**Chapter 24 — Sharon POV**
Days passed and I didn't go To Check on Lana yet the only reason was is because I know her better than no one she need to calm down before talking to her and even like this she will not be fully normal but today was the day that I needed to see her again.
The moment I stepped through Lana's door, I stopped.
The apartment looked like a storm had passed through it and decided to stay.
Shattered glass crunched under my boots — what was left of at least three whisky glasses, maybe four, scattered across the marble floor like a constellation of bad decisions. The velvet throw from her couch was in a heap by the window. One of her framed gold records had been pulled off the wall and was lying face-down on the floor, the glass cracked across the middle. A chair was knocked sideways. An entire shelf of decorative bottles — the expensive kind, the ones Lana collected from her tours — had been swept clean. Just gone. Just debris.
I'd seen Lana angry before. I'd seen her dramatic, loud, impossible.
But this was different.
This was someone who had run out of places to put the pain.
I stepped carefully around the glass and found her on the couch, knees pulled to her chest, wearing an oversized hoodie that I recognized as Jason's from about four years ago. Her blonde hair was unwashed, tangled at the ends. Her eyes were swollen, her mascara long since cried off and replaced with nothing. No face, no performance, no Lana Kensington the Celebrity.
Just Lana.
"Hey," I said softly.
She looked up. "You came."
"Of course I came."
I moved a broken picture frame off the cushion next to her and sat down. Neither of us said anything for a moment. I looked around the room again — really looked — and felt something heavy settle in my chest.
Then Lana laughed.
Not a real laugh. Something higher, looser, like a wire pulled too tight.
"Harold," she said, using her father's name like it tasted bitter, "wants me to enter a psychiatric hospital." She laughed again, that same unhinged sound. "A psychiatric hospital, Sharon. Can you imagine? Lana Kensington, checked in, wristband and all."
I stared at her. "He said that?"
"He said it very calmly, which was somehow worse." She tilted her head back against the couch. "Harold Kensington, always so composed when he's destroying you."
She kept smiling. It didn't reach anything.
I felt a pull in my chest I hadn't expected. Lana had always been the sharp one, the untouchable one, the one who made you feel like she'd never need anything from anyone. Seeing her like this — the apartment in pieces, that hollow laugh — made something in me ache.
"Lana—"
"My fans hate me." Her voice broke on the last word. Just slightly. Then the dam gave.
"My fans hate me." Louder this time, her voice climbing. "My dad hates me. Jason hates me. Everyone—" She pressed her hands over her face and started crying, really crying, the kind that shook her whole body. "Everyone hates me, Sharon. Everyone."
I didn't think. I just moved.
I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her in, and she let me, which told me everything about how broken she actually was. Lana never let anyone hold her. She always held herself together with both hands and a smile.
"I don't hate you," I said. "I don't hate you, Lana. You have me. You've always had me."
She cried harder for another minute, her hands gripping the back of my jacket like she was afraid I'd disappear if she let go. I held on.
Slowly, slowly, the shaking stopped.
She pulled back, wiped her face with her sleeve, and looked at me. Her eyes were red and wet and furious and something else underneath — something that had never quite gone out in her, no matter how bad things got.
"They're going to pay for this," she said. Her voice was quieter now but steadier. "Scarlett. Julia. Both of them." The ghost of a smile moved across her face, slow and sharp. "They're going to bleed for what they did to me. I'll make sure of it."
That smile widened into something that made the back of my neck prickle.
"And honestly?" She laughed softly. "If I'm going to end up in a psychiatric hospital anyway — I should at least make it worth it. Slapping a girl on camera?" She shook her head. "That was nothing. I can do so much better than that."
My blood went cold.
"Lana." I sat up straight, gripping her hand. "Listen to me. You're right that they need to pay — believe me, I feel that more than anyone. But no one is bleeding. No one is going to prison. We are smarter than that."
Lana looked at me for a long moment. Then she let out a small, tired laugh. "Yeah. Yeah, okay, Sharon."
The way she said it told me she was only half convinced. But half was enough for today.
I stood, smoothing down my jacket, glancing around the apartment one more time. "I'll talk to Harold," I said. "I'll do what I can. You are not going to a hospital."
Lana nodded, leaning back into the couch cushions. Something in her face softened — just for a second. "Go," she said. "Didn't you say you had something with Liam today? His birthday?"
I smiled. "I do."
"Go be with your perfect husband, Sharon." She said it without venom. Almost gently.
"I'll call you tomorrow," I told her.
She waved a hand like she was too tired for promises. I took it as agreement.
---
The drive home was quiet. I had the window cracked slightly, the afternoon air cool against my face, Liam's birthday dinner already half-planned in my head. Something simple. Something that felt like us.
I was thinking about candles when I saw his car.
I slowed automatically, frowning. Liam's car, parked in front of Celeste — my favorite jewelry boutique, the one on Rue Claire that I'd pointed to approximately a hundred times over the years with very transparent hints.
I pulled over and cut the engine, a smile already starting.
Through the boutique window, I could see him at the counter. Liam, in his gray coat, leaning slightly forward, his card already out. The woman behind the counter was sliding something toward him in a velvet box — and even from here, through the glass, I could see the flash of blue.
A ring. A big blue diamond ring. Flower-shaped. Exactly the one.
I pressed my hand over my mouth.
He is buying me a gift. On his own birthday.
That man. That ridiculous, wonderful, impossible man.
I whispered to myself, watching him sign the receipt: *That ring is going to look perfect on my hand and I already know it.*
I laughed quietly, shaking my head. I turned before he could look up and spot me — I was not going to ruin this. Tonight he would present it like a surprise and I would act completely, convincingly shocked, and we would both know I was lying and neither of us would say a word about it.
I was almost back to my car when I saw her.
Not far from the boutique entrance. Standing on the edge of the pavement, a cigarette between her fingers, her red curls messier than I remembered.
I stopped.
*Madeleine?*
She looked up — and the moment our eyes met, she dropped the cigarette and turned and walked away fast, cutting across the street without looking back.
"Madeleine!" I called, already moving toward her. "Madeleine, it's me — Sharon — wait—"
But she didn't wait. She didn't slow down. She was gone around the corner before I'd crossed half the distance, and the street swallowed her up like she'd never been there.
I stood on the pavement, bewildered, staring at the spot where she'd been.
*What is wrong with her?*
But then — at least she was alive. At least she was here, somewhere in the city, not missing, not hurt. Marc's messages to her phone had scared me more than I'd admitted. Whatever had happened between them, she was standing and breathing and apparently buying cigarettes, which in my experience was something people only did when they were very stressed or very alive, usually both.
I exhaled.
Then I turned back toward the boutique and looked at Liam's car, still parked there, then at the corner where Madeleine had vanished.
Same street. Almost the exact same spot.
I rolled my eyes at nothing in particular.
*Weird coincidence.*
I walked back to my car, got in, and pulled out into traffic toward home.
Tonight was Liam's birthday. I had a dinner to finish planning and a ring to pretend I'd never seen.
Everything else could wait until tomorrow.