Prologue
They're wrong.
You fall in love a thousand times with the same person, every time they smile at you, every time they choose someone else.
I learned that the hard way.
My name is Lielle Ford, and for as long as I can remember, Luca Taylor has been a part of my life. Before the cameras, before the fame, before strangers on the internet thought they knew our story, there was just us. Two kids who grew up together, sharing secrets and dreams under the quiet skies of our small town.
He was my best friend.
My person.
The boy who showed up when everything else fell apart.
When my parents' marriage shattered and the house felt too quiet, Luca was the one climbing through my bedroom window at two in the morning with a bag of snacks and a stupid joke that made me laugh when I thought I never would again.
When my prom date dumped me hours before the dance, Luca left his own date standing on the dance floor and came to get me instead.
When I started designing dresses in the corner of my bedroom, convinced no one would ever care about the things I made with my hands, Luca sat beside me with a camera and told me the world would.
He believed in me long before anyone else did.
Long before the followers and the flashing lights and the interviews that came with reality television.
Before the world knew our names.
Back then, people used to joke about us.
They'd smile knowingly and say we were inevitable. That one day we'd wake up and realize we'd been in love all along.
I used to laugh when they said that.
Because loving Luca Taylor never felt inevitable.
It felt impossible.
Somewhere between late-night conversations and years of knowing every version of him, the reckless one, the charming one, the boy who could make an entire room laugh without even trying, I realized something that terrified me.
I wasn't just his best friend anymore.
I was the girl who loved him.
And Luca?
Luca never loved just one girl.
He loved the thrill of something new. The excitement of someone different. The kind of love that burned bright for a moment before disappearing just as quickly.
Girls came and went from his life like seasons.
Blonde girls, mostly.
Beautiful girls.
Girls who were never me.
And every time he introduced me to someone new, he'd throw his arm around my shoulders and say the same words with that careless grin.
"This is Lielle. She's basically my sister."
I'd laugh.
Pretend it didn't hurt.
Pretend that hearing him say those words didn't feel like watching every hope I'd ever had quietly fall apart.
Because how do you tell your best friend that loving them is slowly destroying you?
How do you risk losing the one person who has always been there?
So I kept the secret.
For years.
Through heartbreaks and mistakes and the strange, messy world that came with becoming famous overnight.
Through every moment when the line between friendship and something else blurred just enough to make me wonder if maybe, just maybe, he felt it too.
But the truth about loving someone like Luca Taylor is simple.
You spend your whole life hoping that one day they'll finally see you.
And sometimes...
they do.
Just not before they break your heart first.
And that's the cruelest part of all.
Because by the time Luca Taylor realized he loved me back....
It was already too late.
After all,
I loved him first.
