23. Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Three
Lila
It was everywhere. Like glitter after a craft project, or my clothes after a couple shots of tequila.
The pictures: me, barefoot in the hotel hallway. Evan, shirtless and devastating behind me. My walk of shame had turned into an international headline.
When I woke up, my phone was vibrating nonstop.
Notifications were stacking up faster than bad decisions at an open bar.
There were tags, mentions, DMs from people I hadn’t spoken to in years, even my old babysitter's hairdresser asking for the tea.
The account that usually posted celebrity dog outfits had gone full Woodward and Bernstein.
I didn't even have to look. My body already knew, like it was bracing for a pop quiz I hadn't studied for.
By the time I managed to sit up, the hotel room had that post-show hush that usually felt like a hug. Curtains half-drawn, comforter twisted into a lumpy nest, makeup wipes like confetti across the bathroom counter, a water bottle on its side.
I picked up my phone, and there it was. The same shot, reposted in a thousand different formats.
A close-up crop where you could see my bare feet, the edge of my sleep shorts, and the split-second tension in my shoulders.
Another where Evan's hand was visible behind me, close enough to look intimate, far enough to invite speculation.
Someone had slowed it down and added dramatic strings, because of course they had.
Someone else had captioned it: When your ex writes a song about you, and you pretend you're fine until you aren't.
Half of them spelled my name wrong. Didn’t matter. The algorithm hunted me down anyway, like a bloodhound with a grudge.
By 10 a.m., I was trending in three countries and had been added to two breakup Spotify playlists.
A fashion blog ranked my "morning after" outfit a 7/10 with potential.
One meme said I looked like I was leaving a rehearsal for sin.
Another captioned the photo: Me after saying I was over him and then immediately proving myself wrong.
I stared at that one way too long. It was accurate, which was rude. Some stranger on the internet had managed to sum up my entire existence in one meme, with better comedic timing than I’d ever managed in my own defense.
I tossed my phone onto the bed like it was radioactive. It bounced, buzzed, begged for attention. I grabbed it anyway, because apparently I have the self-control of a toddler in a candy store.
The comments were worse than the posts. People didn't have opinions. They had full narratives. Timelines. Screen recordings of old interviews where Evan had said something vague about "writing from experience," now stitched into conspiracy threads with arrows, zooms, and dramatic music.
Someone had made a slideshow.
Slide one: Evan singing "Linger."
Slide two: me crying in the crowd.
Slide three: the alley kiss, shot from someone's shaky fan video outside the venue.
Slide four: me leaving his room.
The caption said: THE LILA/EVAN TIMELINE IS NOT A THEORY ANYMORE. IT'S A CRIME SCENE.
I closed the app. Then opened it again, drawn back by my own masochism.
The more I scrolled, the smaller I shrank.
My life stopped being mine and started being content.
That was the part that made me queasy. Not the photo, not the wild guesses, not even the memes.
The transformation. One minute I was a person with messy baggage and questionable judgment.
The next, I was a clip, a caption, a timeline, a shipping war accessorized with eyeliner.
I clicked out. Then tried to breathe like my therapist once told me, which was annoying advice then and even more annoying now.
My coffee sat on the dresser, abandoned and lukewarm, looking as defeated as I felt. I took a sip. It tasted like regret and old ambition. Zero help.
Grant called. The screen lit up with his name and a string of emojis he'd set months ago that used to make me laugh. Right now it made my eye twitch.
I answered before the second ring, because ignoring Grant was how you ended up with a "friendly reminder" email sent to your mother.
"LILA. What the fuck."
I stared at the hotel ceiling, clutching my sad coffee like it might transfer stability through osmosis. "I'm handling it."
"Handling it?" Grant's voice cracked. "TMZ just paired the hallway shots with the alley kiss footage and dropped a slow-motion montage called 'Tour Crasher or Tour Lover?'"
"No."
"Yes."
"Tell me that title is fake."
"I wish I had that kind of creativity under pressure."
"I need Advil and a disguise."
"You need a statement."
"I need a new identity."
"You need to tell me if this is going to affect tonight's set."
There it was. Not cruel; Grant wasn't cruel. Manager brain, damage-control brain. Still, the question landed like a clipboard to the face.
"My private life is currently being dissected by people who think 'rehearsal for sin' is journalism, and you're asking if I can still sing?"
A pause. Then softer, "I'm asking because I know you'll try even if you can't."
Damn him. Too useful, too inconvenient.
"I can sing."
"You sure?"
"No. But yes."
"Do you want me to push back on press?"
"Can you delete the internet?"
"Working on it. My current plan involves arson and a very expensive lawyer."
"Finally, management I can believe in."
He exhaled. "Lila."
"I know."
"Do not post."
"I wasn't going to."
"Do not like anything."
"I wasn't going to."
"Do not subtweet him."
I looked at the ceiling.
"Lila."
"Fine."
"And please, don't write anything new in the next twelve hours without sending it directly to me."
"Controlling."
"Correct."
The call ended after three more warnings, two schedule reminders, and one muttered threat against TMZ that sounded legally actionable but weirdly supportive.
The room felt even quieter after. The silence pressed in from every side, made every notification feel louder.
My phone buzzed again. I didn't look. I looked. A message request from a producer with a "quick question." A fan saying, Please don't be mad, but I'm crying. A link from Finn that I refused to open because I wasn't ready for whatever havoc he'd delivered with a bow.
Then my brain betrayed me in fragments.
Evan's mouth at my neck. My hands in his hair. The pause before he touched me like a question. My answer, breathless and stupid and honest.
I want you to stop making me want this.
His hands leaving me immediately. His face when he said, Okay. The hallway, the flash, his voice behind me. Lila?
I dropped my phone. It hit the hotel carpet with a muffled thud. I stared at it, trying to decide whether I wanted to pick it up or let it break so I'd have an excuse to be unreachable.
My reflection in the mirror looked too awake, too normal. My lips were still a little swollen. If I turned my head just right, there was faint evidence of his mouth near my collarbone, a mark I could cover with concealer but not with denial.
I pressed two fingers over it. Idiot. Me, not him. Okay, also him. Definitely both of us.
The phone buzzed against the carpet again and again. I bent down and picked it up.
Evan. Three words.
Are you okay?
Polite. Careful. PR-proof. I gazed at the screen until the letters lost shape.
Because that message was the clean version, the safe version, the version he could send without admitting anything.
Without saying he'd followed me into the hall, without saying he'd come after me shirtless with my name still in his mouth, without saying he had wanted to ruin me back, or that he heard the love in my song, or that he was tired of pretending we weren't real.
It wasn't the message I wanted. Maybe that was unfair. Maybe it was the only message he could send after I'd walked away. Maybe I had trained him to be careful, only to punish him every time he did it.
I hated that thought so much I almost threw my phone again.
My thumb hovered over the reply bar. I could type something sharp, something witty, something that made me feel in control for six seconds before the internet chewed it into confetti. I could type the truth.
No. No, I am not okay. No, because I wanted you to chase me and hated you for doing it.
No, because everyone is watching and somehow I still feel alone.
No, because I'm scared that linked to you is all anyone will ever see, and I'm more scared that if I cut the link, I'll spend the rest of my life hearing the silence.
I typed: I'm fine.
Deleted it.
Typed: Are you?
Deleted that too.
My phone buzzed from another tag before I could decide. A new post, another edit, this one with the hallway shot frozen on my face, eyes wide in the flash.
Caption: She wanted him private until the world caught them anyway.
My chest went hot. Not heartbreak this time. Panic, rage, shame, all of it tangled tight enough to hurt.
I backed out of the message thread. Opened his contact. My thumb hovered.
But I wasn't okay. And he didn't get to know that yet.
I blocked his number.
The room did not change. The internet did not disappear. My hands did not stop shaking.
But the quiet that followed was mine.
For now.