31. Chapter Thirty-One #2
"I'm learning that love doesn't mean ownership," he said. "And if my fear makes me act out, that fear is mine to manage."
I stared at the screen until the text blurred.
Grant watched me carefully. "He said the right thing."
"He did."
"He fought his team on that. They wanted to soften it."
"Of course they did."
"He refused."
I looked down at the quote again. Territorial. Possessive. Control. He named it as his problem, not mine.
"It doesn't fix it," I said.
"No," Grant agreed. "But it's a step."
Two weeks, no contact, and he still chose accountability. It made my chest ache in a way I didn't want.
I locked my phone and set it face down in my lap, as if that would keep the words from crawling into my ribs.
We pulled into the venue's back lot. The tour machine was already in motion. Buses lined up, crew unloaded road cases, security scanned badges.
Grant touched my shoulder once, brief and steady. "Today, you keep your head on. You do your job. You let your song be viral without you becoming viral."
I nodded. "Okay."
He opened the door for me. I stepped out into the cold and followed the familiar path toward the artist entrance.
Backstage was louder today, not in sound but in energy. People talked faster. Heads turned slightly when I passed. Phones stayed in pockets, but curiosity didn't need a screen.
I kept my posture steady and my face neutral.
In my dressing room, I shut the door and leaned against it for half a second.
My phone buzzed again. A message from a number I didn't recognize.
Hi Lila, this is Marcy with Westgate Promotions. We'd love to talk about a headline run for you this summer. Are you available for a call today?
My chest tightened. This was real.
I stared at the message until my fingers stopped shaking, then typed back: Yes. After show. I hit send before I could overthink it, then set my phone down and pressed my palms to my cheeks, grounding myself. The room felt warm, the mirror lights buzzing softly.
A knock came.
"Lila?" a young voice called through the door.
I frowned and opened it a crack.
Nico stood in the hallway holding a guitar case that looked too big for him. His hair stuck up in a way that made me think he had slept in a hoodie and called it a lifestyle choice. He was one of the younger crew runners, always around, always trying to help, always pretending he wasn't starstruck.
"Hey," he said, eyes wide. "Do you have a second?"
"For you, yes. For the world, no."
He laughed nervously. "Fair."
"What's up?"
He shifted his grip on the case. "Talent show."
I blinked. "What talent show?"
"The crew talent show. It's a thing. Every tour. They do it on the last night; it's dumb, it's fun, it raises money for the crew fund. I signed up."
My brows lifted. "You sing?"
He winced. "I try."
"Okay. And?"
He took a breath. "I heard you're… you know. Viral." My stomach tightened. "And you wrote that song," he rushed. "And you're… you."
I stared at him, waiting.
He swallowed. "Will you help me? With my song. For the talent show."
The request hit me in a place I didn't expect, because it wasn't about Evan, wasn't about headlines, wasn't about drama. It was about someone asking me for what I actually did.
"I can," I said. "What are you doing?"
Nico lifted the case slightly. "Original. I wrote it. It's not good."
My mouth twitched. "If you wrote it, it's already something."
He blinked at me. "That's a nice way to say it's terrible."
"It's a nice way to say writing is brave."
His shoulders relaxed a fraction. "So you'll help?"
"Yes. But you have to accept that I'll be honest."
He nodded fast. "Please."
I stepped into the hallway and glanced around. The corridor was clear, no press, no staff hovering. Just the hum of the venue. "Come in."
Nico followed me into the room, careful with the guitar case as if it might explode. He set it on the couch and looked around, eyes catching on the mirror, the lights, the water bottles, the schedule taped to the wall.
"You live in here," he said, half awe, half horror.
"I haunt it."
Nico laughed, then opened the case. The guitar inside was scratched and loved. He pulled it out with nervous reverence.
"What's the song about?" I asked, sitting on the edge of the chair by the mirror.
Nico hesitated. "My mom."
Everything in me quieted. "Okay," I said.
He swallowed. "She passed last year. I started working tours because I didn't want to be home. It was too quiet."
The honesty landed heavy. I nodded. "Play it."
Nico perched on the couch, fingers trembling slightly on the strings. He started to play.
The melody was simple. The lyrics were raw, not polished, not clever in the way people tried to be when writing for others. It was honest. His voice shook on the first verse, then steadied when he stopped trying to impress an imaginary crowd and just sang.
When he finished, he glanced up at me, eyes nervous. "So. It's bad."
I shook my head. "It's not bad."
"It's not?"
"It needs structure. It needs a stronger hook. You're getting lost in the middle, repeating the same emotional beat, and you don't have to. You already landed the pain."
Nico grimaced. "That sounds like it's bad."
"That sounds like you wrote something worth editing."
His shoulders dropped, relief flooding his face. "Okay."
I stood and moved toward him, careful not to crowd. "Play the chorus again."
He did. I listened, then started to hum a harmony line under it.
Nico's eyes widened. "You can do that?"
"I can. So can you."
"I can't."
"You can," I said. "You're already doing the hardest part. You're telling the truth."
Nico stared at the guitar. "I don't want it to be embarrassing."
"It won't be. And even if you feel exposed, that doesn't mean you're wrong."
He looked up. "You're good at this."
The words hit me unexpectedly because mentoring someone else meant I had to hold my own confidence without fear of being swallowed up. It meant I could build someone up without shrinking myself. I didn't have to disappear for him to shine. His shine didn't erase mine.
I sat on the couch across from him, leaning forward. "Okay. Let's fix the middle."
We worked for thirty minutes. I helped him tighten a line, shift a chord, cut a repetition without losing the emotion. Nico listened with the kind of focus that made me remember what it felt like to want something without baggage. He played the revised version and smiled for real.
"That's better," he said.
"It is."
His grin faltered slightly. "How do you do it? How do you write something that makes strangers cry on the internet?"
A laugh bubbled up, and this time it wasn't bitter. "I write something that makes me cry first."
Nico's eyes widened. "Do you cry?"
"Yes," I said. "I cry, I drink too much coffee, I panic, I rewrite, I pretend I'm fine. Normal creative process."
He laughed, then sobered. "Are you okay?"
The question landed gently, no gossip behind it. Just a kid who had watched chaos and cared.
"I'm trying."
Nico nodded. "Okay."
He packed his guitar slowly, then looked up. "Thank you. For helping."
"You're welcome."
He hesitated at the door. "I hope you headline your own tour."
My chest tightened. "You know about that already?"
His cheeks flushed. "Sorry. Grant told someone, and then it spread."
I laughed. "Of course it did."
"It's good news," Nico said. "It should spread."
He left, closing the door behind him.
I stood in the quiet again. The room felt different. Lighter. Not because my life was solved, but because I had done something that had nothing to do with Evan.
I checked my phone again. More TikToks, more tags, more messages. Grant had already forwarded me an email thread with the promoter for the headlining run.
And one new notification. A clip of Evan's interview was circulating, a short video, his face serious, his voice calm.
"I was territorial," he said on-screen. "I was possessive. I tried to control the narrative. That's my problem, not hers."
The comment section was split between people praising him, people dragging him, and people still shipping us because humans loved mess the way raccoons loved unlocked trash cans.
I locked my phone.
Two weeks, no contact, and still I thought about him. I thought about the studio booth. Not every second of it, not enough to drown in. Just the part that mattered now.
We had gotten right to the edge. Then we stopped on purpose. It hadn't been just lust; it had been intimacy with brakes, both of us choosing something better than a relapse even when it hurt.
The memory made my chest ache. I pressed my palm to my sternum and breathed.
I had two options now that belonged only to me.
A headlining run. A major opening slot that was mine alone.
My song was viral before the movie even dropped; people were using it for love, grief, and promises.
Evan was out there owning his mess in public without naming me as the cause.
We were both learning how to stand alone without turning away.
Maybe that was the only version of us that ever had a chance.
I looked at my reflection in the mirror. My eyes still looked tired, my mouth still held tension. But there was something else there too: a steadiness, a sense that my life had a center that wasn't him.
My phone buzzed again. A new email from Westgate Promotions. Subject: Lila Russell Summer Headline Run, Offer Details.
My stomach flipped, this time with clean excitement. I opened it and started to read.
Outside my door, the tour hummed, a constant machine. Inside, my name sat at the top of a contract. And for once, it didn't feel like I had to fight anyone to see it there.