Chapter 24
Luca
I can’t breathe.
Her words, I think I love you , are still echoing inside my head, bouncing off every empty corner until they don't sound like words anymore, just noise.
It feels like the air has been sucked out of the room.
I stand there, staring at her, and everything in me screams to reach for her.
When she came into my room, her eyes red and swollen, and pain pouring off her in waves, it took everything in me not to reach for her.
When she came into my room yesterday, I had to leave, or I would have taken her in my arms and erased myself to stop the tears.
Every tear she sheds takes a part of me with it.
My chest aches like someone is pressing a hand flat against my ribs, holding me still.
“I—” My voice cracks, and my mind is in a whirlwind of emotions. “Tilly, can you, just, can you step out for a second? I need to think.”
Her eyes flicker, confusion twisting into hurt.
She nods slowly, biting her lip like she’s holding herself together by the skin of her teeth.
“Uh… okay,” she whispers.
The door clicks shut, and I’m alone.
The silence hits like a tidal wave.
I drop onto the edge of my bed, head in my hands, and everything inside me starts shaking.
She loves me.
After everything—after the months of pretending, the silence, the distance—she said it.
I grab my phone like it’s some kind of lifeline and dial Matt before I can stop myself.
He answers on the third ring. “Yo, what’s up?”
“Matt,” I rasp, voice trembling. “The girl—it’s Tilly. It’s her. She just told me she loves me.”
There is a long, stunned pause.
“Wait. What? The girl you’ve been talking about all this time is Tilly? Like, our Tilly?”
“Yes! She said it, and I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to say. I feel like my heart’s being ripped out of my chest, and I can’t even–” I press a hand to my sternum, trying to force air in. “I can’t even breathe right now.”
“Okay, whoa, whoa,” he says, his voice steady while mine is falling apart. “Slow down. Start over. She told you she loves you. And you… You love her back, right?”
I laugh—a hollow, broken sound. “I do. Of course I do. I’ve always loved her. There will never be a day I don’t love her. But what if this is wrong? What if he regrets everything?”
“Luca,” he says firmly. “You’re spiraling.”
“I always spiral when it’s about her,” I snap, then immediately regret it. “I thought I was over her. I told myself I was. But then she walked in like she didn’t have an ounce of sleep, and she said that, and I, I don’t know.”
There is quiet for a few seconds. Then Matt sighs softly. “Listen, you can either run again or finally stay put and face this.”
“I can’t even look at her without breaking, and it physically pains me to see her without a smile.”
“Then fall apart,” he says simply. “But do it in front of her. Let her see it. Stop hiding behind logic and guilt and all that crap. Just be real.”
The moment I hang up, I run out, and when I don’t see her in the hallway, I run to her room.
I knock on her room, and hear some shuffling.
My heart feels like it’s about to bang out of my chest.
The moment she opens the door and locks her eyes on mine, time stops.
I can hear my heartbeat in my ears, feel every regret clawing up my throat.
All I want is to reach out—to pull her closer, to tell her I love her too, that I never stopped—but I don’t do it, because I feel something pulling me back.
So I just stand there, drowning in her gorgeous eyes.
She doesn’t move, just stands there by the door, fingers twisting in the hem of her sleeve like she always does.
It always hurts me when I see her hurting her hand.
I realize that it’s her own way of letting some of the hurt out, but I would rather give her my arm to hurt over hers in a million lifetimes.
Because it hurts more when she hurts herself than if she were to hurt me.
At least when I’m hurt, I can deal with it. When she hurts herself, all I can do is watch as the corruption spreads.
I want to tell her to come closer.
I want to make her stay.
But my body is frozen in place, and all I can do is look at her and drown in the sight.
Her eyes are red, lashes clumped from crying, and her nose is pink in that way that used to make me tease her just to get her to laugh.
There is nothing funny now.
Just two people standing in a room too small for everything between them.
The silence feels like punishment.
She continues looking at me, just like I look at her, and none of us looks away.
“I shouldn’t have said it, huh?” she whispers.
My chest constricts. “No, that’s not–” I stop myself, running a hand through my hair. Every word I try to form falls apart in my mouth. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
She nods slowly, but I can see the way her jaw clenches, like she’s trying not to cry again. “You don’t have to say anything you don’t mean, Luca. I know timing sucks. You don’t owe me anything.”
Her voice cracks on the last word, and I swear I feel something tear inside me.
I owe her the world for making her cry.
I owe her every universe out there for walking out when she needed me yesterday.
I owe her my whole life.
“Don’t,” I say, stepping forward before I can stop myself. “Don’t say that.”
She laughs, but it isn’t funny. It’s quiet and sharp and broken.
“It’s true, though, isn’t it? You moved on. You healed. And here I am, still broken and useless.”
My heart cracks when she says things like that.
“I didn’t move on.” My voice comes out low. “I just learned how to hide it better.”
Her breath catches.
I look down, fists curling at my sides. “You think I didn’t try to stop loving you? I did. Every day. I tried to hate you. I told myself you didn’t feel the same, that I needed to grow up, to get over it. And I almost did.”
“Almost,” she echoes, barely audible.
“Almost,” I repeat, a bitter laugh slipping out. “Until you said those words.”
She takes a shaky step toward me. “Then why does it feel like you’re still holding back?”
Because I am.
Because I don’t trust myself not to destroy us again.
Because loving her always comes with a cost I can’t afford to pay twice.
“Because I’m scared,” I say, finally. “Because the first time, I lost you without even realizing how much it would hurt. And I don’t think I’d survive it again.”
Her lip trembles. “And what if you don’t have to lose me this time?”
I step closer, every inch between us burning. “Tilly…”
Her name breaks in my mouth. My hand twitches, wanting to reach for her, but I stop myself again.
I don’t trust that touch. It could ruin everything.
“I don’t deserve this,” I whisper. “You deserve someone who didn’t break you. Someone who doesn’t make you question everything.”
She shakes her head, tears spilling over. “But I don’t want someone else, Luca. I never did.”
I close my eyes. “You should.”
“Too bad,” she says, voice trembling, “I already chose you.”
And just like that, I feel everything: grief, love, guilt, all crashing together until I can barely breathe.
If only my throat would open up, I would tell her how much I love her as well.
How I chose her too.
How there’s no one else out there for me.
How she has my whole entire life in the palm of her hand.
How hard it is not to stand beside her every day.
But I can’t.
So I just stand there, watching her cry, knowing that even after everything, she still looks at me like I’m something worth saving.
She turns like she’s about to leave, and you can call me a selfish, evil man, but I don’t care.
Because I will be anything for her.
My hand moves before my brain does. I catch her wrist.
“Tilly,” I choke out.
She freezes.
Her pulse is fluttering beneath my fingers, wild and uneven, and when she looks back at me, there are tears balanced on her lashes like they are waiting for permission to fall.
Something in me just breaks.
I pull her into me.
Hard.
Like I’m trying to make up for every moment.
Her body hits my chest with a soft gasp, and then she melts completely.
Her face buried in my neck, her hands fisting in my shirt like she’s scared I’ll vanish if she lets go.
I don’t realize I’m shaking until I feel her breath hitch against my skin.
It all comes pouring out. Every held-back word, every sleepless night, every stupid attempt at pretending I don’t care.
My throat burns, my chest aches, and I hold her tighter, like maybe if I do, I can stop time.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper into her hair, voice wrecked. “I’m so damn sorry.”
She doesn’t say anything.
Instead, she just clings to me, and I feel her tears soak through my shirt, and I feel sick with them.
She hates crying, especially in front of people.
As much as I tried to tell her that tears are normal, she just doesn’t listen.
I’m not sure exactly what it is with her hate for tears, but what I know for sure is that I hate whatever goes through her head when they fall.
We stand there, hearts pounding out of sync, everything we can’t say sitting heavy in the air.
When I finally pull back just enough to see her face—red, tear-streaked, but hers—I know one thing for sure.
I’m never walking away again.