Flashback ( PDFDrive )

She shook her head again, sucking in a deep breath.
His eyes widened. “Is it your echo?”
She wished it was. The monster was so much easier to resist than
the crushing regret and humiliation trying to bury her.
“No,” she managed to force out. “I just . . .”
“What?” he begged when she didn’t go on. He took her hand, gently
twining his fingers with hers. “Please tell me. You can tell me
anything.”
Not this.
She knew that now.
There was only one way this ended.
Which meant it was time to get over her crush—once and for all—
and be his friend for real.
Leave the rest for the perfect matches that would someday be filling
this shimmering hall and adding their names to his dance card.
Accept that she would never be one of them.
He looked away, chewing his lower lip hard enough that it almost
looked painful before he turned back to her and said, “I want it to be
you.”
The words seemed to burst out of him, and then they just hung
there—these strange, impossible things that wouldn’t compute.
Fitz seemed just as stunned by them as she was.
“I wasn’t reading your mind—in case that’s what you’re
wondering,” he said, running a hand down his face.
A hand that was shaking.
“I wouldn’t do that without your permission. Especially for this.”
“This,” Sophie repeated, noticing the hand holding hers was
shaking too.