“You—” Cherry sputtered. Actually sputtered. Because what? “You have? It is?”
“How do you think I found you?” Lila smiled then, and for the first time, Cherry was struck by how much they actually really did look alike. A sip from her coffee and then Lila asked, “Can I ask you something, though?”
Cherry nodded, not trusting her voice yet.
“What’s the deal with the girlfriend you always referred to but never showed? All mention of her is gone now. Did you guys break up? I mean, I’m not surprised, because I’ve seen you with that blonde at the diner, and if you don’t mind me saying, you two have some off-the-chartschemistry.” She arched one eyebrow as she brought her cup to her lips.
OMG, does my mother think I was cheating?It was a ridiculous thought for so many reasons. So ridiculous that she suddenly burst out laughing. When she pulled herself together, she pointed at Lila. “Okay, first of all, I think I just got a taste of your Disapproving Mom face.”
Lila had the good sense to look sheepish. “Yeah. Noah calls it the arched brow of doom. Force of habit. Sorry about that.”
Cherry felt herself soften. Like, literally, all her muscles relaxed, and she smiled. “It’s okay. No need to apologize. So…” She took a deep breath. “I’m gonna tell you the story. Thewholestory.” And to her own very unexpected surprise, she unloaded all of it. She talked about Alyssa. About Andi. About making up a girlfriend. And mostly, about Ellis. A lot about Ellis. About their date. About how good it was with her. Even about how Ellis wrote the article. And even how Ellis came over, no questions asked, when Cherry had found the letters. How she’d sat with her the entire time she opened and read each one.
“Yikes, she wrote the article?” Lila’s eyes were wide as she asked the question.
“Yeah, that was rough.” Cherry sighed. “At the same time, I never should have kept that from her, so despite what it’s done to me, to us, I can’t really hold her responsible for a mess I helped create. I see that now.”
Lila was quiet for a few minutes and seemed to be searching for the next right thing to say. “Where do things stand with her now?”
“Honestly? I’m not quite sure. She was really supportive when I read all the letters. And it was kind of by unspoken agreement that we didn’t talk about us at that time, so I guess things were kind of left in her court.” A small shrug because she honestly wasn’t sure.
“Do you miss her?”
“God, so much. It’s ridiculous.” She shook her head and stared out the window at the passing traffic. “I haven’t even known her that long. How is it possible to miss somebody you’ve not spent a ton of time with?”
Lila smiled tenderly. “That’s the great mystery of love, isn’t it? Sometimes, you just find your person.” She seemed to stop herself, as if she wanted to say more but thought better of it.
Cherry cleared her throat. “Is…is your husband your person?”
Lila nodded, not elaborating, but the light behind her eyes was clear.
“That’s cool,” Cherry said, nodding. “I’m glad.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” They were quiet for a moment before Cherry studied her empty cup and spoke. “Can I ask you something?”
“Anything.”
“What do you think I should do?” Wow. Now that was a step. A laugh burst out of her as Lila smiled, confused. “Sorry. I just, I literally just asked my long-lost mother for advice on my love life. It’s kinda surreal.”
Lila’s smile blossomed wider. “You did, didn’t you?”
“So much for baby steps, am I right?” She gave a laugh-snort combination that had Lila’s eyes going wide. “What?”
“I make that sound when I laugh sometimes, too.”
They held each other’s gazes for a beat. And Cherry didn’t say the words because, yeah, way too soon for that. But she thought them. They were loud in her head.
Maybe this thing with Lila is going to be okay.
* * *
“This isn’t easy for me to say, so I’m gonna just say it.” Cherry cleared her throat as she looked directly at the camera. Her hair was pulled back off her face in a ponytail. Her cheeks were flushed. She visibly swallowed. “I’ve had some eye-opening realizations lately. They’ve been painful, to say the least. They’ve left me confused and sad and unsure of what to do. But I think I’ve figured it out. If you’re a regular follower of mine, then you know I often refer to my sweetie, my honey, my sugarplum who prefers to stay behind the camera instead of showing up in my photos and videos.” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Here’s the thing, loves. Yes, I posted about her a lot and told you all she was my girlfriend, but…” She hesitated for a beat, swallowed again. “That’s not true. It was never true. There is no sweetie, honey, sugarplum. I made her up because I thought that’s what you wanted to see. A happy, cheerful lesbian in a stable, enviable relationship. But that’s not me. Not right now.” She blew out a little breath, just a small puff of air, clearly relieved, then shook her head.“I’m so sorry. I didn’t set out to deceive you, but I won’t try to offer up some weak ass excuse. What I did was wrong. And worse, I messed up somethingreallygood because of it. I had somebody who is nothing short of incredible. And I kept the truth from her. Let me tell you, karma is no joke. She drives abig assbus, and she’s got everybody’s address.” An uncomfortable chuckle. “I am truly, sincerely sorry.”
Ellis hit pause on the TikTok video, shocked by what she’d watched, what she’d heard, feeling like she needed to take a breath. She was really doing this, Cherry was. No. Notdoing. Did. Done. The video was posted several hours ago. She’d really done this. First, she’d talked about how she was going to stop using filters and such. And now she’d admitted to her followers—and anybody else who happened across Cherry on Top—that she’d lied. That she’d deceived them, played them for fools. Surely she was gonna get clobbered. People were notoriously brutal online, especially when they felt like they’d been suckered. Nobody wanted to be made a fool of. Nobody liked that. Especially people who could let you know how pissed off they were by saying mean, hateful things and still stay anonymous. She didn’t want to think about what Cherry’s comments and DMs were going to look like after this. Colorful wouldn’t begin to describe it.
Ellis rubbed her chin with her fingertips as she sat in Michaela’s room, feet propped up on her bed, open laptop on the table next to her. It was hard because Cherry had brought all of this on herself by being deceptive. At the same time, Ellis hated the idea of people coming at her with torches and pitchforks. She wanted to shield her, protect her, keep her safe.
