Page 145 of Fangirl

“My agent sold it last week,” I murmur. “But I want you to be the first.”

“The first?” His words are soft, caught somewhere between confusion and something else. Hope, maybe.

I smile, small, sad, but real. “You’ll understand.”

I straighten, brushing my hands down the sides of my coat. “I’m staying a few days. There’s… a few things I want to see.”

I force the smile wider. “I’ll see you around.”

But when I turn toward the door, he moves. Fast.

He’s there, standing in front of it, blocking the way.

“This is all you’re going to do?” he says, low and intense. “Fly nine hundred miles, leave your book on my table, and walk away? No,I love you. No,I missed you. Nokiss me now, damn it?”

I blink, my heart catching fire in my chest. I want to say it. God, I want to scream it.I love you. I missed you. I was wrong. But I’ve done enough running. This time, I need him to see it first. To feel it in the pages.

He steps closer, his eyes locked on mine. “Because that’s what I wanted. That’s what I’ve wanted since the second you walked in. Maybe this time… I need you to fight for us too.”

My hand finds his cheek before I even realize I’ve moved, my fingers grazing the stubble there like I’m memorizing him all over again.

“I did,” I whisper. “I am fighting. It’s all in the pages.”

He blinks, and I point to the manuscript on the table. “Read the book,” I say, trembling, “and call me.”

I hope he sees it on every single page that this book is an ode to us. To the way we burned and broke and kept finding each other in the ashes.

From the dedication:To the one who made the Fangirl believe in real love. Even when she didn’t want to.

To the very last line of the epilogue.

I hope he gets there. I hope he reads it. I hope he knows it’s for him.

The only thing I ever wanted was you.

CHAPTER 28

JAKE

I’m grateful I don’t have to be on set until the afternoon because I stayed up all night reading Amy’s book, devouring every word until my eyes were raw and burning. I’m not even sure if it was from exhaustion or the tears that wouldn’t stop.

Because this isn’t just a novel, it’s a love story.Ourlove story told through her eyes, with all the heartbreak and hope and truth I was too blind to see before.

She didn’t leave because it was too hard. She left becauseshe loved me enough to do the hard thing.

And that realization guts me.

There’s guilt too. Shame. In the quiet way her main character hides her pain, the way she fears being a burden, I see the parts of Amy she never let me see. Or maybe I never looked close enough.

She hasn’t even had a full flare-up around me yet… but I can’t stand the thought that she’s already bracing for the day I’ll see her differently. Like her limits might make her less.

God, no. She’s not less. She’s more. She’severything.

By the time I finish the last page, I don’t just know this book is a bestseller in the making—I know I’ve been an ass.

And more than that, I know I’m not letting her leave Hungary without making it crystal clear—she’s mine. If she’ll still have me.

No more silence. No more space. No more lingering doubts.