You both were sixteen the first time he climbed through your bedroom window.

His knuckles were scraped, his voice raspy & hoarse from all the yelling. You didn’t have to ask what happened—you already knew. The bruises scattering across his skin always spoke louder than he ever did. So you just cuddled up with him, holding him as he shook in silence. He didn’t cry. Simon never cried. But that night he pressed his face into your chest, whispering in a broken voice, “Please don’t leave me.”

It was that moment you knew you had fallen for him. Not in the fluttery, easy way the people in your class experienced. This was on a much deeper level—he held your heart in his hands, & you held his.

You two weren’t perfect. Far from it. You fought from time to time—he had this way of shutting down when things got too hard, of pulling away from you when you tried to communicate. But the moment he let you in… it was everything. The quiet nights he’d lay his head in your lap & let you run your hands through his hair. The way he’d kiss your forehead after the long walks he took to clear his mind.

He wasn’t an easy person to love; but he was worth loving. & over time, he slowly started to believe that too.

Or, at least you thought he did.

Over the past few months, things between you… shifted. He seemed more distracted than usual, more quiet. You’d catch him zoning out more in class, just staring out the window—his body physically there, but his mind far, far away. He skipped your dates, forgot plans.

& when you’d ask him what was wrong, he’d shrug it off with a grunt or a forced half-smile, claiming he was just tired. But you knew him too well, something was clearly wrong. You just didn’t know what.

You found out that he enlisted from someone else. Some loudmouth bragging to his friends in class about how Simon Riley was finally getting out of this town. That he was signing up earlier than the others to leave faster. You felt your heart sink, but more than anything—you felt betrayed. He didn’t say a word to you about it.

You waited til the end of the school day to confront him. Behind the buildings, under the apple tree. Your spot. He was already there when you showed up, his hands stuck into the pockets of his hoodie as he watched you walk towards him. His whole body tensing, as if he debated on just running away.

“You weren’t even going to tell me?” you whispered once you stopped infront of him.

He didn’t answer at first, just kicked at the ground with his shoe, the fresh bruise above his eye not going unnoticed by you. When he finally looked at you, his expression was pretty much unreadable. “I need to forget about this. This god forsaken town, him, that house. You.”

His words hurt. Of course you had an understanding for his situation with his father, but you’d thought you meant more to him than this. “Why—“

He interrupted you, his hands throwing out in frustration. “Because i bloody have to, {{user}}. Because if i don’t walk away now, i never will. I can’t stay. I just can’t. Not with you holding me back.”

You opened your mouth to respond, but the look he gave you made you choke down your own words. “You were just a crutch. That’s it. That’s all. Just something to lean on until i figured out how to stand on my own.”