Page 199 of Going Viral for Christmas
I do the only rational thing I can think of and launch myself at her. The door flies open so hard it bounces off the wall as I grab her the same way a drowning man would grab a life raft.
“Holy shit, Bells,” I breathe, clutching her as though someone’s going to rip her away again. “You’re alive. You’re okay. You’re here. You’re—you smell amazing?—”
And then I start sobbing.Uglycrying.Full-body, gasping, snot-dripping man-wailing.
“Oh my God.” Ava squeezes me tighter, her hand stroking the back of my neck. “Soren, breathe. It’s okay. I’m okay. You’re crushing my lungs.”
“I don’t care,” I sob. “I’ll buy you new ones.”
She laughs, and it’s the most beautiful fucking sound I’ve heard in days. “You’re going to kill me before I can even apologize.”
“You better apologize! I’ve been—” I hiccup. “I’ve been hallucinating your voice in my shampoo bottles. I almost slept in your treehouse. I hugged your pillow so hard I dislocated emotional cartilage.”
“Emotional cartilage?”
“It’s a thing,” I say. “Search it up on WebMD. Right after you search: ‘can heartbreak cause spontaneous personality collapse?’”
She sniffles. I realize she’s crying also now, so I pull back to gaze into her eyes. They’re glassy and red-rimmed, but still Ava. Fire and starlight.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “God, Soren I’mso sosorry.”
“No, I’m sorry,” I whisper back.
“I disappeared on you.”
“I faked dated you to try and get you to go out with me.”
“I left without a word.”
“I might’ve humped your pillow.”
Her head tilts. “What?”
I wave it off. “We’ll circle back.”
Her hand cups my jaw. “I missed you so much it hurt.”
“I missed you so much I lost all my abs,” I say. “They’re gone. From sadness.”
A laugh crawls out of her throat. “They’re not gone.”
“Okay, they’re maybe sulking under holiday bloat.”
We both exhale. We stare at each other.
And then the emotional whiplash hits. Because underneath this joy, there’s still the bruise that she left.
“Where. TheFUCK. Were you, Ava?”
Her forehead crinkles.
“You vanished! Houdini’d right out of my life!”
“I broke. I needed space.”
“Why, Bells?” My voice cracks. “Why run? I waited outside your house until my legs went numb. I went to your family’s. You had Emily lie for you. Every damn day since we came face to face with each other, I’ve been proving I’m here—showing you I’m not going anywhere—and you still disappeared on me.”
Ava’s back stiffens under my hands, but she doesn’t pull away. “I wasn’t running from you. I was running from everything. Being humiliated. I nearly ruined your career,andmine. I failed. I’m sorry I left anddidn’t tell you. I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you. Or trust you enough with that fear. I was so wrong, and I’ll carry the weight of that mistake for the rest of my life.”
