"Absolutely Not."

Chapter 15: Tension

'We'd be something a lot more than what we were, Kelsey, if you hadn't run.'

The implications were too great to ignore with that one sentence.

An image of us demanded my attention as it flickered across my vision. Parents. He or she would have been about five months old by now, and my heart ached to see what they would have looked like.

Would they have his dark caramel eyes with my brunette hair or vice versa, blond hair with hazel irises?

Their nose would have been so tiny, their fingers curled into small fists around a finger of ours.

Would that nose have been more wide like his or curved upward, resembling a button-like round shape like mine? Every feature that might have been passed down to them haunted me, torturing me with the 'what ifs' if every decision that I'd made thus far had been different.

What if I hadn't run away to Russia? What I didn't run at all? What if I had stayed and found out about Simon's survival days later after the incident rather than a year? What if... we had kept what I'd destroyed?

Manchester wouldn't have stayed just as a fond memory, and perhaps it was bold of me to assume that the relationship would have been treasured, topped with rings on our fingers to lock us in place.

But I'd ruined it, and it wasn't fair to either of us that it happened. I'd suppressed it as far as I could, beneath the mountain of other memories that I allowed to bury it.

That didn't mean I didn't despair over the possibilities, though. Oh, I did.

I just couldn't help but be so angry now.

"Stop blaming me for running," I practically growled.

"I can't help how I feel after learning that," he shot back. "You expect me to not react this way?"

"Some sympathy would be fucking nice, Simon!" A flicker of shame crossed his face, but I didn't let him utter one more single word before I continued. "I rue what I've done," I admitted, voice thick with emotions I didn't want to hide any longer. "I ran and did what I did, and I regret it all, but please don't fucking berate me for doing it." I took a step toward him. "Don't make me feel worse for making that decision for myself."

It enveloped around us, heavy tension. Thick and suffocating, we stared down the other before one of us grew the bigger balls to speak first and cut the tension with sharp words.

I hated the way he looked at me so sympathetically. Brown eyes becoming pools of guilt and anguish, he peered down at me as if he still loved me. As if he wanted to take the pain away from me or at least take some of it so we could share it, so that I didn't have to bear it alone.

"You have every right to be sad."

His words reflected his expression, and it fueled with such rage that I stole another turn to step closer, condensing the space between us.

How fucking dare he switch like that?

How dare he be angry with one moment but so understanding the next?

How dare he demand a spot back in my life while pushing me simultaneously? Did he knowingly say the wrong things, or was he that obtuse?

Now arm's length away, I took one more step before my hands lifted, shoving him right in the chest. Not hard enough to where it could knock him down, but it did force him to stagger back a shuffle. "Don't talk about being sad like you know what I've been through. Stop being so damn contradicting!"

His hands caught me by my elbows, keeping me in place. He leaned just a bit, bringing me a bit nearer. "Did that make you feel better? Pushing me?"

I didn't reply to his question as I attempted to twist my arms out of his grip. Instead, a demand wrenched out of my mouth, "Let go of me!"

"Do you want to do it again?" His fingers dug into my arms the more I struggled. "Would it make you feel better?"

"What I want is for you to let me go," I raged through a clenched jaw.

I teetered a thin line of conflicted feelings about him touching me. Granted, it was forceful and insistent, but it was the final piece of it clicking: he survived.

I'd heard and seen him, and now I've felt him. Those were the three most important senses needed to convince someone out of doubt, and I refused to become close enough to... smell his cologne or even taste remnants of a cigarette if he still smoked. My breath caught just thinking about it.

"Are you going to hit me again?"

"Yeah, probably."

He released his grip, and I stumbled away from him before advancing again, hands shoving him harder in the chest this time. Expecting it, he braced my reaction easily and barely budged.

He just hadn't been expecting the third one nor the tears that stung at my waterline as he faltered. Through the blurry vision my unruly emotions had summoned, I couldn't quite distinguish the expression that flashed across his face.

Amusement? Relief? Smug?

While I had surprised him with that third shove, I winced when he approached me this time, swiftly, reminding me too soon of returning to the field. This was him already trying to train me, and I wasn't ready.

I felt his arms wrap around me. Sturdily, tightly, he placed one hand on the back of my head while his other arm secured itself across my upper back. Feeling his chin rest atop my head, I let him hold me as I finally cried for the first time since coming here.

Needing something to keep my knees from folding me down to the ground, I helplessly latched onto the back of his shirt and breathed him in as I tried to catch my breath between sobs.

To my chagrin, he still smoked.