The Bad girl goes Good

Chapter 31 - Too little, too late

I dedicate this chapter to Phoebe aka POMlove who's story 'Beauty and the Geek Boy' is just so adorable and gives me a million feels! Go check it out! She deserves your reads and votes >_<

This chapter is not for the faint of heart, prepare yourselves :'(
_______________________________________________________

There they were again, those 3 little words that made my heart stop.

There was this insecure little girl inside of me that just couldn’t completely shake the thought that I wasn’t cut out for this; I’d never had a serious relationship before, I’ve never wanted someone so desperately, I am not the type of girl that you’d bring home to meet your mother and be approved of.
Ryan, Brad, these girls, this society, they were in a whole different world to the one I inhabited. 

What if, like I’ve thought from the beginning, no matter how much I might like him, no matter how hard I try to be good, I’m just not right for Ryan at all?

Maybe we’re just not meant to be together? Are we just going to end up with heartbreak and sorrow?

…I’ve never been in love before and I have no idea how I’m supposed to know what it feels like when it happens. I don’t know how Ryan could be so sure he loved me, so certain about it that he would put his heart on the line for me and confess again, so that maybe I would say those 3 words back.

He looked at me with such hopeful eyes, his face was full of emotion and sincerity and I felt so vulnerable, so overwhelmed that when I opened my mouth not even knowing what was going to come out, I choked.

No words came out.

There was a lump in my throat, formed by a million fears and insecurities that just refused to disappear.

I was like a deer in the headlights; my eyes were welling up with emotion but they could not leave his and I could only watch as the light faded from them, the longer the silence between us grew.

Say it! SAY IT! TELL HIM!  I was screaming myself hoarse in my mind, but what a load of good that was doing when my body seemed to have disconnected.

He released me from his hold and turned away, unable to look at me, the hurt etched deeply on his face and waves of humiliation and pain radiating from his back “God I’m such an idiot!” He muttered brokenly.

“Ry-an” I uttered, sounding like a strangled cat as the lump got bigger and I reached out to turn him back to me.

His face, his expression, was so forlorn that I was shocked by the foreign tightening in my chest that followed, the visceral knot that began to form in the pit of my stomach as I came to grips with the fact that it was all because of me.

I was the cause of his pain.

And it felt like I was being ripped to shreds on the inside because of it.

“Ava I’d appreciate it, if you stopped playing games with my heart.” He said quietly, his voice shaking slightly, with anger, or hurt, maybe both, I couldn’t tell, “maybe it wasn’t on purpose but you’ve been leading me on and every time I thought about giving up on you, I just couldn’t do it.”

His stormy blue eyes pierced into mine and my chest felt so tight it was getting hard to breathe; it was like all the oxygen had been sucked from the room.

“I felt like you were giving me signs, you kept giving me hope and I naively kept holding onto it,” He ran a hand through his hair exasperatedly, “that maybe your feelings were changing, maybe, just maybe you felt the same way I did.”

‘I didn’t mean to! God knows I tried to stay away, but you made it so difficult for me!’  

He closed his eyes, probably unable to look at me and how cowardly I was, just standing there, paralysed as he told me how he really felt.