Pretentiously Simple | Kleo ✔️

25 | i'd still choose you

"are the people i hit alright? i was on the wrong side on the road. it was completely my fault."

"they were discharged the afternoon you woke up. you were taking a nap, but i gave them flowers and told them that you were really sorry."

. . .

"is their car okay? i saw my rental was wrecked. is theirs worse?"

"it was pretty bad. but i talked to them afterward and gave them enough money to buy a new car without a loan and should also be enough to cover hospital expenses."

. . .

"did the doctor tell you i'm pregnant?"

"didn't need to, i already knew."

"that's why i went crazy. when i phoned you and left."

"i know."

"what are you going to do?"

"no matter what, kate, i'm always going to choose you. i made sense of that the second i had enough time to think."

"...what about your baby with bar?"

"i will fight custody."

"...what if you lose?"

"i won't.                but i'd still choose you."

──────────

"you'd still choose me?"

it had been a few hours after leo reassured me about everything he wanted to say, and everything i wanted to hear. he had waited until i was better—well enough so i could do without any machines hooked to me, move freely in bed on my own, and even stand and walk a bit. the first few days he practically sewed his mouth shut, lest a few kisses peppered onto my lips and forehead, and occasional chatter to fill the cold silence that was never so cold, because he was there.

but when i was well enough to talk and in the right mind to listen, he said it all. we just talked about everything, all of what i missed. what i missed him say to himself because he could not say it to anyone else. that is, anyone else except me.

everything was so absolute. so clear, and untainted by what made it seem more difficult than it actually was. everything was easy now. because, as he told me himself, i loved him and he loved me, a love that has been for thirteen years. and yet a love that feels so young and refined, partly because it is, and partly because it's us.

"yes," he said as we sit on the couch of the hospital room, as pressed together as we possibly could be, as i was really his this time, and this time his for good.

"yes, kate. i would still choose you. no matter the circumstance." his sentences were short, his discourse even shorter—all because it was true, because i believed him, and there was nothing more he needed to say.

"thank you for everything." i whispered, and i blinked a few times. a man who was a gentleman, who i can trust more than any human being i have ever known, and who has cared for me best out of everyone in the entire world. i had never seen it with my own two eyes before they laid on leo.