41. Epilogue
Epilogue
Lila
Iused to think love songs were the most dangerous things in the world.
Not knives. Not contracts. Not comment sections, although those were a strong contender and should probably be regulated by a council of stable raccoons with tiny gavels.
Love songs.
Because a love song could take something private and put it under lights.
It could take the worst night of your life and give strangers a chorus.
It could let people cry to your pain in coffee shops, stitch it into breakup edits, tattoo it on their skin, and then ask if the girl who inspired it deserved him.
It could make you famous. It could make you a villain. It could bring him back.
Which was why, naturally, I was lying on my side in a tattoo studio while a woman named Raven pressed a needle against my ribs and permanently etched Evan Walker's beautifully dramatic damage into my skin.
"Hold still," Raven said.
"I am holding still."
"You just flinched."
"That was not a flinch. That was my soul trying to evacuate."
Evan made a sound from the chair beside me.
Not a laugh, exactly. More like he'd tried to swallow one and failed.
I turned my head enough to glare at him, which was a mistake because he looked unfairly good in black jeans, a faded Cursive Crush hoodie, and the kind of expression that said he was one wrong breath away from turning tender in public.
Disgusting. Mine.
"You okay, Twilight?" he asked.
Raven paused. "Twilight?"
"No," I said immediately.
"Yes," Evan said at the same time.
Raven's mouth twitched. "Cute."
"It is not cute. It's manipulative branding."
Evan leaned back in the chair, legs stretched out, boots crossed at the ankle. "You got my lyrics tattooed on your ribs. I feel like I'm allowed one nickname."
"One," I said. "You already used it. Spend carefully."
His smile softened, and there it was, the thing that used to terrify me more than any headline. Evan looking at me like I was the only person in the room. Evan not hiding it. Evan letting the whole world know he was ruined and happy about it.
The studio was small and bright, with framed flash sheets on the walls and a speaker playing some dreamy indie playlist that made everyone sound like they'd been left alone in a forest with a synthesizer and unresolved parent issues.
Harper had picked the place, which meant Raven was terrifyingly cool, deeply competent, and had once tattooed a swear word on a drummer's butt during a snowstorm.
Allegedly.
Finn sat near the front window, filming absolutely nothing while pretending to be useful.
"Do you need water?" he asked.
"I need you to stop looking like you're waiting for me to faint."
"I'm not waiting for you to faint. I'm waiting for Evan to faint."
Evan's brows lifted. "Why would I faint?"
Finn pointed at him with his phone. "Because she's tattooing your lyrics on her body, and you have the stability of a Victorian widow who found a piano in the attic."
"That's specific," Evan said.
"It's your brand."
"He's not wrong," Harper called from the counter, where she was eating chips out of a vending machine bag like she had been invited to a surgical viewing. "You do look like you're about to write a bridge."
Evan ignored them. His eyes stayed on me. That was worse.
The needle dragged over my ribs again, sharp and hot, and I sucked in a breath through my teeth.
The words were small. Delicate. Not the whole chorus. Not even the line everyone knew.
Just three words tucked under my left breast, curved along the place that used to ache every time the song came on.
Say it slow.
The first time I heard that line, I broke on my couch with one guitar string half-replaced and an old note from Evan pressed under my palm.
The first time I heard it live, I cried in the front row while thousands of people sang my goodbye back to me.
The internet zoomed in, dissected my mascara, and turned my heartbreak into lore before I even made it backstage.
For a while, I hated that song. I hated that it existed. I hated that it was beautiful. I hated that he wrote it to hurt and heal and haunt me all at once.
Mostly, I hated that it worked.
Because without "Linger," I might have stayed gone.
Without that stupid, devastating song, Evan and I could have kept circling each other forever, stubborn and bleeding and pretending pride was a personality.
Without it, I might have kept calling fear independence.
He might have kept calling silence respect.
The song forced the wound into the light.
And once it was there, once everyone saw it, I had to decide what belonged to them and what still belonged to me.
So I took it back. One tiny piece of it, anyway.
"There," Raven said. "Done."
I breathed out carefully. "That's it?"
"That's it."
"Great. I survived. Someone alert the media."
Finn raised his phone. "Already drafting the headline. Lila Russell-Walker bravely survives mild discomfort, asks for snacks."
My eyes snapped to him. "That is not my name."
The room went quiet for half a second too long.
Evan's smile disappeared. Not badly. Not in the way that meant hurt or anger. More like all the noise had dropped out of him at once.
Finn's eyes widened. Harper stopped chewing.
Raven, who had the survival instincts of a woman who spent her days stabbing people professionally, focused very hard on organizing ink caps.
I froze.
Because technically, I wasn't Lila Russell-Walker. Technically, I was just Lila Russell.
Publicly, loudly, finally, unmistakably Lila Russell. Singer. Songwriter. Headliner. Grammy nominee, which still felt fake when people said it, like someone had handed me a decorative title at a medieval dinner show.
Girlfriend of Evan Walker. Not secret girlfriend. Not rumored ex. Not mystery muse. Not crying front-row girl from the "Linger" video.
Girlfriend. Partner. Loved, and still myself.
Evan looked at me, and I knew exactly what he was thinking because I had spent years learning all his silences.
I sat up carefully, one hand hovering near the plastic wrap Raven had taped over my new tattoo. "Do not make that face."
"What face?" he asked.
"The face where you're about to be illegal in public."
Finn stood so fast his chair scraped. "I need popcorn."
Harper grabbed his sleeve and yanked him back down. "Sit."
Evan rose from his chair.
My pulse did something stupid. A little flip, a little dive, a full gymnastics routine performed by an anxious squirrel.
"Evan."
He came to me slowly, like I was something skittish. Which was rude because I was only moderately skittish now. Personal growth.
He stopped in front of me and looked down at the tattoo. His throat moved.
"Do you hate it?" I asked.
His gaze lifted to mine. "No."
One word. Rough. Barely there.
Of course the man who wrote devastating bridges for a living lost access to language when it mattered. Typical.
"It's not for you," I said, because apparently my mouth had chosen honesty and bad timing. "Not exactly."
"I know."
"I mean, it is. A little. Obviously. Don't get smug."
"I wouldn't dare."
"You absolutely would."
His mouth twitched.
I touched the edge of the bandage with two fingers. "That song hurt me."
His expression folded around the words. "I know."
"And I know you didn't mean for all of it to happen the way it did. The TikToks and the comments and the theories and the people acting like my mascara was a national emergency."
"It was pretty dramatic mascara."
"Do you want to live?"
"Desperately."
I narrowed my eyes. He smiled, but it was soft at the edges.
I kept going before I lost the nerve.
"It hurt me, but it also brought me back to you.
So I don't want to hate it anymore." I swallowed.
"I don't want to hate any part of how we got here.
Even the ugly parts. Even the stupid bar girl wrist-touching thing, which I still reserve the right to bring up during arguments when I need to win quickly. "
Finn whispered, "Iconic."
Harper elbowed him.
Evan didn't look away from me. "Fair."
"I'm reclaiming it," I said. "That's all."
His eyes dropped to the tattoo again.
Say it slow.
Then he did something that made my heart climb into my throat and set up permanent residence.
He got down on one knee.
In a tattoo studio. Between a glass case of body jewelry and a framed drawing of a possum holding a switchblade.
I stared at him. "No," I said.
His eyebrows lifted.
"I mean, yes. I mean, wait. Are you doing this now?"
"That was the plan."
"This was your plan?"
"Not originally."
"What was the original plan?"
"Beach. Sunset. You wearing something white. Me being much smoother."
"That does sound fake."
"It was very fake." He reached into the pocket of his hoodie. "This is better."
My hand flew to my mouth.
Finn made a sound like a teakettle experiencing spiritual awakening.
Harper whispered, "If you scream, I'm leaving you here."
Evan pulled out a ring box. Small. Black. Velvet. Ridiculous. Terrifying.
The room blurred a little at the edges.
"Lila," he said.
"Nope," I whispered. "Absolutely rude."
He smiled. His eyes were bright.
"The first time I met you, I asked if you wanted to get married because I tripped over a cord and apparently head trauma makes me honest."
A laugh broke out of me, wet and startled.
"You told me I'd already fallen for you," he said. "You were right."
"That was a joke."
"Best joke of my life."
"Low bar. You know Finn."
"Offended," Finn said.
Evan opened the box.
The ring was not what I expected. Not some giant celebrity rock that needed its own security team and a separate seat on commercial flights.
It was beautiful, yes, because Evan Walker had taste when he wasn't dressing like a haunted cigarette, but it was delicate.
A dark oval stone surrounded by tiny diamonds, set in gold, vintage and strange and completely mine.
My breath caught.