Chapter 16 #2
“Maybe they do.” I step closer, the pull to her a force I can’t break. “So, let’s revisit the fact that you set this up for me?”
She shrugs. “Don’t make it a thing.”
“It’s a thing.” I close the gap. “You didn’t have to. But you did.”
I’m so close now, the fruity vanilla scent in her shampoo drifts into my senses. The tension is electric.
Her eyes flick to mine, then away. “It was something to do, that’s it. Nothing. More.”
I fucking hate those two words.
“You know what that tells me, Bells?” Her throat bobs as I continue inching closer. “It tells me you care. Somewhere under all that sarcasm and self-preservation, you feel something, just like I do.”
Ava stiffens. I watch her fold into herself, trying to disappear.
“Don’t do that,” I say, softer now. “Please don’t hide from this. Or from me.”
“I’m not hiding,” she lies. I know this because her voice cracks halfway through.
Our chests nearly touch. “You could’ve let this be simple, kept it small. Instead, you made it personal. You reached out. You did a kind and thoughtful and terrifying thing, and you didn’t even realize it.”
“It doesn’t mean anything,” she whispers.
The war inside her rages, fueled by a desperate need to believe, so she doesn’t fall apart.
“It means everything to me.”
Ava’s chin trembles. She swallows. “We’ve been over this. You’re confused. You think your feelings are real and—”
“They’re real. So. Fucking. Real.” There it goes, whatever thread of restraint I had left, snapped clean in half. So much for caution. It’s too late to pull back now. I’m already in freefall.
Fuck it.
“The truth is, the second I saw you for the first time, standing with your chin lifted like you had something to prove and your mouth was ready to fight me on every panel point…I knew.”
Ava’s face scrunches in confusion.
“It wasn’t in a convenient, romanticized, predestined sort of way,” I clarify. “I knew in my chest. In my gut. In the part of me that never shuts up when it matters. My heart whispered: Her. She’s your journey. And I’ve been chasing that whisper ever since.”
Ava’s eyes fly to mine. The world narrows to just us–just this. Her walls are up, but they’re cracking. I can feel it.
She says, so quietly I almost miss it, “You only think you mean it, Soren. It’s lust. It’s the story. You’re the plot twist. Not the ending.”
The words hit so fucking hard.
My voice becomes a plea she can’t run from. “Then rewrite me.”
She flinches. I struck a buried nerve.
“Soren…”
“I want a story with you, Ava. No edits. No drafts. Only us.”
The tears shimmering in her eyes catch the light like fragile glass.
She swipes them away fast, as if blotting out a weakness she refuses to show.
It isn’t a weakness, though. It’s proof.
Proof that my words slipped past her walls, sank deep into places she doesn’t let anyone touch.
And for one staggering moment, I see her—unguarded, human in a way that makes my heart hurt and my resolve sharpen.
“No,” she breathes. “When it ends, and it will. The internet will eat me alive. I won’t know how to survive it.”
That one, tiny word lands as a battering ram straight to the gut. I stagger under the weight of her fear. She’s so sure, already written our ending in ink.
“What happened to you?”
“I told you last night.” Her eyes stay locked on mine, broken and angry.
“Who did this?”
“Nobody of importance.”
I exhale, slow and tight.
She treats it as though it’s nothing. Like it didn’t shape the way she pushes people out, the way she builds walls with jokes and barbed wire.
It mattered. Enough to break her.
The only thing that comes close to the truth is clawing up my throat.
I let out. “They were important enough to make you shut down. Important enough to make you wall up every time someone else tries to care. Important enough to make you doubt everyone.” I pause.
Let it sink in. Let her hear me. My hand twitches at my side, aching to reach for her, but not daring to push too hard.
“So don’t tell me they weren’t important, Bells.
Because I’m fighting their ghost every time I get close to you. ”
“You’re right,” she says immediately.
That surprises me. “What?”
“Someone made me feel safe.” She turns slightly, angling away from me. “Right before they taught me that I wasn’t. Not with them. Or anyone for that matter.”
That isn’t an explanation. It’s a wound. I want to hold every delicate, shattered piece of it. Even if she never lets me, I still want to try.
Someone made me feel safe. Right before they taught me that I wasn’t. There was no anger in her voice when she said it. Only this quiet pain, showing she’s not bleeding anymore, but she carries the scar around, denying anyone else the chance to trace the outline.
And she and I, we stay there, locked in a stare with the air between us tightening, heavy with the sins of others.
My skin prickles. My pulse kicks. Ava views me as though I’m a cliff’s edge—one dangerous step toward disaster. But what she doesn’t see is that sometimes a cliff isn’t a fall. Sometimes it’s a view. A leap. The only way to learn you were built to fly.
There’s a question in her eyes that gives me hope: Would falling hurt more than standing still?
I want to close the space. I want to fix it. I want to take the rough edges that cut into her and replace them with something soft.
So, I try…again.
“You say you won’t survive it,” I repeat her words. “Then let me show you how to live in it instead.”
The tiny space between her brows creases.
One more inch.
Lifting my hand, I don’t touch her, I hover—waiting for her to close the distance. “Be scared with me.”
Ava doesn’t move. Or speak. But she doesn’t run either. That’s enough for now. Even if she still won’t let her guard down, the tremble in her breath is unmistakable. She’s trapping a storm. But I’m going to help her tame it.
Ava’s slender fingers twitch, her fists clench and loosen at her sides, as if she’s one second from grabbing me by the collar—or bolting. It honestly could go either way.
The air between us buzzes, charged with a volatile, dangerous electricity neither of us can run from.
“I’m not the enemy, Ava,” I say, my voice a little gruff. “I promise.”
“I know,” she whispers, almost too soft to hear. Then, after a pause, Ava twists my heart with, “I am.”
The words hollow me out. And all I can think, standing there in the wreckage of her self-blame, is that I’d give anything to show her she’s wrong. That she’s worthy. And I want her to be mine to protect.
“No.” I brush her cheek with the backs of my fingers.
“Look, I crossed the line. And you’ve seen the way I am with fans and heard the rumors.
Read the headlines. We started this under false pretenses, sure—but I would love it if you could try to get to know the real Soren Pembry.
Because I sure as hell want to know you, Ava Bell. ”
She still doesn’t move. I lower my hand between us. Ava stares down at it.
“Hi,” I say, with a small smile that’s far too sincere. “I’m Soren Pembry. Yes, that’s my real name. I’m a huge fan of your work. I’ve made some shitty choices in the past, as you’ve seen broadcast across the internet, but I’d really love to show you someone different.”
Her gaze snaps up to meet mine. Still, she doesn’t move. In this charged moment of almosts, it’s definitely something I consider a win, even though it isn’t a game for me. I need to show her she has me twisted up in ways I’ve never known.
Right now, I’ll let the moment breathe. Let her have her space. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about Ava in the last twenty-four hours, she’s a wildfire dressed as frostbite, and you don’t rush her thaw.
Standing here in this haunted house, witnessing her wrestle with her iron-clad walls and nearly letting me in, I make myself a promise. Patience, Pembry. Ava Bell is worth the wait.
I’m not walking away. Even when shit gets hard. And with her, it’s bound to get hard.
But not in the way she writes about.
Unfortunately.