Page 159 of Going Viral for Christmas
who doesn’t flinch at the storm within me,
but walks straight into it.
Someday, she’ll look at me
like I was always worth the wait.
Like the world didn’t break me wrong,
just bent me toward her.
Her laughter will be firelight.
Her stubbornness, a shield.
Her heart will burn so fiercely
that mine—ruined, restless, half-afraid?—
will finally believe it can be whole.
Someday, she’ll make me brave enough
to stop running from my own reflection.
Someday, she’ll be my reflection?—
and I’ll know I was always hers.”
My throat closes around air that won’t come. The fort, the lights, the faint hiss of the fire—all of it fades until there’s only him and the words he’s laying bare between us.
No one’s ever looked at me like Soren does. No one’s everspokento me like he has—like my existence is not only seen, butprophesied.
I want to laugh, cry, and bury myself in him. My eyes sting, and I squeeze his hand. And when he squeezes back, my insides go soft in a way I don’t know how to protect.
His voice cracks when he finally manages to whisper, “It was always you, Bells?”
Before I can breathe a response, he twists, capturing my mouth with his, stealing air, and giving it back. This kiss feels like all the years he carried those words alone are finally spilling into me. My chest splinters and mends in the same heartbeat, and the taste of him is salt and heat and forever.
When he finally pulls back, he doesn’t let me go. I fold into him, his arms locking around me, my head nestled in the crook of his arm. The fire pops in the hearth, but it’s nothing compared to the warmth of his chest beneath my cheek, the rhythm of his heart beating just for me, under my palm.
I exhale into the quiet, knowing for the first time in my life I don’t have to run. I don’t have to hide.
This man feels like home.
We keep going.
Soren tells me about his first tattoo—badly drawn runes. I confess I once shoplifted a glitter pen from Claire’s in middle school and felt so guilty I mailed it back with an apology note.
We laugh. We go quiet. We confess. We listen.
Eventually, Soren twists onto his side, one arm curled beneath his head, the other resting near my hip. The starlight from the glass still glows above us.
“Wanna know my favorite first?” he asks.
My heart picks up. “Do I?”
His fingers find the edge of the quilt and toy with it absently. “You. I’ve never fake-dated anyone before.”
