33. Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Three
Lila
The first time I actually heard the hashtag out loud, it slipped from a security guy's mouth before he even realized he'd said it.
He was parked at the end of the hallway outside catering, scanning badges with one hand and scrolling his phone with the other, the universal sign of someone whose job is boring right up until it explodes.
"Man," he muttered, "#EvanWalkerTruth is everywhere."
I froze with my coffee midway to my mouth.
Grant, standing next to me, raised his eyebrows in that way that said ah, finally. He didn't say a word. He didn't need to. His face did all the talking.
Crew moved around us, business as usual. Someone bumped my shoulder with a tray and tossed out an apology but without even glancing up. A stagehand cackled at his phone. The tour machine rolled on, loud and completely uninterested in my impending meltdown.
I looked at the security guy. "What did you say?"
He looked up, startled to realize he had spoken out loud. "Oh. Sorry. Evan's on that podcast. The big one."
My stomach dropped. "Which one?"
He named it.
A major show with real reach. The kind of platform that turned sound bites into headlines within minutes. The kind of host who asked questions like they were doing you a favor by putting a knife to your throat.
My grip tightened around my coffee cup.
"You didn't know," Grant said.
"No," I said, too fast.
Grant watched me for a beat, then glanced down the hallway. "You want to get out of this corridor?"
I nodded once.
We moved fast, cutting through a service hallway that smelled like cleaning spray and old paint. The venue around us buzzed with pre-show energy. Someone rolled a road case past. A production assistant rushed by with a clipboard and a panicked look.
Grant guided me into my dressing room without making it feel like he was escorting a hostage. He shut the door behind us.
"Why would he do a podcast?" I asked.
Grant didn't answer right away. He walked to the mini fridge, grabbed a bottle of water, and handed it to me. I took it automatically.
"Because he's trying to stop the narrative from being written for him," Grant said.
My mouth went dry. "About what?"
"About you."
My stomach flipped, hot and cold. "We haven't spoken in two weeks."
"I know."
"He shouldn't be talking about me."
Grant's mouth tightened. "He shouldn't be talking for you."
"That's what I mean."
Grant lifted both hands, palms out. "Breathe. He's not claiming you."
"How do you know?"
"Because I know him. Because his team knows better. Because he's been coached into the ground." His expression went dry as dust. "And because he actually listened for once."
The word hit my ribs. Listened.
I thunked my coffee onto the table a little too hard. The lid popped up in protest, like even my caffeine was judging me.
My phone was in my hoodie pocket. My hand moved toward it before I could stop myself.
Grant watched me, then nodded. "If you're going to watch, watch in here. Alone, if you want. Or I can sit in silence and glare at the wall. Your call."
"I want to be alone."
Grant nodded without offense. "Okay. Text me if you need me."
He moved to the door, then paused. "One more thing."
I looked up, pulse still racing.
"He's being careful," Grant said. "He's telling the truth. It's still going to hit hard."
"Great."
His mouth twitched without humor. "Yeah."
He left. The door clicked shut.
I stood in the middle of the room, every muscle tight, my phone suddenly weighing a thousand pounds in my pocket. The dressing room smelled like my perfume, stale makeup wipes, and that cheap air freshener someone sprayed to convince us this wasn't just a storage closet with delusions of grandeur.
I pulled my phone out.
#EvanWalkerTruth was already trending, sitting at the top of the app like a warning. My thumb hovered over a clip.
I didn't want to watch. Obviously, I also couldn't not watch. Welcome to my specialty: self-inflicted emotional torture.
I tapped.
The video loaded. Evan's face filled my screen, framed in the clean lighting of a podcast studio. He wore a plain black shirt, no jewelry, no stage look. His hair was messier than usual, like he hadn't cared enough to fix it. He looked tired.
The host sat across from him, wearing the casual confidence that comes when you know you can ask anything and still call it conversation. A microphone stood between them, heavy and expensive. Headphones wrapped around Evan's ears. His eyes were focused.
The host leaned forward slightly. "Okay. I'm going to ask the question everyone wants."
My fingers tightened around the phone.
Evan nodded once, like he had expected it.
The host said my name. Not like a person. Like a topic.
"You and Lila," the host continued. "What is it? Were you together?"
The room around me narrowed to the screen in my hand.
Evan didn't smile, didn't dodge, didn't do the coy famous-person dance. "Yes," he said. "We were together."
The words landed in my chest, heavy and sharp, like someone had dropped a dumbbell on my heart.
The host lifted his brows, pleased. "So it's true."
"It's true."
My mouth went dry. He didn't make it sound juicy or adorable. He said it as if the words were breakable, as if he were holding both our hearts in his hands and trying not to drop either one.
The host pushed. "Okay, so what happened? Why did it blow up on tour?"
Evan's mouth moved once, humorless. "Because I handled it badly."
"Badly how?"
Evan looked down for half a second. When he looked up, his face had changed. Not softened. Stripped down.
"I was territorial," he said. "Possessive. I tried to control the narrative because I was scared."
The words were already appearing in captions across the bottom of the clip, white text with little emphasis emojis someone else had added, because nothing could just exist anymore.
He continued, "I thought if I could manage how people saw her, I could keep her safe. I was wrong."
I went completely still. I'd read a version of this in some interview, but hearing it in his voice made it heavier, like it was pressing down on my ribs. Suddenly, hating him felt a lot harder.
The host nodded as if he was collecting confession points. "You wrote songs about her."
"Yes."
"How many?"
Evan's jaw flexed. "Enough."
The host laughed. "Come on. Give us one."
"No."
The host blinked, thrown.
"That's her story too," Evan said. "I'm not turning it into content."
My throat locked.
The room went fuzzy around the edges, like my brain was trying to protect me with a soft-focus filter.
The host recovered fast. "Okay. Fair. But you loved her."
Evan held still. "I did," he said. "I do."
The phone slipped lower in my hand.
For one stupid second, I hated him. Not because he said it. Because he said it without trying to take anything from me.
The host's mouth curved like he had landed a viral clip. "And you still… what? Want her back?"
Evan took a breath. His hands rested on his knees, fingers still.
"I want what's best for her," he said.
The host scoffed. "That's politician talk."
"It's not." Evan's gaze sharpened. "It's the truth."
The host leaned back, studying him. "Okay. Then tell me the truth."
Evan's shoulders lifted with one measured breath.
"I loved her so much," he said, "that I tried to make her world smaller so I could fit."
I dropped the phone into my lap as if the words had heat.
The clip kept playing. I stared at nothing, every sound in the room suddenly too loud: the buzzing mirror lights, the faint thud from the hallway, my own ridiculous pulse.
He said it. He said the thing I had feared. Not as romance, not as proof that his love was special enough to justify the damage. As an admission.
I picked the phone back up.
Evan was still speaking. "I took up space," he said. "I made everything loud. I thought big gestures meant big love. I didn't understand that what she needed was room."
The host's face shifted, suddenly more serious because the sound bite had depth.
Evan's gaze stayed forward. "I'm learning love means championing expansion. Not managing it."
I pressed my fist to my mouth.
The clip jumped to another section, probably cut by someone online.
"So where does that leave you two?" the host asked. "Are you together now?"
"No," Evan said. "We haven't spoken in two weeks."
The host's brows lifted. "So you're single."
"This isn't about my relationship status," Evan said. "This is about me owning what I did."
The host leaned forward again. "But she's trending. Her song is viral. She's getting tour offers. You know people are going to frame it as she used you."
Something sharp flashed in Evan's eyes. He didn't raise his voice or snap. He chose his words like he was holding a glass too full to spill.
"She didn't use me," Evan said. "She built herself. She was great before me. I didn't make her. I just finally heard her."
The memo line. He said it again. In public. Where it mattered.
The host blinked, momentarily disarmed. "Okay. That's… rare."
"It shouldn't be," Evan said.
The clip ended.
The app tried to auto-play the next one, a remix with captions and dramatic music. I slammed my thumb against the screen and shut it off.
My hands shook. I stared at the blank lock screen until my vision blurred and tears spilled, hot and embarrassing.
Ugly crying was not cute crying. It was snot and hiccups, and that sound your body makes when it stops holding the line and collapses in the least marketable way possible.
I pressed my fist to my mouth, trying to keep it quiet because the hallway outside my dressing room was thin, people were curious, and I refused to become a spectacle again.