Chapter 161 Two Girls, Two Storms
Chapter 161 Two Girls, Two Storms
Mila’s POV
By Friday afternoon, the campus felt too loud.
Not hostile, not cruel — just loud. The loudness that made my nerves buzz under my skin, like every voice and every footstep was happening too close. I’d spent the whole week pretending I was fine, pretending the gala hadn’t carved something open inside me, pretending I hadn’t woken up on the floor in the middle of the night with no memory of getting there.
Pretending I wasn’t unraveling.
So when Eliza texted me — Done with my first week. Coffee? — I said yes before I could think.
I needed her.
Not the elite world. Not the penthouse. Not the Salvatore name. Just Eliza Jones, the girl who used to sit on my couch eating cereal straight from the box while we watched trash TV and complained about boys who didn’t deserve us.
I met her at a small café off campus, the kind with mismatched chairs and chalkboard menus and a barista who looked like he’d been awake for forty‑eight hours straight. The place smelled like cinnamon and burnt espresso. It was perfect.
Eliza was already there, tucked into a corner booth with her backpack beside her and a half‑finished iced latte sweating on the table. She looked… different. Not in a dramatic way. Just softer. Calmer. Like she’d stepped out of a storm and was still deciding whether she missed the chaos.
Her phone was face down on the table.
That alone told me everything.
She spotted me and broke into a smile — a real one, not the brittle kind she’d been wearing for weeks. “Mila!”
I slid into the booth across from her. “Hey. How was your first week?”
She let out a breath that sounded like relief. “Normal.”
The word hung between us like a fragile thing.
Normal.
Something neither of us had touched in months.
She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, her fingers lingering there for a moment. “I forgot what it felt like. Sitting in a classroom where nobody cares who you’re dating or what your last name is or whether you’re on some stupid list.”
I smiled softly. “Elementary Ed?”
She nodded. “Yeah. I love it. I didn’t think I would, but… I do. The professor is this older woman who wears cardigans with cat patterns and tells us stories about her grandkids. And the other students are just—” She shrugged. “People. Regular people.”
Her voice warmed as she spoke, her shoulders relaxing, her posture loosening. She looked like herself again. Or at least like the version of herself she’d been before Gavin Hollis walked into her life with his perfect smile and his perfect lies and his perfect ability to make her feel like she was the only girl in the room.
Until she wasn’t.
I hesitated before asking, “Have you heard from him?”
Her expression didn’t crack. It didn’t crumble. It didn’t even flicker.
“No.”
She reached for her phone, thumb brushing the edge of the case. Then she flipped it over, unlocked it, and opened her messages.
The thread with Gavin was still pinned at the top.
She stared at it for a long moment.
Then she pressed her thumb to the screen and held it.
A small pop‑up appeared.
Delete conversation?
Her jaw tightened.
She didn’t look at me.
She didn’t breathe.
She just pressed Delete.
The thread vanished.
She exhaled slowly, her shoulders dropping. “There,” she said quietly. “Buried.”
My chest tightened. “Eliza…”
“I’m done,” she said, her voice steady. “I’m done waiting for him to grow up. I’m done pretending he’s going to choose me. I’m done checking my phone like an idiot every time it buzzes.”
She took a sip of her latte, her hands trembling just slightly. “I don’t want to be the girl who gets crumbs. I want to be the girl who gets the whole damn cake.”
I laughed softly. “You deserve the whole bakery.”
She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. Not fully. Not yet.
She leaned back in the booth, tapping her nails lightly against the plastic cup. “You know what the weirdest part is? I don’t even think he meant to hurt me. Gavin doesn’t think that far ahead. He just… does things. He wants something; he reaches for it. He gets bored, he reaches for something else.”
I swallowed. “He shouldn’t have reached for you if he wasn’t ready.”
“No,” she said. “He shouldn’t have reached for me at all.”
Silence settled between us, soft and heavy. The café hummed around us — milk frothing, chairs scraping, someone laughing too loudly near the counter. But Eliza seemed removed from the noise, tucked inside her own quiet bubble of grief and sudden clarity.
She looked at me suddenly. “How are you?”
The question hit harder than I expected.
“I’m…” I started, then stopped. “I don’t know.”
Her brow furrowed. “What happened at the gala? You never texted me back.”
I looked down at my hands. “Nate made a speech.”
“A speech?”
“A declaration.”
Her eyes widened. “About you?”
I nodded.
She leaned forward. “Mila, that’s—”
“Terrifying,” I whispered.
She blinked. “Terrifying?”
“I didn’t ask him to do it. I didn’t even know he was going to. He just… stood on that stage and told the entire elite world that I wasn’t a charity case. That I wasn’t a rumor. That I was his partner.”
Eliza’s mouth fell open. “Holy—”
“Yeah.”
She stared at me for a long moment. “How do you feel?”
I swallowed hard. “Like I’m disappearing.”
Her expression softened instantly. “Mila…”
“I woke up last night sitting on the floor by the window,” I said quietly. “I don’t remember getting up. I don’t remember walking there. I don’t remember anything.”
Eliza’s eyes filled with worry. “Are you okay?”
“I don’t know.”
She reached across the table and took my hand. Her grip was warm, steady, familiar. “You’re allowed to be overwhelmed. You’re allowed to be scared. You’re allowed to be unsure of how to feel.”
I nodded, my throat tight.
She squeezed my hand again. “You’re not disappearing. You’re just… tired.”
I let out a shaky breath. “Maybe.”
She smiled softly. “Definitely.”
We sat there for a long time, our drinks melting, our hands still linked across the table. Two girls trying to stitch themselves back together after being torn apart by the same world — one by love, one by fear.
Eliza looked out the window, watching a group of students cross the street. “I want my life back,” she said quietly. “Not the one Gavin touched. The one before.”
I followed her gaze. “Then let’s take it back.”
She looked at me, her eyes brightening just a little. “Together?”
“Always.”
She smiled — a real one this time.
And for the first time all week, I felt something inside me steady.
Not healed.
Not fixed.
Just… steady.
A beginning.