32. Chapter Thirty-Two #2
That stopped him. For half a second, Dane Mercer looked like a man who'd bitten into a lemon. He didn't know what to do with a clean no. It tasted pretty sweet to me.
I leaned back slightly. "That's her story too. I'm not turning it into content."
Marcie's face shifted. Not relief. Something close.
Miles stopped chewing.
Dane recovered. "Okay. Fair. But you loved her."
I thought of Lila in the studio booth, saying she was afraid of becoming my shadow. I thought of her walking offstage because I had turned proof into a cage. I thought of the text I hadn't sent every night for two weeks.
"I did," I said. "I do."
Dane's mouth curved like he had landed the clip. "And you still… what? Want her back?"
Yes. The answer punched up so fast it almost made me stupid.
Yes, I want her back. Yes, I want her in my bed, my kitchen, my tour bus, my mornings, my worst days, every song I haven't written yet.
Yes, I want to stop walking past her in hallways like a stranger with better cheekbones and worse coping skills.
But wanting her back was not the same thing as loving her right.
"I want what's best for her," I said.
Dane scoffed lightly. "That's politician talk."
My gaze sharpened. "It's not. It's the truth."
"Okay," he said, leaning back. "Then tell me the truth."
I heard Grant's text in my head. Don't make her responsible for your feelings. I heard Lila too. Your feelings have a spotlight. Mine have consequences.
My throat tried to close around the words. I made it open.
"I loved her so much that I tried to make her world smaller so I could fit."
The studio went quiet. Not silent; studios were never silent. There was always a hum, a headphone shift, someone breathing too close to a mic. But the room changed.
Dane stopped smiling.
"I took up space," I said. "I made everything loud. I thought big gestures meant big love. I didn't understand that what she needed was room."
The words didn't feel polished. They felt yanked out by the root, dirt and all, messy and real.
"I'm learning love means championing expansion. Not managing it."
Dane studied me for a second, then pivoted because he was good at his job and possibly allergic to sincerity.
"So where does that leave you two? Are you together now?"
"No," I said. "We haven't spoken in two weeks."
Marcie's eyes cut to mine. Not mad. Measuring.
Dane's brows lifted. "So you're single."
"This isn't about my relationship status," I said. "This is about me owning what I did."
He leaned forward again. "But she's trending. Her song is viral. She's getting tour offers. People are going to frame it as she used you."
There it was. The rot. The headline with teeth.
My hands went still on my knees. I thought of Lila's original master, her name on the credit, her voice in those viral videos soundtracking proposals and grief and people packing up bedrooms after leaving stories that didn't fit them anymore.
I thought of every room she had fought to stand in without being introduced as mine.
"She didn't use me." Each word clean. "She built herself. She was great before me. I didn't make her. I just finally heard her."
The producer behind the glass looked up from his phone.
Dane blinked once. "Okay," he said. "That's… rare."
"It shouldn't be."
The words left me before I could sand them down.
Dane tapped one finger against the table. "There are people who'd say you're taking too much blame."
"Those people don't know what happened."
"And what did happen?"
"No."
Dane paused. "No?"
"I'm not giving you details. I'll talk about my behavior and what I did wrong. I'm not putting her private pain on your show."
His eyes narrowed. Not angry. Interested. "That's a line."
"Yes."
"New for you?"
That almost made me laugh. Miles did laugh, badly disguised as a cough.
I looked down for a second, then back at Dane. "Yeah. Probably."
Dane tilted his head. "You've been famous since you were young. There's a version of this where people say the attention made you messy."
"The attention rewarded the messy," I said. "That's worse."
Marcie's posture changed. Miles stopped pretending not to listen.
"The stage version of me knows how to survive," I said. "He smiles, he flirts, he makes the room feel like it's part of something. That version has saved me more than once."
Dane nodded. "And the other version?"
"The other version has to live with what the stage version leaves behind."
A beat. Too honest, maybe. I didn't take it back.
Dane glanced at his notes. "What would you say to Lila now, if she were listening?"
Every instinct in me tried to reach through that question. Say her name. Make it personal. Make it beautiful. Make it enough.
The camera lens sat beside Dane's shoulder, dark and patient.
I was not going to hand the internet a love letter and call it accountability.
"I'd say it privately," I said.
Dane smiled faintly. "Come on. Not even one line?"
"Respecting someone's privacy is not less romantic because it doesn't trend."
Dane huffed a laugh. "That one's going to trend."
"Probably," I said. "Unfortunately."
For the first time, Dane's laugh seemed real.
We moved on after that, not because he wanted to but because I stopped giving him doors.
He tried the song angle again. I gave him the soundtrack answer, credited Lila first, and said the original master was the reason the duet existed.
He tried to ask if the duet had been recorded in one take because of "unresolved tension.
" I said it was recorded in one take because she was a professional and the song was strong.
He tried to make the stage walk-off dramatic.
I said, "She had every right to leave a moment that stopped feeling like hers. "
Marcie looked at me then. Really looked. Like maybe she was seeing the difference between a man trying to win and a man trying not to make the same mistake twice.
By the time the red light clicked off, my shirt was glued to my back with sweat and nerves.
Dane pulled off his headphones. "That was good."
I removed mine. "Wasn't trying to be good."
"No," he said. "That's why it was."
I didn't know what to do with that, so I stood.
Marcie was already moving toward me, phone in hand, face locked into professional calm. "Well," she said, "your team is going to hate several parts of that."
"Only several?"
"They'll grow."
Miles appeared beside her, protein bar gone. "I liked the part where you did not challenge the host to a duel."
"Low bar."
"And yet historically relevant."
Marcie glanced at her phone. "Clips are already moving."
Of course they were. The internet devours drama.
My stomach tightened. "Which clips?"
"Territorial. Possessive. Her story too. Great before me."
I nodded once. Necessary.
Marcie's thumbs moved across her screen. "Your label wants a follow-up statement."
"No."
"You haven't heard it."
"No."
"Evan."
"I'm not adding polish. I said what I said."
Miles pointed at me. "That sounded dangerously close to emotional maturity."
"Don't spread rumors."
Marcie looked up. "If we don't shape it, they will."
I thought about Lila watching, if she watched. I thought about her face when the world used her pain as raw material.
"Let them clip me," I said. "Not her."
Marcie's expression tightened, then eased by a fraction. "Fine. No statement."
My phone buzzed. Grant.
Saw first clip. You didn't die. Proud-ish.
I typed back: High praise.
Another message came in. If she reaches out, do not sprint.
I stared at it, then typed: I know.
Grant replied with a single skull emoji. Accurate.
Outside the studio, the fans were louder. More people had gathered. Word traveled fast. A guy in a hoodie shouted, "Evan, are you and Lila back together?" I kept walking. A girl near the barricade yelled, "Tell her you love her!"
I got into the SUV and shut the door.
The silence inside felt fake, manufactured by thick glass and expensive weather stripping. Miles climbed in beside me. Marcie took the front seat, already on a call with someone who sounded upset enough to need electrolytes.
I looked at my phone. No message from Lila. That was fine. That was the point.
Turns out, accountability isn't a vending machine. You don't put in a few coins of public honesty and get the girl back with your change.
My phone stayed dark. I leaned my head against the seat and closed my eyes. For once, I hadn't picked the safe answer. Now I just had to survive whatever the true one cost me.