20. Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty
Lila
Ispent every spare second that day with my notebook, scribbling lyrics with the kind of desperate focus you only see during breakups, breakdowns, or when there’s one last slice of cake and everyone’s pretending to be polite.
This was all three.
The coffee Evan brought sat untouched at the edge of the table. Some fancy cold brew with hints of lavender and, probably, regret. Condensation pooled under the cup, soaking into a napkin, like even the drink knew it had wandered into the wrong party and was too awkward to leave.
I stared at it for ten straight minutes, pen hovering over the page.
Two sugars, exactly how I liked it. Because of course he remembered.
Of course he could remember my coffee order, hold my hair while I puked, tell drunk me he still loved me, and then waltz back onstage like he hadn’t just spent weeks using his songs to sandpaper my nerves raw.Maybe I hurt him first. Maybe I did.
But Evan? He knew how to make it sting for the encore.
The first line came out mean.
He said forever like it came with a receipt.
I stared at it. Not bad, not exactly Pulitzer material, but it had teeth.
More importantly, it made something ugly in me sit up and demand a microphone.
Then the flood came: unfiltered, unapologetic, and messy as hell.
I let it bleed onto the page. Every lie I told myself after we imploded.
Every memory that still burned. The first time he smiled at me across a studio mic.
The night he said he loved me with his hands on my waist and the future pretending to be polite.
The inside jokes, the songs, the way his cologne clung to my jacket for weeks after I stopped letting myself call him.
Every line I should have thrown at his gorgeous, smug, walking-hazard face instead of ghosting around like a haunted Victorian governess with boundary issues.
All of it was messy, petty, gloriously unhinged.
I filled page after page, crossing out entire verses because they felt too tame. I wasn't writing a breakup song. I was crafting an exorcism with a bridge.
The first draft had a line about his mouth. Too obvious. The second had a line about the girl in silver. Too jealous. The third made me sound like I had legally married my own resentment. Closer.
I wrote until my hand cramped, then switched to my phone and recorded melody scraps, croaking half-formed lines into voice memos like a sleep-deprived banshee in eyeliner.
A fly buzzed near the cold brew. I didn't move. My legs were asleep, my stomach growled, my phone buzzed twice with notifications I refused to check because if I saw one more stranger using the phrase "doomed love era," I was going to start biting.
The only thing I registered was the rhythm. Not rage exactly; rage was too simple. This was hurt with a capo.
The chorus came last. That was where I stopped trying to be fair. Fairness was for courtrooms, group projects, and people whose private heartbreak wasn't turned into stage lighting. I carved off every soft edge. Then stared at the page until my eyes burned.
The line I hated most was also the one I kept.
While I kissed you like a secret I was scared the world would know.
Because there it was. The part that made me want to rip the page out. The part that didn't let me hand all the blame to him and go skipping into my villain era with clean shoes.
I was the one who wanted secrecy. I was the one who said not yet. But he was the one who kept turning our not-yet into a song for everyone else to hold.
Both things were true. Rude, frankly.
The bridge came sharper.
You called it love when it sounded like leaving. You called me yours when the lights went down. Now every crowd gets a piece of the bleeding, and I'm still the girl you won't say out loud.
I read it back once, then again. Then I laughed, loud and borderline maniacal.
And then, just as the manic laughter waned, my body whiplashed into grief.
For three solid minutes, I cried with my face buried in my arms. Not pretty crying, not dramatic-window-rain crying.
Desk crying. The kind where a pen sticks to your cheek and you don't have the energy to remove it right away.
Apparently that was what happened when you finally told the truth out loud, even if it was in 4/4 time and wearing combat boots.
When it was over, I wiped my face, took a breath that felt like swallowing tinfoil, and logged in for my virtual guitar class.
A miracle, honestly. It was also the only normal thing on my schedule, and I needed normal before I started naming my revenge song something subtle like Congratulations, You Made Me Worse.
The Zoom grid loaded. Tiny faces popped up one by one.
Sophie, seven years old, pigtails swinging, Hello Kitty guitar strap proudly visible.
Jayden, all elbows and enthusiasm, strumming before I even said hello.
Mia holding her pick upside down. Theo wearing sunglasses indoors because he said it helped him "feel the music," which was both adorable and concerning.
"Hi, Miss Lila!" Sophie chirped.
"Hi, chaos goblins."
Jayden lifted his guitar. "Can we learn the loud chord today?"
"All chords can be loud if you believe in them and annoy your neighbors enough."
The kids didn't care about tabloid whispers or the revenge track currently gestating in my notebook like a glitter-covered demon.
They wanted power chords. They wanted to pretend to be Taylor Swift for thirty minutes.
They wanted to show me that they had practiced, or in Theo's case, that he had learned how to spin his pick across his knuckles and drop it dramatically into his lap.
Sophie practiced her stage wink every time we ran the chorus. Jayden couldn't figure out the F chord to save his life but strummed like a hurricane anyway. Mia announced that her guitar was "being mean today," which felt valid. Theo asked if sunglasses made him legally a rock star.
"Only if you also forget to answer texts and develop a concerning relationship with leather jackets," I said.
He nodded solemnly. "I can do that."
Near the end of class, Sophie raised her hand. "Miss Lila?"
"Yeah?"
"Is it true you're on tour with Evan Walker?"
I froze for one beat. Then smiled like it didn't stab. "Sure am."
"My mom loves him," she said. "She says he has sad eyes."
"Your mom has working eyes."
Jayden leaned toward his camera. "Is he nice?"
I looked at my notebook beside the laptop. The corner of the page curled up, the chorus half-visible beneath my elbow.
"He's complicated," I said.
All four kids blinked at me.
"Which means yes," I added. "But also, adults are weird. Now let's try that chorus again. From the top. One, two, three."
Their fingers fumbled, their timing was atrocious, and someone's dog barked through the entire second run. I had never been more grateful.
When the class ended, normalcy faded. I sat there staring at the empty Zoom grid after the last square disappeared. My hand drifted back to the notebook. The kids had taken the edge off the rage, not removed it, just made it less hot to the touch. Which meant I could sharpen it properly.
I plunged back into the lyrical bloodbath, tweaking, rewriting, weaponizing. If the first draft had teeth, the next one learned how to smile before biting.
I changed the worst line three times.
May the girl you try to love next taste me every time you breathe.
I stared at it. Absolutely slapped. Also made me sound like I was preparing to haunt his future girlfriends from inside his lungs. A bit much, even for me.
I crossed it out and wrote:
May the next girl hear my echo in every song you keep.
Still sharp, less spicy poltergeist. Look at me, growing.
By the time the sun gave up, my notebook was basically a war crime set to melody.
I found Finn in the lounge, elbow-deep in trail mix that had expired before our last breakup tour, watching a movie that was ninety percent explosions and ten percent men yelling "GO GO GO."
"Finn," I said, because subtlety had long since left the building and taken my last stable chair with it.
He looked up, cheeks full of fake peanuts. I handed him the pages. No context. Just carnage.
He read. His brows lifted. He paused as if he'd just seen his own funeral program.
"Lila," he said. "This is brutal."
"I know."
"No, like..." He flipped back to the chorus. "Evan's worst nightmare kind of brutal."
"Good."
"Good as in good song, or good as in you are actively choosing violence and would like me to validate your glitter-covered descent?"
"Both."
He read another line and winced. "For the record, I am morally required to say this is terrorism."
"Is that your official position?"
"Yes."
"Noted."
"Unofficially..." He let out a low whistle. "This is going to kill him."
"Oh, he's dying," I said. "I'm killing him with a love song. Live. Tomorrow night."
Finn dropped the pages slightly. "Tomorrow? Are you sure about that?"
"If I wait, I'll chicken out."
"Maybe you should."
I glared.
He held up one hand. "I'm not saying don't play it ever. I'm saying maybe don't play it twelve hours after you decided the chorus needed a murder weapon."
"Well, maybe he should have thought about that before I told him how much I liked his piercing and he let me throw up on his shoes."
Finn went very still, blinked once, then nodded slowly. "Right. Yes. Of course. What a monster. I am fully on board with your lyrical terrorism."
"You're being sarcastic."
"I am. You know that, right? Or did all the Cheez-Its finally melt your brain?"
I snorted. "Too late. Brain's gone. All that's left is petty and glitter."
Finn looked down at the pages again. His grin faded at the edges, shifting the mood. Not gone, just less performative, like he recognized something deeper in me shifting too.
"You know this isn't going to feel as good as you think."
"I don't care."
"Yes, you do."
I took the pages back before he could look at me like that any longer. Like he knew this was less revenge, more confession. Like he knew I was about to walk onstage and hand Evan the same kind of wound I kept accusing him of giving me.
Maybe I was. Maybe that was the point.
"He made every night hurt," I said. "Every song, every look, every safe answer, every girl he smiled at like I was supposed to pretend I didn't see it."
Finn's face softened. I hated every second of it.
"I'm not saying he didn't," he said.
"Then don't tell me not to."
"I didn't." He leaned back against the couch and reached for the trail mix again, because apparently healthy boundaries required fake peanuts. "I asked if you had a backup plan for when this goes nuclear."
I smiled, wicked and wide and probably alarming. "I do."
"Oh no."
"It's called a spotlight and no regrets."
Finn groaned. "That is absolutely not a plan. That's a crime scene with lighting cues."
"Good," I said.
And this time, I meant it.