to my side, curling up, pulling the blanket tighter around me like it can protect me from my own thoughts.
Maybe tomorrow I'll forget.
But today, there’s nothing left to do but fall back into my routine of cutting and bruising my poor, broken heart.
I realize the thoughts stopped after the breakdown in front of him.
That makes me cry harder.