Chapter 27
Tilly
Zara and Yana practically drag me to their room after lunch, like I’m a criminal who has been caught.
Yana flings the door open. “Okay. Sit. Now.”
I barely do before Zara claps her hands like a judge. “Give us the details!”
I can’t stop smiling. “You guys are insane.”
“Correction,” Yana says, flopping onto the bed, “we are emotionally invested.” She exhales and fans herself. “I need to calm down because what the hell!”
Zara points at me. “While she meditates, I’ll interrogate you. First question — are you happy?”
“Yes,” I say instantly.
But the word doesn’t even come close.
I’m not just happy — I can feel my heart glowing. Like something heavy has finally slipped off my chest, and all that is left is lightness.
Like the shell around it is gone, letting the light spread around my whole chest.
Luca’s hoodie smells like mine, and I feel like I might float.
Zara grins knowingly. “That’s the look of a girl in love.”
I groan, burying my face in a pillow. “Stop, you’re making it weird.”
“Don’t you dare hide,” Yana says, kicking me gently. “You owe us details. How did it happen?”
“Yeah,” Zara says, leaning forward, eyes sparkling. “Start from the beginning. Did he kiss you first? Did he cry? Did you cry? Did someone trip? Did you confess in the rain?”
“No one tripped, and it wasn’t raining. I just went to him and told him that I love him.”
Both of them gasp.
“You confessed first?” Yana’s jaw drops. “Miss ‘I’ll never tell a guy I love him first’?”
I shrug, trying to hide the way my ears burn. “Yeah, well, he kind of said it first months ago… and I panicked back then. So I guess I was just catching up.”
Zara squeals. “That’s so romantic, I actually hate you.”
I smile softly, hugging a pillow to my chest. “He was quiet for a long time. I thought I ruined it again. But then… everything just fell into place. Like it was supposed to happen that way.”
Yana makes a dreamy sigh. “Ugh, the slow burn finally burns slow enough to catch fire.”
I catch myself smiling again. My heart feels too full for my chest.
Yana sits up. “So… what now? Like, you guys are together together, right? No more angsty confusion?”
I snort. “Yeah, no more of that. We’re officially together.”
“God, it’s about time,” Zara says. “The entire friend group has been suffering because of your unresolved romantic tension.”
“Sorry for the trauma,” I cringe.
“Apology accepted, as long as we get cute couple content now. I want beach walks. I want him to carry you on his back. I want you walking around in his hoodies.” Yana points at the hoodie I’m wearing right now.
That makes me grin wider. “Oh, that part’s already happening.”
Zara rolls her eyes. “Good for you.”
“I told him I get to steal them whenever I want. Men’s hoodies are just better. And they smell like him. I feel happier when I wear them.”
“As you should. It’s part of the package. A boyfriend and his hoodies.”
I couldn’t agree more.
Zara sighs contentedly. “Honestly, you two make sense. It’s always been obvious you’re meant to be. Even when you weren’t in the mess.”
“Yeah… it does feel right.”
Yana leans back on her elbows. “And now he’s staying. Which I am so thankful for because life would be so weird without him around.”
“Although,” Zara adds, “it’s kinda sad he’s not pursuing that dream.”
I frown.
He told me it’s a secret, and I don’t want to reveal it all to them, even though I always tell Yana everything, but Luca is entitled to his own privacy.
“He told me that he’s still chasing his dream, just differently. Here. With us.”
Zara smiles softly. “That’s love, you know. When someone stops chasing the whole world just to stay where they are.”
Yana nods. “And honestly, you both deserve it. After everything.”
I bite my lip, trying not to cry.
I feel lucky that I’m in this situation instead of the one I imagined in my head.
Yesterday I was still horrified of taking the step forward, but I realized for the first time in my life, a risk is not that bad.
I’m finally experiencing the one percent out of ten. And suddenly, I start understanding why risk takers do it.
It feels ecstatic.
They start joking again, and I let myself fall back against the pillows, laughing until my stomach hurts.
There’s no panic in the pit of my stomach, and I’m not scared of what tomorrow will bring, which feels nice.
***
By the time the sun dipped behind the buildings, Zara had already declared a mandatory girls’ night.
“No boys, no seriousness, and smiles,” she announces, holding up a pack of sheet masks. “Just us, snacks, and emotional repression in sparkly pajamas.”
Yana snorts. “So, a normal Friday?”
“Exactly.”
We drag their mattresses onto the floor, stacking pillows and blankets like a fort.
The fairy lights Zara had taped on her wall glow in soft pinks and yellows.
It feels like we are twelve again, except now, instead of dreaming about life as adults, we are living it.
I curl up between them, each of us matching with our pj’s.
Zara in green, Yana in red, and me in pink.
Some things never change.
Zara flops beside me, popping popcorn into her mouth. “Alright, movie vote. To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before or 10 Things I Hate About You ?”
“To All the Boys,” I yell at the same time Yana votes for the latter.
“No! I need the enemies!” She glares at me.
“I’m sorry, but the last time we watched To All the Boys was weeks ago, and I need to feel the excitement again.”
“Nothing is exciting about a rom-com you know by heart.” She deadpans.
“Well, I just got a boyfriend, so I need some inspiration. Now I finally relate to Lara Jean.” I use the boyfriend card and am not ashamed to admit it.
“So you mean to tell me you’re fake-dating Luca?” She looks at me suspiciously.
“No, I mean I finally have my first boyfriend.”
“Isn’t it the second one where she actually dates Peter?” She looks at Zara for help.
“Let’s just watch the second one then,” I suggest, not relenting.
“Fine,” she rolls her eyes, and we both look at Zara.
“ P.S. I Still Love You, it is,” she goes to Netflix on her computer, and we start the movie.
Zara grins. “Hopeless romantics, both of you.”
As the movie starts, the room is filled with soft light and the sound of Lara Jean Covey narrating her life like it was a diary entry.
About halfway through, we’re all laughing and crying at the same time. Zara yells at Peter like she can change the script, while Yana clutches a pillow every time he smiles.
“Boys like that don’t exist,” Yana declares, waving a chip in the air like it was a microphone. “He’s fictional. He’s literally coded to make us delusional.”
Zara nods solemnly. “Yeah, Peter Kavinsky was scientifically engineered to give women unrealistic expectations. He’s a lab experiment made by a woman.”
I smile softly, hugging my knees to my chest. “They totally do exist.”
Both of them freeze for a second — then Zara’s jaw drops. “Oh, my God. Look at her face. Look at that dreamy little smile,” she teases.
Yana gasps dramatically. “Oh no, it’s happening. She’s entering her love-sick phase.”
“Shut up!” I laugh, covering my face with a pillow. “I’m not.”
“Yes, you are!” Zara grabbed another pillow and lightly smacked me with it. “That’s your ‘ I love Luca ’ smile!”
I giggle. “There’s no such thing as a love smile!”
“Oh, there totally is,” Yana says, pointing accusingly. “Your eyes do that sparkly thing, and you bite your lip like you’re in some music video.”
I bury my face in the blanket. “You guys are literally the worst.”
“Wrong,” Zara says, smirking. “We’re the best. Because we’re the only ones who can call you out when you glow like a lightbulb.”
I peek out from the pillow, cheeks burning. “Okay, I wasn’t lying, though.”
“Girl, you said ‘yeah, they do exist’ while jumping on the moon in your head.”
Zara mimicks me in an exaggerated dreamy tone: “‘Yeah… they do…’ insert faraway gaze and background music.”
“You guys suck.”
“Maybe,” Zara grins. “But admit it, he’s your Peter Kavinsky.”
I don’t have to say anything because smiling that wide is basically a confession already.
As much as I always swore I would never let a man steal me away as Lara Jean did, I might be changing my mind, because Luca is my Peter to my Lara, and I could not have been happier.
We keep watching, the three of us huddled under the same blanket, occasionally screaming when something gets good.
For a while, everything is easy.
The room smells like popcorn and strawberry face masks.
Zara has glitter on her cheeks.
Yana is half-buried in a mountain of pillows.
The movie flickers softly on the wall, and I smile as I see it from a different point of view.
I see Lara feel, and instead of screaming to do or not do something, I see exactly why she makes her choices.
Falling is talked about like you just close your eyes and drift off a cliff into the clouds, with a smile on your face.
In reality, it feels more like jumping off a scary edge, not seeing the bottom, and knowing the crash will be life-threatening.
It’s scary, letting yourself go. But love goes hand in hand with trust, and I trust Luca to be with me through the fall.
Once the movie ends, we lie down and stay silent for a while, and realize what I have to tell them.
As much as I wish I could skip this step, I know they deserve to know, and I deserve to tell them.
“Guys, I need to tell you something,” my voice comes out hoarse from staying quiet for so long.
“What’s up?” Yana sits up, and Zara turns to me.
“You okay?” she mutters.
“Remember when I told you I’ve not been sleeping well from my ‘period’?” I start, picking at a loose thread on my blanket.
Zara nods.
“So that’s not the truth.” I scrunch my nose and look down. “Basically, this will sound stupid, but my nights have, uh, not been very dreamy.”
Yana tilts her head, and Zara furrows her eyebrows.
“I have an overthinking problem.”
Ley’s just ripped the bandaid shall we?
“ The moment I get into bed, weird thoughts come and steal my sleep. It kinda feels like someone is clawing at my lungs, and my brain turns against me.”
I laugh, but it’s sharp and hollow. “The problem is that I can’t get control over it, no matter how hard I try. I lie there, and every bad thing replays over and over again, and I feel like I’m stuck in the worst nightmare imaginable.”
Neither of them says a word.
The silence is soft, the kind that unravels at its own pace.
“Every mistake, every word I shouldn’t have said. It presses on me until I can’t breathe.”
I swallow hard, forcing the words out before I can take them back. “Most days, I’m fine. The lack of sleep affects me in a way that I can’t explain. But when the lights go off, it’s just me and my thoughts. And it gets so loud I can’t think straight.”
Zara reaches for my hand, her fingers warming my cold ones, and Luca’s words come to my mind when I notice the bleeding cut on my arm.
I laugh weakly.
“I didn’t want you to know. I didn’t want anyone to know.
Because my nights are not poetic or romantic.
They’re just me, curled up in the dark, crying so quietly it almost doesn’t count.
Sometimes I panic before the sun even sets, because I know what will happen, and I’m–” I take a shaky breath and wipe my tears. “ Terrified.”
Yana’s voice is barely a whisper. “Tilly…”
“I told Luca already,” I continue, feeling horrible about it.
“I told him that I hate myself, and I hide her behind a character that basically describes me at this point, because I know her like she’s my own.
I was scared everyone would leave when I told them.
But he didn’t. He just looked at me like I wasn’t broken. Like I was still worth loving.”
Zara’s thumb brushes my hand. “You are worth loving.”
“I don’t know,” I whisper, feeling disgusted. “I’ve spent so long rationing my flaws, showing just enough. But I’m tired of pretending I’m fine when I’m not. I’m tired of haunting myself.”
The only sound is the quiet hum of the fairy lights and the soft hum of the waves.
Yana reaches over and hugs me. “You don’t have to ever fake anything in front of us, Tilly. Ever. ”
I look at Zara through Yana’s shoulder, and she looks at me earnestly. “It’s true. We love you like family,y Tilly, and you don’t ever have to overthink how to act around us.”
“Humans aren’t perfect. There’s no such thing as the perfect amount of imperfections. The perfect amount of flaws. You are who you are, and if anyone ever judges you for that, you leave and don’t look back.”
I sit between them and continue spilling every jagged thought that has been haunting me for months, years, maybe.
They sit there listening and telling me exactly the opposite of what I think every night.
We end up lying there for hours as I let all my messed-up thoughts be untangled by them.
At some point, Yana falls asleep, her arm thrown over Zara’s stomach. Zara’s soft snores tell me she’s also asleep.
I stay awake, staring at the fairy lights until my eyes blur, each one creating yellow and pink lines.
But I don’t hate it.
The tears aren’t falling; they just sit there, and I let them dissolve.
It feels peaceful.
It feels fine.