32. Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Two
Evan
The publicist wanted safe. Like, bubble-wrap-every-feeling-and-don't-touch-the-glass kind of safe.
Safe looked like a gray room, bottled water sweating on the table, and a sad little list of phrases printed in twelve-point font, as if Helvetica could save me.
Respect her privacy. Intense time. Creative collaboration. We both care deeply about the work.
I sat in the back of the SUV with the page balanced on my knee, reading the approved answers while the city slid by outside the tinted window. Every sentence tasted like cardboard.
Across from me, Marcie tapped at her phone, her red nails sharp enough to open mail, boxes, or maybe a minor artery if you annoyed her before coffee.
"You do not need to confess anything," she said without looking up. "You do not need to define the relationship. You do not need to explain the hallway, the duet, the stage walk-off, the recording session, or whatever happened in the booth."
Miles, sitting beside me because apparently I required emotional supervision from a drummer in sunglasses, snorted. "That's a suspicious number of things not to explain."
Marcie ignored him. "You say it was a difficult, emotional few weeks. You say you respect Lila as an artist. You say you're focused on the tour."
I looked down at the paper again. Respect Lila as an artist. Technically true, but so limp I wanted to crumple it up and toss it out the window, let a passing taxi run it over for good measure.
"She deserves more than that," I said.
Marcie finally looked up. "She deserves not to have you make this worse."
"Those aren't the same thing."
"No, but today they're neighbors."
Miles leaned forward, elbows on knees. "She has a point."
I turned my head toward him. "You're taking Marcie's side?"
"I'm taking the side of you not lighting yourself on fire while holding a microphone."
"Coward."
"Alive coward."
The SUV hit a pothole. The paper slid off my knee and landed facedown on the floor, like even it was embarrassed to be seen. I left it there.
Marcie's eyes narrowed. "Evan."
"What?"
"You need the safe answers."
"No, I need the true ones."
"You need both." She leaned closer. "This host is not your friend. He's good at smiling while cutting people open. He'll ask about Lila. He'll ask if you were together. He'll ask if she used you. He'll ask how many songs you wrote about her because he knows it'll clip well."
My jaw tightened.
There it was. The reason I'd agreed to the damn thing. Not because I wanted to talk about Lila, not because I wanted to feed the internet. Because they were already feeding themselves.
Every headline had her name shoved against mine like a claim of ownership. Every comment thread had a theory. Every fan account had a timeline with arrows, captions, and slow-motion clips of her face as she walked offstage.
And now that "Rewrite Me" was blowing up on its own, the narrative had started to curdle. She used him. She needed his drama to go viral. She got her career from him.
That last one made me slam my laptop shut so hard I cracked the screen in the corner. It still worked because, of course, it did. Technology only fails you when you want an excuse.
"She didn't use me," I said.
Marcie sighed. "Then say that."
"I plan to."
"Without sounding like you're in the final act of a tragic rock opera?"
Miles raised one finger. "To be fair, that is his baseline setting."
I ignored him. "I'm not going to sit there and let them turn her work into a footnote."
"Good," Marcie said. "Say that. Calmly. Briefly. Then stop talking."
"Have we met?" Miles asked.
Marcie pointed at him. "You're not helping."
"I am absolutely helping. I'm lowering expectations."
My phone buzzed. Not Lila. Of course not.
We hadn't spoken in two weeks. Fourteen days of not texting her, not calling, not walking down hallways where I knew she'd be, not asking Grant if she'd eaten when I already knew he would tell me to stop being weird and let her live.
Fourteen days of learning that restraint doesn't get easier with practice. It just gets quieter, like a song you can't stop humming under your breath.
The message was from Grant.
Don't make her responsible for your feelings.
I stared at it. Then another bubble appeared.
And don't say anything private. Accountability only. No bait. No lyrics. No "our story."
I typed back: You think I don't know that?
His response came immediately. I think you know it and still need supervision.
Fair. Rude, but fair.
I locked the phone and looked out the window.
Fans were already gathered outside the podcast studio when we pulled up. Not a stadium crowd, not even a venue-sized crowd. Maybe thirty people behind a low barricade, holding phones and coffee cups, wearing hoodies with my lyrics on them.
My lyrics. Some of them about Lila. Songs I had written because silence had nowhere else to go.
A girl near the front held a sign that said: TELL US ABOUT LILA.
My stomach did a slow, queasy somersault.
Marcie saw it too. "Do not react."
"I'm not."
"You made a face."
"I have a face."
"Unfortunately, yes."
Miles clapped a hand on my shoulder before the door opened. "Say the truth. Don't make it a proposal. Don't start a fight with a podcaster unless it's funny."
"That's your professional advice?"
"My professional advice is never date anyone with internet access, but that train exploded years ago."
The door opened.
Noise hit. Phones lifted. People shouted my name, then Lila's. The sign bounced above the crowd, bright marker ink on poster board. I kept my eyes forward, one foot in front of the other.
Security moved around me. Marcie walked ahead, all blade and blazer. Miles stayed to my left until we hit the studio entrance, then peeled off toward the greenroom with a salute that made him look like an idiot. Comforting, somehow.
Inside, the studio smelled like coffee, expensive equipment, and someone's cologne that was working overtime to impress the microphones.
The host met me near the greenroom door. Dane Mercer. Big podcast, bigger ego. The kind of man who wore sneakers worth more than my first car and called it humility.
"Evan." He grinned, hand out. "Appreciate you coming in."
I shook his hand. "Thanks for having me."
His grip held a second too long. Friendly dominance. Podcast bro handshake theater.
"I'll be honest," he said. "This is going to be huge."
"That's not why I'm here."
His smile widened. "Sure."
Marcie's eyes cut toward me. Behave.
I smiled. Barely.
Dane gestured toward the studio. "We'll keep it respectful. But people want answers."
"People always want answers."
"Comes with the job."
"No," I said. "Music comes with the job. People thinking they own your private life is the tax."
Dane laughed like I'd made a joke. I hadn't.
Marcie stepped in smoothly. "Evan is happy to speak about the tour, the soundtrack, and recent public conversation. Private details are off-limits."
Dane held up both hands. "Of course."
He was lying. Everyone knew.
We went into the studio. Two microphones, two chairs, cameras angled for clips. A producer behind glass. A screen with live levels moving in little green bars. My water bottle sat beside the mic, its label turned away. Professional, clean, nothing like backstage.
Nothing like the booth with Lila, where truth had sounded too big for the foam walls, and I had wondered if the mics were still recording.
I sat. Headphones on. Hands on knees.
Marcie stood off-camera, arms crossed. Miles hovered near the back wall, eating a protein bar he had definitely stolen from catering.
Dane settled across from me and leaned toward the mic.
The red light came on.
"Welcome back," he said, smooth as oil. "Today we've got Evan Walker in the studio. Arcadia Drive frontman, soundtrack king, current internet obsession, and apparently the man at the center of one of the messiest tours happening right now."
I stared at him. He smiled.
"Good to be here," I said. Safe. Fine.
We did five minutes on the tour. Cities, new arrangements, the soundtrack. Dane asked the normal questions first, like someone tapping the brakes before driving straight into a wall. I answered. Not badly, not well, mostly with my body in the chair and my brain counting ceiling tiles.
Then he leaned forward.
"Okay," he said. "I'm going to ask the question everyone wants."
Marcie shifted off-camera.
Dane said Lila's name. My fingers pressed into my knees. Not too hard. Enough.
"You and Lila," he continued. "What is it? Were you together?"
The safe page had an answer for this. Lila and I have known each other a long time. I respect her deeply. It sat on my tongue for half a second. Rotten.
"Yes," I said. "We were together."
Off-camera, Marcie went still.
Dane's brows lifted, pleased. "So it's true."
"It's true."
The words landed in the studio quietly. Just one sentence I should have had the courage to say years ago, delivered into a microphone worth more than my old apartment's rent.
Dane leaned closer. "Okay, so what happened? Why did it blow up on tour?"
I could have said the internet blew it up. Could have said stress, pressure, complicated history. Safe answers, lined up like little cowards.
"Because I handled it badly," I said.
Dane's smile sharpened. "Badly how?"
I looked at the mic, not the camera. The mic was easier.
"I was territorial." The word tasted like metal. Good. "Possessive. I tried to control the narrative because I was scared."
Marcie made the tiniest movement in the corner of my eye. I kept going.
"I thought if I could manage how people saw her, I could keep her safe. Or keep us safe. Maybe both. I was wrong."
Dane nodded slowly, sensing blood but trying to look profound. "That's a big admission."
"It should be."
"You wrote songs about her."
"Yes."
"How many?"
"Enough."
He laughed. "Come on. Give us one."
"No."