Page 175 of Going Viral for Christmas
Breathless, aching silence.
“Say it again,” she whispers.
Confused, I shake my head. “What?”
Her voice is barely a breath. “Say it again. Say you love me.”
“I love you, Ava Bell. And Iam notgoing anywhere.”
Ava flinches at that, like it physically hurts her to hear. She turns her back. She’s going to walk—that’s what she does when it’s too much.
“I mean it,” I say, voice firm, unshakable. “Don’t get to shut me out.”
Her shoulders tense.
“I know your move, Bells. Pretend it didn’t happen. Bury the feelings. Talk yourself into believing I’m nothing but another guy with a pretty face and a decent line. Safer that way, right? Easier to protect yourself if you write me off before I get the chance to do any damage.”
Ava still doesn’t speak—but her breathing falters.
“You want to be mad at me? Fine. Be mad. But don’t twist what we have into something that it’s not because it scares you.”
She finally turns, eyes wet, voice shaky. “Of course it scares me!This whole thing—it felt too good to be true from the start. The fake dating, the cameras, the fans, the chemistry—it’sstorybook shit,and I don’t get stories like that, Soren.”
I close the distance between us and take her face in both hands before she can retreat again. “You do this time.”
Ava tries to look away. I won’t let her.
“In our story, you get loved, fully and openly, and without fine print. Byme.” My forehead presses to hers. “You’re not some problem I’m trying to fix. You are the woman Ichoose,Ava. Every single damn time. Choose me back.”
Tears spill down her cheeks, but she still fights. “What if I can’t do this? What if I’m not enough?”
“Impossible.”
“What ifImess it up?
“Then we mess it up together,” I say. “But we don’t walk away. Unless we’ve said every truth. Unless we’ve given it everything.”
Ava shakes under my touch. I kiss her tears. I need her to believe it more than I need my next breath, so I repeat, “I love you, Ava Bell,” again and again and again.
Thirty-One
AVA
The words detonate, punching through my ribs, seizing my heart in their ruthless grip, and tearing it free. And then, like it belongs to him, Soren cradles it in the open, unflinching.
I love you, Ava Bell.
I want to believe him. But belief has teeth. It chews through you when it’s wrong. Right now, his love—his certainty—it’s a trapdoor. A story too good to be mine.
The moment I believe it’s real, it’ll get ripped away, and I’ll fall back into the darkness. So I do the only thing I know how to do.
I push away from him and pace.
Turning my back. I try to build the wall again faster than he can tear it down. “I can’t do this,” I whisper, barely able to get the words out.
“Yes, you can.” His voice is firm. “You already are.”
“No,” I snap, spinning on him. “You don’t get it. You don’t know. You haven’t lived inside my chest, where every time something feels safe, it ends up cutting me open. Where people I’ve trusted have burned me to ash. Where love isn’t a promise—it’s a threat.”
