Chapter 51 The day out
The next morning, sunlight poured through the blinds, but Lila barely felt it. Her eyes were heavy, her head aching from a sleepless night. The image of the rose and the note still burned in her mind.
She hadn’t slept. Not even for a minute.
Every time she closed her eyes, she thought she heard footsteps outside her door or imagined a whisper close to her ear.
By the time her alarm went off, she looked like a ghost. She barely recognized herself in the mirror. She had pale skin, her red hair tangled with dark circles bruising the skin beneath her eyes.
She dressed in silence and walked out of the dorm, clutching her notebook tightly against her chest like a shield.
Outside, the campus was coming alive.
Students laughed in clusters. The wind rustled through the trees, carrying the sound of voices and distant music.
Lila kept her head down as she crossed the courtyard, her feet dragging slightly. Every sound made her flinch, footsteps, doors closing, and laughter that came too suddenly.
She didn’t see Damian until his shadow fell across her path.
He stood a few feet away, his gym bag slung over one shoulder, a coffee cup in hand. When he saw her, his expression shifted immediately from his casual look to being alarmed.
“Lila?” He stepped closer. “Are you okay? You look… You didn’t sleep, did you?”
She tried to smile, but it came out weak, fragile. “I’m fine,” she said softly. “I was just working on one of my philosophy projects. I lost track of time.”
Damian’s brows drew together. “You expect me to believe that?”
She shrugged, her voice faint. “It’s better than saying I was scared of the dark.”
He studied her face, the exhaustion in her eyes, the way her fingers trembled slightly as she held her books.
Then he exhaled, shaking his head. “Come on, we’re leaving.”
Her eyes widened. “What?”
“You’re not going to class like this,” he said, already turning toward the parking lot. “You need sunlight. Real food. Normal air. You’re coming with me.”
“Damian, no..”
He turned back, cutting her off with a grin. “No arguing, Lila. You need sunlight.”
She opened her mouth to argue again, but he was already walking ahead, his tone light but his eyes serious. And somehow, she found herself following him.
His car smelled faintly of cologne and peppermint. Music played low, something calm, almost nostalgic.
Lila leaned back against the seat, watching the trees blur past as they drove off campus. The world felt different outside the gates. It was bigger and less suffocating.
Damian drummed his fingers on the steering wheel in rhythm with the music. “You really weren’t planning to sleep, were you?”
She smiled faintly. “I didn’t plan to stay awake either.”
He glanced at her. “Then I guess it’s my job to fix that. I’m taking you somewhere with food that’s not from a vending machine.”
Lila raised an eyebrow. “You’re skipping practice for me?”
“Let’s call it a mental health break,” he said. “Coach can survive one morning without me.”
She chuckled softly, shaking her head. “You’re going to get in trouble.”
He shrugged, grinning. “Yeah, it's worth it.”
They drove for nearly half an hour before the city opened up with wide streets, storefronts, and a stretch of glass-fronted outlets gleaming under the sunlight.
Damian parked near a small café, stepping out and circling around to open her door.
“Wow,” she said quietly. “You actually opened the door for me?”
He smirked. “Don’t get used to it.”
They walked side by side into the outlet mall, sunlight spilling through the open corridors. The smell of roasted coffee and fresh bread drifted through the air.
For the first time in weeks, Lila felt her chest loosen. People here didn’t know her name. They didn’t whisper. They didn’t stare.
Damian led her into a small boutique lined with scarves and coats. “You need color,” he said, holding up a bright red scarf.
Lila laughed. “Of course you’d pick red.”
“It suits you better than fear,” he said with a grin.
Her laughter caught in her throat but not because of what he said. It was the way he said it, so easily, as if fear were something she could take off like an old coat.
She took the scarf from him and draped it around her neck. In the mirror, the red stood out against her pale skin, bright and alive.
For once, she didn’t look haunted.
Damian whistled. “See? Told you.”
Lila rolled her eyes, but a smile tugged at her lips. “You sound like you’ve done this before.”
“Only for people who need reminding they’re still human.”
That made her laugh again. Her laughter surprised her, it made her shoulders shake just a little.
She turned away quickly, but Damian noticed. He smiled to himself, quietly satisfied.
They spent the next hour wandering through stores. He made her try on ridiculous sunglasses, hats, and even a pair of boots two sizes bigger than her feet.
She found herself laughing at his terrible fashion advice. “You’re worse than a stylist in a reality show,” she said between giggles.
He pressed a hand to his chest in mock offense. “Excuse me, I have taste.”
“Oh yeah? You picked red again.”
“Because it’s you,” he said simply.
Her smile faded slightly, her heart fluttering in her chest. There was something in his tone not flirtation exactly, but something warmer. Something that scared her in a way that felt new.
She turned away, pretending to look at a rack of scarves. “You should get one too. A matching one.”
He laughed. “If I walk into practice wearing that, they’ll think I’ve lost my mind.”
“Maybe you already have,” she said lightly.
After shopping, they stopped for coffee at a small outdoor café. The air smelled of cinnamon and baked sugar.
They sat near the window, the sunlight soft on their faces. For the first time in a long while, Lila felt like she was sitting in a normal moment.
She stirred her coffee absentmindedly. “You know, I forgot what this feels like.”
“What?”
“Just being out. Laughing. Not thinking about anything scary.”
He leaned back, watching her. “You deserve that,” he said. “More than you think.”
She hesitated, then spoke softly. “I don’t talk about my sister much.”
His expression shifted, gentle. “You don’t have to.”
“No, it’s okay,” she said, eyes distant. “Her name was Serena. She was everything I wasn’t. Brave, loud, fun, smart. The kind of person everyone noticed the second she walked into a room.”
Damian said nothing. He just listened, quietly, his coffee untouched.
“She used to take pictures of everything,” Lila continued. “She said life was too short not to document the good parts.” Her voice cracked slightly. “And then one day, the photos just stopped.”
There was a long silence.
Lila blinked away the sting in her eyes and smiled faintly. “Sorry. That got dark.”
Damian shook his head. “Don’t apologize.”
He leaned forward, his voice calm but steady. “You don’t owe me thanks. Or stories. Just live a little. That’s all I want to see you do.”
Lila looked at him for a long moment.
She felt like someone wasn’t pitying her, he was seeing her. And that was the first time for her. Whenever she talked about her sister, she was pitied.
“Okay,” she said softly. “I’ll try.”
He smiled, raising his cup. “To trying.”
She clinked hers against his, her lips curling into a quiet smile. “To trying.”
They left the café two hours later, arms full of shopping bags. Damian carried most of them, pretending to struggle under the weight just to make her laugh.
It worked.
Every joke, every glance it all chipped away at the gray cloud that had followed her for months.
By the time they got back in the car, Lila was actually humming along to the music.
She felt lighter not because her problems were gone, but because, for a brief moment, she wasn’t drowning in them.
Damian glanced at her from the driver’s seat, a small smile tugging at his lips. “You look better.”
She looked out the window, watching the trees fly past. “Maybe I just needed bad coffee and bad fashion advice.”
He laughed. “You needed someone to drag you into the sunlight.”
“Well, I guess so,” she said quietly.
They were halfway back to campus when she noticed the change in his expression.
Damian slowed the car, his smile fading.
“Do you see that?” he asked.
Up ahead, near the gates of the university, flashing lights cut through the dusk blue and red, swirling against the pale sky.
Lila’s heart dropped.
A small crowd had gathered near the entrance. Police tape fluttered in the wind. Officers moved quickly, their faces grim.
Damian parked on the side of the road. Lila pressed her hands to the window, trying to see past the blur of motion.
“What’s going on?” she whispered.
He didn’t answer immediately. His jaw tightened, his hands gripping the steering wheel.
A voice from a nearby student drifted through the air low, urgent and scared.
“Another one,” they said. “Another student’s gone missing.”
Lila’s breath caught.
The sunlight that had filled the day seemed to vanish all at once. The warmth, the laughter, the brief moment of peace were gone.
Damian turned toward her, his eyes dark with concern.
“Lila,” he said quietly, “stay in the car.”
But she was already unbuckling her seatbelt, her pulse hammering in her chest.
Because all she could think about was the rose on her desk, the note that said she looked happy.
And now, someone else was gone.