Page 25 of The Love Dare
“And a set full of producers, castmates, cameras, and, oh, I don’t know, ten million at-home viewers is neutral? You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“At least you’ll know the truth. If you tell him next time you’re together and he rejects you, it won’t be final. It’ll be because he needs time to think. Or because he can’t have that conversation with your family in the other room. Or any number of other excuses that could mean he’s trying to let you down easy or could also mean he doesn’t know how to get out of his own way, and you’ll never know which. But if he turns you down in front of an audience of ten million, well, that’s got a finality to it that’s hard to come back from.”
“Yes. Because I will need to dye my hair, wear color contacts, and completely alter my identity like some sort of criminal on the lam to hide from the shame.”
“Maybe,” Sam concedes. “But at least you’ll have an answer.”
“That’s…that’s…” Winnie shakes her head, unable to find the word.
“Genius?”
“Diabolical.”
“Diabolically genius?”
“I’m leaning just diabolical.”
“You haven’t even heard the best part yet.”
“There’s a best part?”
“Yes, because if he doesn’t turn you down, if he tells you to stay, then you get six weeks, all expenses paid, to travel the world together, no cell phones, no family, and no outside factors. There’s no other circumstance in the world where the two of you would get time like this to test things out before going public.”
“Are you forgetting the part where he will be dating thirty other women at the same time?”
“Uldwyna Rusu. I have never known you to cower at the thought of a little healthy competition.”
“I—” Winnie swallows. “I?—”
“You know I’m right.”
Are you?
Winnie squeezes her eyes shut, trying to separate Sam’s uncanny ability to win every argument from the validity of her words. Itwouldbe nice to finally know, after all this time, exactly where she stands. And even if the whole thing ends in her complete mortification, well, it’s not as though that’s something she hasn’t experienced before. She’s twenty-five years old. She’s not that same bullied kid she once was. She’s stronger now. She can handle it. Maybe. Hopefully. Regardless, what’s worse—to have the entire world know her girlhood crush is just that, a childish fantasy? Or to keep living in this doom loop she hasn’t been able to escape for twelve years?
You’re forgetting one minor detail, you idiot. You already know where you stand.
Ugh. Her heart sinks. The memory brims as strong as ever, those words still landing sharp as a dagger.She’s his little sister. I would never do that to him. Never. He trusts me.
One paragraph.
But one paragraph was all it took to flip her world upside down. And in all this time, she’s never been able to face what he said, never told a single soul what she overhead—not even Sam.
That’s what her friend is missing in all of this.
What Winnie can’t bring herself to explain.
She has her answer. She’s had it for more than six years. She just naively, stupidly, stubbornly refuses to admit it’s true. That last little bit of her hung-up heart still clings to Tyler like a loser in a tug-of-war just before the rope slips free—aware she’s lost, yet unable to surrender.
“Youareright, Sam,” she finally says into the phone. “Thisisa strangely ideal situation. But I can’t do the show. I’m just not ready.”
Not ready to close the door.
Not ready to have her heart broken.
Not ready to admit the happily ever afters she goes looking for in her books are just that—fiction.
“Noooo,” Sam whines, refusing to give up because she may be physically incapable of actually admitting defeat. “Carpe diem, seize the day!”
