Chapter 23
Tilly
I didn’t sleep.
Not even a second.
By the time the weak morning light bleeds through the curtains, my body feels foreign—like I borrowed it from someone who doesn’t want it anymore.
My pillow is stiff with dried tears, my throat aches like I was screaming in my dreams, and my chest hurts with every breath.
There is this weird stillness in the room, and it feels sickening.
I lay there for a while, staring at the ceiling, until the light started to burn my eyes.
I can’t stand it.
I roll out of bed, my body sluggish, and grab the first hoodie I see—one of Luca’s old ones he left here once.
It still smells like him, faintly.
This used to make me feel better, and I never realized anything.
I’m so stupid.
Now it just makes my stomach twist.
My reflection catches me in the mirror as I pass—eyes swollen and red, skin blotchy, lips cracked.
I look like a broken toy.
I look like someone who lost.
I look like myself.
“God,” I whisper to myself. “Get it together.”
Usually, this stays in the darkness.
But the sun is shining, and I still look like a monster.
The kitchen is painfully bright, every beam of sunlight like a spotlight on how pathetic I look. I grab the coffee pot, but my hands are shaking so badly that it sloshes over the counter and down my sleeve.
The smell turns my stomach, bitter and burnt.
I lean against the counter and stare at nothing. The silence buzzes in my ears, filling the space where laughter used to be.
I am aware everything is fine around me, but my brain is creating illusions.
I hear footsteps, then Yana comes into my vision.
Her music isn’t playing for once, which is strange enough to make me glance up. The moment she sees me, she freezes.
“Hi–” I try, but my voice gives out.
She doesn’t even answer. Just crosses the room in three steps and wraps her arms around me so tightly I nearly collapse.
Every wall I tried to build crumbles to the ground, and whatever I was holding disappears.
The sob rips out before I can stop it, and I lean back on the counter.
“Oh my God,” I choke, letting out a humorless laugh. “Not again, I feel so stupid–”
“Tilly,” she whispers, pressing her chin on my shoulder. “Don’t talk like that.”
She pulls back just enough to look at me, eyes glassy, then nods toward her room. “Come on.”
I follow her, dragging my feet like every step costs something.
Zara is sitting cross-legged on the bed, sketchbook open beside her.
She looks up, and the moment her eyes meet mine, she drops everything and stands.
“Tills,” she breathes. “Oh, baby.”
She doesn’t ask what happened.
She doesn’t have to.
“I never told him,” I manage to say between sobs. “He was on the phone, and I heard him say yes. And then he saw me, and said–” I hiccup hard, wiping at my face. “He said he would’ve stayed if I gave him a reason. If I just said something.”
My voice cracks again. “But I didn’t. So he’s leaving.”
The word leaving comes out like a curse, and my body folds in on itself. Zara catches me, pulls me to the bed, and wraps her arms around me.
Yana sits on my other side, her hand rubbing slow circles on my back.
I cry until I can’t breathe.
Until the edges of my vision blur and my throat burns raw.
Until I feel small. Smaller than I’ve ever been.
“I’m too late,” I whisper when the crying finally breaks into shaky breaths. “I’m too late, and I ruined everything.”
I knew this would happen.
My brain screamed this at me every day.
I feel so stupid, which is adding to my pain. I feel like I betrayed myself.
I opened my own heart and broke the cage I carefully built. Now I have nothing left, because my heart is still in Luca’s room.
Shattered to no repair.
Yana shakes her head firmly. “This will sound horrible, Tilly. But you’re robbing him and yourself without telling him. ”
Zara’s voice is gentler. “The worst thing that can happen is that he says he’s over you. But then you’ll know. You’ll stop torturing yourself with what-ifs.”
I laugh bitterly through my tears. “He is over me. I broke him. Twice. Why would he even want to look at me again?”
I don’t want to look at myself, let alone anyone else.
“Stop,” Yana says, sharper this time. “Let him decide that. Don’t take the ending away from him before it even starts.”
I stare down at my lap, my nails digging into the sleeve of my hoodie. “You guys make it sound easy.”
“It’s not,” Zara says softly. “But you’ll hate yourself if you don’t try.”
I nod, but I don’t believe her.
I can’t.
They hold me like they are trying to glue the pieces of me back together, and eventually the crying faded to quiet sniffles.
Then, somehow, the conversation drifts into nothingness.
Yana starts talking about a new hair dye she wants to try, and Zara teases her about accidentally turning it purple again.
I laugh once.
It hurts.
For a few minutes, I pretend life is still normal. That everything isn’t crumbling.
But underneath the laughter, the ache waits.
When they finally let me go, I sit there for a while, just breathing.
My fingers are tangled in the hem of my hoodie, my heart pounding too fast for how still I am.
I always swore I would never tell a boy I love him first.
Never chase a guy.
I wanted to be chosen.
I wanted to be the one someone risks everything for.
But here I am—about to do the exact thing I swore I never would. I’m about to tell a boy I love him.
And not just any boy.
The boy who already loved me once. The one I hurt. The one who stopped waiting.
The thought makes my stomach twist. My throat feels tight. My mind replays every moment I pushed him away.
And now I want to undo it all.
But life doesn’t give do-overs. It just gives you the pain of knowing you could’ve done better.
I press my palms to my face, whispering into them,
“God, what if I say it and he looks at me like I’m a stranger?”
The silence doesn’t answer.
But I know it has to be done.
Even if it shatters me.
Even if it’s too late.
Even if he doesn’t love me anymore.
Because love—real love—deserves to be said out loud. Even though he never told me he loves me, I’m going to tell him.
I take a deep, shuddering breath and force myself to stand.
My legs feel like wet noodles.
Every step toward his door is heavy, like gravity has doubled, like the air itself is trying to push me back.
I keep repeating in my head, don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry…
But the second I knock, my chest betrays me.
“Luca? I… I need to talk to you,” I say, my voice is brittle, almost foreign even to me.
The door swings open, and there he is.
My heart twists painfully at the sight of him—suitcase open, casually lying on the bed, scrolling through his phone as if nothing has changed. Like he isn’t about to leave.
I want to crawl into a corner and disappear.
My hoodie feels heavy on my shoulders. My hair is a mess. My eyes are raw, my lips shaking.
I look like someone who has been through war, and maybe I have.
“Tilly?” he looks at me, surprised, and I see hurt in his face.
I step inside and close the door slowly, my fingers trembling against the frame.
I can’t even look at him.
I just stand there, wishing the ground would swallow me whole.
“Hey,” I whisper.
“Hi,” he says, locking his eyes on mine.
I swallow the lump in my throat, trying to steady the shaking of my hands. “First… I want to apologize. I–” I take a breath that turns into a sob. “I broke your heart, Luca. I broke it into a million pieces, and I never said sorry. So, I’m sorry.”
He looks away and turns around.
His calm, steady gaze is elsewhere, somewhere far from me, and that makes the ache inside me twist even tighter.
“I’m fine, Tilly,” he says quietly. “Really. You don’t have to apologize. You have the right not to feel the same. I promise, I’m fine now. I needed the break, and it helped.”
I blink rapidly.
He got over me.
A sharp pain like a knife twists in my chest.
“Then… why can’t you look at me?” I ask. “I just, I need you to see me right now. For this.”
He finally looks up, but his face scrunches like looking at me physically pains him.
I feel bare, and it’s painful.
But I know that I have to be truthful right now. Even if it’s the last time I’ll open up.
His hand brushes against his hair. “Because…” he says so quietly it’s almost inaudible, “…my cut is scabbing. If you touch it, it’ll ruin the healing.”
My chest tightens further.
I have to make him look at me.
I have to.
I step closer, biting my lip until it bleeds a little. “No. I need you to look at me. Just for… a second.”
I whisper it, voice trembling like the last thread of courage I have left. “I think I love you.”
He snaps his head at me, and I swallow.
“I think I always did. I just… I was too scared to admit it to myself. I know this is horrible, and that I’m peeling off every shield you have built against me, but I had to–”
I break off into a sob, pressing my hands to my face, feeling everything crash down at once.
My tears fall freely now, and I don’t even try to stop them.
I deserve everything the world is putting on me.
I deserve every single painful tear.
Every. Single. One.
My chest heaves, my throat burns.
I want him to see me, all of me, the messy, ugly, desperate parts I was hiding for so long.
“I had to tell you,” I whisper through broken breaths. “You deserved to know. Even if it’s too late… even if I ruined it… You deserve to know that I love you.”
The silence is unbearable.
I can feel my heartbeat in my throat, shaking my entire body. My hoodie is damp from tears, my hair stuck to my cheeks.
I want to disappear.
And still… he doesn’t answer.
I feel the walls of the room close in. My chest presses tight, and my stomach turns over, every thought screaming what I just did.
I want to run.
To him.
I want to collapse.
With him.
I want to beg him to say anything.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper again.
Tears stream down my face, unrelenting, and I press my hands against my mouth, trying to muffle the sobs that threaten to choke me.
My entire body shakes.
My mind spins in loops of regret and fear.
What have you done, Tilly?