13. Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Thirteen
Lila
Icouldn't find a mirror, so I used my phone camera to assess the damage.
Big mistake.
My eyeliner had committed crimes somewhere around the second chorus.
My mascara had gone rogue and was now tattooed along my cheekbone and, somehow, my neck.
My eyes were red, my nose was red, my entire face had the energy of a girl who'd been dumped at prom and then asked to give a TED Talk about resilience.
I tugged my jacket collar up to hide the worst of it and ducked into a storage room backstage, half-full of amp cases, coiled cables, sweat-soaked towels, and my pride, currently decomposing in the corner.
The room smelled like dust and old stage fog. Somewhere outside the door, the crowd screamed again, that long rolling sound that meant Evan had done something with his face, his guitar, or both.
I pressed the heel of my hand under one eye and immediately regretted it. Black smear. Now I looked like a raccoon had gotten into a fistfight.
The door creaked open two minutes later.
"Lila?"
Finn's voice was low and cautious, the way it got when he could tell I was one breath away from shattering and did not want witnesses.
"In here."
He stepped inside and closed the door gently behind him. Took one look at my face and groaned. "Aw, no. Don't do the mascara cry. That shit's waterproof."
"Lies," I said.
"Corporate lies. Possibly war crimes."
"Thank you for respecting the gravity of this situation."
"I'm an ally."
He sat beside me on a road case and offered up a pack of tissues like tribute to a crying minor deity. The box had little blue flowers on it, insultingly cheerful. I took three.
He glanced toward the door, then back at me. "Didn't even make it halfway through, huh?"
"Not even past the second verse." My voice came out rough, scraped thin from singing and crying and trying not to do both at once. "I was doing fine, and then..."
"He looked at you."
"Yeah." I twisted the tissues in my lap. "Right during the bridge."
Finn blew out a slow breath. "Damn. That man knows how to emotionally assassinate."
"He should be regulated."
"At minimum, licensed."
"I shouldn't have gone out there."
"Yeah, maybe not." Finn leaned back against the wall, eyes steady on mine. "But you did. And you felt something. That's not weakness. That's being a human person with a heart and at least two tear ducts."
"I think I only have one. The other one's still frozen from the trauma."
His mouth twitched. "A medical mystery."
I rolled by eyes at him.
"A hot sad medical mystery."
I laughed, one of those weird wet broken laughs that came out sideways.
Finn's face softened, but he didn't make a big deal out of it. Bless him and his emotionally intelligent heart.
He pulled me into a sideways hug. "Come on, trash panda queen. You killed it tonight. Don't let Sadboy McTightpants steal your spotlight."
"I hate that that nickname works."
"It's upsettingly accurate."
"He was wearing black jeans."
"They were tight black pants."
That got another laugh out of me, smaller but real. For a second, sitting on a road case in a storage room that smelled like towels and regret, I almost felt okay. Not healed, not fine, but less like my bones had been replaced with static.
Then I pulled out my phone.
Finn made a strangled noise. "No."
"I'm just checking the time."
"You have never checked the time in your life. You run of time vibes."
"I need to see if my parents texted."
"Lila."
"It's fine."
Famous last words.
My notifications had multiplied like emotionally unstable rabbits. Texts, tags, mentions, missed calls, TikTok alerts, Instagram DMs from people I had not spoken to since high school, and one person who had once tried to sell me essential oils during finals week.
My stomach did one hard ugly twist.
Then the first video loaded before I could talk myself out of it.
Twenty-Four Minutes Post-Performance, TikTok
@fangirllover07
"Say it slow, so I can memorize the sound…"
Caption: Tell me this isn't about HER.
The clip zoomed in mid-performance, catching me in the front row, mascara-streaked and trying to hold it together as Evan sang like his soul was bleeding out through the sound system.
My face being lit by the stage, the tears were visible, and my pain was going viral.
It already had 140K likes and over one million views.
My hand went cold around the phone. Not because people saw me cry.
Okay, yes, because people saw me cry. But worse, they saw the part of me I'd been trying to keep out of the story.
The private part, the stupid soft still-in-love part I had been shoving behind sarcasm, eyeliner, and professional scheduling.
Now it had captions.
#LingerLive #IsItAboutHer #ArcadiaDriveDrama #LilaRusselCaughtFeelingThings #SheStillLovesHim #EvanWalkerDeservesAnswers #EmoTwilightIsBack
"Russell has two Ls," I muttered.
Finn blinked. "That is your takeaway?"
"No. But if the internet is going to publicly vivisect me, it can at least spell my name right."
"That's fair."
I scrolled through the comments in horror.
IS THAT HIS EX??? SHE'S IN THE CROWD??? OH MY GODDDDD he literally sang that line straight to her wtf not me crying over a couple i didn't know existed until 3 minutes ago this is the realest thing i've ever seen pls just get married she's GORGEOUS he's STUPID fix it now if my ex wrote this about me i would simply combust wait is she Molly and Oliver Russell's daughter?
?? this lore is INSANE emo twilight is back, pack it up, everyone
I stopped breathing somewhere around "lore." Lore. My heartbreak had lore now.
I slammed my phone face-down on the nearest amp case.
Finn peered over my shoulder anyway, because of course he did. "Oooh."
"Do not oooh."
"Trending in three countries."
"Finn."
"Your heartbreak has global reach."
"I'm going to bite you."
He held up both hands. "Understandable, still legally frowned upon."
The crowd roared outside the storage room, loud enough to rattle the door. Evan's voice followed a second later, muffled by walls and distance, still unmistakable. I closed my eyes. Couldn't even escape him in a room full of old towels.
My phone buzzed again, and again, each vibration skittering through the road case beneath my thigh.
Finn looked at it, then at me. "You want me to take it?"
"I want to fake my death and become a lighthouse keeper."
He nodded solemnly. "Would you prefer snacks, a shovel, or an off-grid cabin in Montana?"
"Yes."
"Cool. I'll make some calls."
I dropped my head against his shoulder. For one breath, I let him hold the joke.
Then another notification lit up the room. A screenshot from someone's livestream. Evan onstage. Me in the crowd. His eyes on mine. A perfect little knife, sharpened by strangers.
The caption read: He looked at her like she was the lyric.
My throat hurt. Not from crying this time. From wanting to scream.
Because the worst part wasn't that the internet was wrong. The worst part was that they were close enough.