Page 83 of For My Finale
Blossom’s eyes softened, but she said nothing.
Lilah swallowed hard and forced herself to keep going. “I don’t want to do this without you. I don’t want a life where I keep running because I’m too scared to hold on to something real. I lied before when I said that I was leaving to protect you. I left because I was scared. I know, God, I know, that my life is messy. Maybe the press are always going to care about who I am and where I am. Maybe I can’t disappear. But I’ll do everything in my power to protect you from it. I’ll keep you out of the limelight, make sure they never touch you just—” She blew out a breath, shaking her head. “Just…” But she couldn’t finish.
Blossom’s expression was unreadable. Her hand was still in Lilah’s, warm and soft, but she hadn’t said a word. A sharp, painful fear coiled in Lilah’s stomach.
“I don’t deserve it,” Lilah said, voice hoarse and aching. “I know I ran when I should have stayed. It wasn’t about you. It was about me being a coward.” Her throat tightened. “You know, I’ve spent my whole life thinking I was brave. I was fearless because I could stand in front of a camera. But I was never brave at all, because I was always someone else, someone pretending to be brave. In reality, I was always scared. Scared of being open, of being vulnerable. Scared of actually having to be myself.”
Blossom’s fingers twitched against hers.
Lilah forced herself to meet Blossom’s gaze. “I hate feeling vulnerable. I hate admitting I was wrong. But I can’t… I can’t do this without you. Please. Can you forgive me?”
Blossom’s lips parted slightly, as if she was about to speak.
But before she could, Arty came tearing around the corner. “Blossom, Lilah, there you are. Curtain’s in a minute and a half. The hall is packed. We’re doing this whether you’re ready or not. Places, people.”
Lilah jerked back, blinking as reality crashed over her. For a moment, she’d forgotten where they were, forgotten that there was still a play to perform, still an audience waiting beyond the thin, velvet curtains.
Blossom hesitated, then looked at Lilah. “Are you sure?”
And Lilah didn’t know if she was asking about the play and going onstage, or asking about them and their relationship. Maybe both. But it didn’t matter, the answer was the same.
“Yes,” she said simply.
She turned, took a breath, and stepped onto the stage.
The curtain rose.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Blossom stood in the wings, gripping the wooden frame of the doorway as Lilah took center stage. The air in the packed hall was thick with anticipation, too many people were packed into too small a space, and the energy was electric, humming on her skin. But Blossom’s mind was elsewhere.
Lilah was breathtaking. There was no other way to put it. Even in a borrowed costume hastily adjusted to fit her frame, even with only one rushed rehearsal, she commanded the space as if she’d been born into it, as if she truly was Blanche DuBois.
The audience was hanging on her every movement, on every flicker of emotion that crossed her face. It was only this close that Blossom truly realized the magic of Lilah Paxton.
Except she couldn’t just think of Lilah the actress. She had to think about Lilah, the woman.
Lilah who had made her believe in herself in a way she never had before. Lilah who had supported her crazy dream of opening a bookshop, of turning her ideas into something real. Lilah who had made her feel seen, truly seen, for the first time.
And the Lilah that had left. Left because she thought she was protecting Blossom, whatever else she might say. The Lilah who had known how horrible her world could be and who had thought enough of her to walk away and leave just so thatBlossom could have her quiet life.
It had all been so wrong, being left behind had hurt so much. Yet Blossom couldn’t deny Lilah’s motivations, that mixture of concern and anxiety. The fragility that was underneath the confident projection that Lilah hid behind.
She understood the fear because she felt it herself. Still felt it. Still didn’t really know if she could trust Lilah to stick around, to live with her fear of being vulnerable, being open, being herself.
The scene shifted, Lilah moved to the side of the stage, just off center. Her posture softened, her eyes turned distant. Blossom knew what was coming up. Blanche’s famous monologue about love and loss. And she couldn’t take her eyes off Lilah.
“I loved someone too,” Lilah began. “And the person I loved, I lost.”
Blossom’s breath caught in her throat. “He was a boy, just a boy,” she murmured under her breath, she knew these lines by heart.
But Lilah didn’t speak them.
The practiced cadence of the lines faltered and instead of continuing with Blanche’s grief, Lilah turned, eyes searching, scanning the wings until they landed on Blossom.
Blossom’s heart banged against her ribs. She forgot how to breathe.
“I loved someone too,” Lilah said again. “But I was an idiot. I was scared. I ran away from the one thing that gave my life meaning, because the thought of being myself frightened me so much.”
