Page 197 of Going Viral for Christmas
I inhale. Exhale. Speak.
“Hey, everyone. Soren Pembry here. And before you ask—no,I’m not about to promote a preorder or tease a new morally gray warlord with dagger kinks. That can wait.”
“The feed is flooding with laughing emojis, heart eyes, and gifs of you wielding a sword,” Matthew says.
I hold up a hand. “This, friends, is going to be different. This is personal.” I pause. Let it sit. “I know you've probably been waiting for a response to Lena Divine’s posts about Ava and me. And that’s fair. But you also need to understand something—Ava and I? We’re human. Real. Flawed. Messy. She’s out there somewhere right now, and I don’t know where. Before you start making up rumors that she ghosted me, it’s not that. It’s because this—all of this—got to her. And that’s on us. On me. On Lena. And yeah, onyoutoo.”
Matthew stiffens in front of me but doesn’t stop the stream.
“What I’m here to do today is tell you the truth. Not the cropped version. Definitely not the AI-generated, maliciously edited clip that Lena posted to get more Patreon subscribers. And if we’retrulybeing honest… to get back atmefor denyingher. Sorry, Lena, I just wasn’t that into you.” Widening my stance a tad, I clasp my hands in front of me. “Lena is a liar. That part’s easy to say. But even worse—she’s a manipulator. Herthememight’ve held water. Yes, our relationship started out as fake. Yes, we were a publicity stunt initially. But Lena twisted that narrative. She exploited private moments, repackaged them for drama, and slandered a woman who’s already been through more than any of you know. Lena monetized it all.She’sthe true villain. Not Ava. Not me.”
Matthew shakes my head in awe, mouths,One hundred thousand.
“Lena’s behavior is disgusting,” I continue. “And if you still follow her after this, that’s on you.”
A beat.
“And yeah. Ava and I fucked in a photo booth. God forbid we get a little spicy under a string of twinkle lights and the illusion of privacy. How many ofyouhaven’t done something questionable in a semi-public space with someone you love? Or even someone you don’t. Be honest.”
Matthew grins. “The comments are lighting up. Laughing, gasping, heart reacting, many are giving their stories, man. Keep going.”
“We started out as fake? Yeah. But I’ve been in love with Ava Bell for over a year.”
“Whoa… dead silence in the comments,” Matthew updates. “They want to hear this.”
I nod and continue, “Ava didn’t know it. Hell, I didn’t even realize it fully until she was sitting across from me in the Genre Feud panel at The Great Booksgiving, snarking about her holiday heroes and wearing those glasses that made me want to rip her skirt off and propose at the same time. I’ve loved her since she sent me that first DM last year, calling my main character an emotionally stunted woodland chump with rage issues. Since she threw a snowball at my head. Since she told me I make her feel like a fairytale and a firestorm.” I swallow. “So yeah. When our managers floated the idea of fake dating, I saw an opportunity. Albeit a selfish one. But there was no other way a woman like Ava Bell would look twice at a guy like me.”
A gust of wind rips past. I keep going.
“To prove it, I’m going to read you a letter. One of many. I’ve written dozens to Ava. She’s never seen them. She doesn’t even know they exist. But this one… this one started it all.”
Pulling a crumpled paper from my coat pocket, Matthew steadies the camera, and I read all the letters I’ve ever written to Ava Bell, starting with the first and ending with the last.
Bells,
I stood on our cliff and told the world the truth—that I’ve loved you for longer than you’ll ever believe. And that none of this, us, was fake. Never for me. Not for one single second.
I hope someday you’ll know that I don’t care about the fallout. I don’t care if people laugh, or sneer, or turn it into a meme that lives on the internet forever. None of it matters if it means you finally understand that I was never playing pretend.
I need you, Ava. YOU. The real you. The messy, brilliant, stubborn, beautiful disaster who makes me want to be better just by standing in the same room.
I feel your pain in my own soul. But I told you that you don’t have to carry that weight alone anymore. We’ve both been broken, Bells. We’ve both been bruised by people who swore they loved us and then ripped our hearts out for their own reasons.
That will never be me. Ever.
I want to hold you, put my arms around you until the noise fades, until you believe, really fucking believe, that I’m yours, forever.
Together, we will survive this. We will rewrite the ending. We will reclaim the story Lena triedto steal and make it our own again. That’s what you are to me, Ava Bell—my story.
My beginning.
My middle
My every damn word ever written.
So come back to me. Or let me find you. Just… don’t close the book yet.
Because I swear to you—I’ll never stop reading us.
