22. Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Two
Lila
Silence isn't sexy, Evan.
I waited. I told myself I wasn't waiting. I was decompressing, hydrating, checking socials to make sure I hadn't accidentally canceled myself by calling out my ex in front of thousands of people with a song that could double as lyrical arson.
But two hours in, I was absolutely waiting.
Waiting for Evan to storm in, slam the door, scream, cry, give me something.
He didn't. No text, no phone call, no passive-aggressive tweet, no shady Instagram story with a black screen and a cryptic lyric about betrayal.
Nothing.
I paced my room in circles, adrenaline still running laps in my body.
My hotel suite felt too quiet after the venue, the kind of quiet that rang.
My ears still had phantom crowd noise in them, my fingers still wanted strings, and my phone would not stop lighting up.
Tags, reaction videos, fans calling the song "iconic," fans calling the song "unhinged.
" One girl had posted a video crying into a glitter tumbler with the caption, She ate and left no crumbs.
I had become a crumb-free menace.
He was supposed to say something. Do something. He was supposed to feel it.
Instead, silence. That bitch.
I checked his name again, checked our last message, like the screen might mutate under the force of my irritation. It did not.
By the third hour, I'd taken off my makeup, then put it back on. I changed outfits twice, as if the right shirt could fix my brain. I stared at the minibar and considered throwing a tiny bottle of overpriced vodka through his window. Rock-star behavior, feral-cat energy, same general zip code.
By the fourth hour, I cracked.
I stormed down the hallway in sleep shorts and rage, hair pulled into a messy knot that screamed I'm fine in the exact tone that meant the opposite. The carpet swallowed my footsteps. The floor smelled faintly of someone else's perfume and hotel cleaner. Every door looked smug.
I hated all of them. Especially his.
I got to Evan's room and pounded on it as if it had personally spat on my mother.
No answer. I knocked again, harder. "Evan. Open the damn door."
Still nothing. My hand hovered over the handle. If it was unlocked, it was unlocked. That was basically an invitation in stupid-people logic.
I shoved it open, fully ready to scream, fully ready to throw words like knives.
And there he was.
Asleep.
Not angry, not broken, not pacing shirtless beside a window while contemplating the wreckage of my lyrical revenge.
Sleeping. Dead to the world, sprawled across the bed like an exhausted tragedy with good bone structure.
One arm was slung over his face. His mouth was slightly open.
The sheets were kicked down to his hips like he'd been too hot to keep them on.
A fresh water bottle sat on the nightstand beside his phone.
His unopened phone.
My rage short-circuited so hard I almost laughed. I stood there blinking, trying to process the audacity of it. The man had just taken my public execution of his soul and responded with a nap.
"You're asleep?" I hissed. "I sang your eulogy, Evan."
He stirred. Dragged his arm down from his face. Blinked at me with sleep-heavy eyes. His hair was a mess. His lashes did that unfair thing they did when he was tired, dark against his skin, making him look soft in a way that always ruined me.
"What time is it?" he mumbled.
"Time for you to react, maybe?"
He pushed himself up on one elbow. "To what?"
My mouth fell open. "To what?"
His eyes focused, slow and bleary. Then the corner of his mouth moved, barely.
So he did know. "You're a demon," I said.
"Pretty sure that's one of her other books."
"Don't be cute right now."
"I was asleep."
"I noticed." I threw a hand toward the nightstand. "Your phone is unopened."
"I turned it off."
"Why?"
"Because I had to go onstage after you cut me open with a chorus, and if I looked at the internet afterward, I was going to do something stupid."
That pulled me up short. The room felt warmer than the hallway, too warm. His shirt was on the floor near the bed, black fabric half-inside out. His boots sat by the dresser. A damp towel hung over a chair.
He looked human. Tired. Wrecked in the quiet way, not the dramatic way I had apparently wanted for my own ego.
I hated that too.
"You heard it," I said.
"I heard it."
"And?"
He sat up, rubbing one hand over his jaw. "It was beautiful."
My brain stuttered. "Beautiful?" I snapped. "I called you a soulless stage warlord with a six-pack."
"You did."
"I told everyone you messed me up so bad I can't look at microphones without tasting blood."
"That line might've been a little much."
"It was art."
"It was homicide with rhyme structure."
"Good."
He looked up at me, not amused now, not really. "You also said you missed me."
My fingers went cold around the hem of my sleep shirt. "I did not."
"In the chorus."
"No."
"You buried it." His eyes stayed on mine, too awake now, too Evan. "But it was there."
I hated him for hearing it. I hated him for being right.
"I buried it for a reason," I said.
"I know."
"Then stop digging."
"You came to my room."
"Because you were silent."
"You wanted me to yell?"
"Yes." The word came out fast, too honest. "No. I don't know."
He swung his legs over the side of the bed. The sheet pooled low on his hips. He did not seem aware of how deeply unhelpful that was. Or he did. With Evan, awareness was usually part of the problem.
"You want me to tell you it hurt?" he asked. "Fine. It hurt. You knew it would."
I folded my arms over my chest. Defense, armor, very mature pajamas edition.
His eyes dipped to my arms, then came back to my face. "And you still came here," he said, "because silence hurt worse."
The words landed too cleanly. I looked away.
"Don't act like you didn't deserve some of it."
"I did."
That annoyed me. I had come prepared for a fight. He could have the decency to be less reasonable while half-naked.
"Not all of it," he added.
I lifted my chin. "You played our song."
"You wrote me into one."
"You made my private feelings public."
"And you made mine a set piece."
"That's different."
He laughed once, no humor in it. "Is it?"
I wanted to say yes. I wanted to mean it.
The problem was, I'd seen his face in the wing when I walked offstage, one second, one stupid little glance I pretended I hadn't taken.
He had looked like I'd landed the shot. And I had liked it.
For about four seconds. Then he gave me silence, and all that victory curdled into panic.
"You turned off your phone," I said.
"Yeah."
"So what? You were going to ignore me?"
"I was going to sleep before I said something worse than what I was thinking."
"What were you thinking?"
He stood. Not close yet, but closer than bed-distance. The lamp threw warm light across his shoulders, the tattoos on his arms, the shadow under his eyes.
"I was thinking I wanted to ruin you back."
My mouth went still. He didn't soften it.
"I was thinking I could walk out tomorrow and play 'Linger' like a knife," he said. "Look right at you. Make it ugly. Make everyone pick a side."
My stomach folded. "But you didn't."
"No." His mouth tightened. "Because I already know what that feels like now."
The room went quiet, not empty, full of all the things neither of us wanted to be decent enough to admit.
I picked at the hem of my shirt. "Then why aren't you yelling?"
"Because if I yell, you can yell back." He took one step. "If I stay quiet, you have to sit with what you did."
"That's manipulative."
"Probably."
"At least you're self-aware."
I should have left. There was the door, right behind me, very available, no bouncer, no dragon, no velvet rope.
Instead, I stayed. Because he had heard the "I miss you." Because he had turned off his phone instead of feeding the machine. Because his hurt was standing in front of me now, shirtless and irritatingly awake.
"Say something else," I said.
His eyes narrowed slightly. "You sure?"
"No."
His mouth almost moved, not a smile, something sharper and sadder.
"You didn't write a revenge song," he said.
I scoffed. "I absolutely did."
"Not really."
"I sang your eulogy."
"Yeah." He took another step. "With a love song wearing brass knuckles."
My throat worked around nothing. Damn him for knowing music, for knowing me, for hearing the ache I had tried to bury under glitter and knife work.
"I hate that you heard it," I said.
"I know."
"I hate that you're calm."
"I'm not calm."
"You look calm."
"I'm trying not to touch you."
That shut me up.
His gaze dropped to my mouth. Mine dropped to his. Such incredible feminism happening in this room. Really a banner night for personal growth.
"You have to stop running from this," he said.
"No, I don't."
"Why? Because it's me? Or because people might finally know I mattered?"
I flinched. "That's not fair."
"Neither was singing me open in front of twelve thousand people and then getting mad when I bled quietly."
The line hit hard enough to make me step back. My shoulder brushed the door. The room suddenly had edges again.
He saw it. He stopped moving. That was Evan at his most dangerous, not when he pushed, but when he stopped and made me choose.
"You don't get it," I said.
"Then tell me."
"Linked to you is all anyone will ever see."
He stared at me. There it was. The ugly heart of it, not the glitter version, not the public narrative, not the funny little quotes I could turn into banter.
"If people know," I said, "then I'm not Lila Russell. I'm Evan Walker's ex. Evan Walker's girlfriend. Evan Walker's muse. Evan Walker's whatever. I disappear inside your name, and everyone acts like I should be grateful for the upgrade."
His face changed, small but enough.
"Lila."
"No." I shook my head. "You don't get to say my name like that. Like it fixes anything."
"I'm not trying to fix it."
"Then what are you trying to do?"