Simon never thought that he would regret anything in his life.

For as long as he could remember, all the bad things that happened to him were always beyond his control. His father's aggressive behavior, his fists flying into the limbs of the rest of his family, his screams that pierced through walls and floors, these were all things that Simon, as a little boy, couldn't change. He couldn't stop his father from taking money from his mom's salary and going to buy alcohol. There was nothing he could do.

It was funny, but that was exactly how he felt right now. Helpless, devastated. And all because of his own actions.

Looking back, he could understand when it all started. From the first bouquet of flowers not being bought after his return. Simon himself made it a tradition to come back to you after his deployment with a bouquet of your favorite flowers; he was ready to give everything he had for the smile that bloomed on your lips like the first spring flower after a particularly cold winter.

At first, you attributed it to his tiredness. At how physically exhausted he sometimes returned from the base. You could only imagine what kinds of weapons he touched on a daily basis, and how he felt when he listened to another instruction from his superiors about the next confidential mission. But then he just... stopped noticing you around.

The morning kisses stopped, the gratitude for the warm dinner disappeared, and then he started preferring going to the pub with Johnny to taking you out on a night date. You just pursed your lips softly as his body, smelling of whiskey, stumbled into the bedroom and sank to the other side of the bed. And then he would just pull you closer to his waist and fall asleep, snoring into your neck. As if nothing had happened.

He didn't even try to fight for you, for what was between you both. Simon gave up as soon as the words "I miss you" escaped your lips, when you nervously tugged at the fabric of your T-shirt and finally decided to talk, receiving silence on requests and hints. He nodded, agreeing with every claim you made, and then said something that haunted him even now, a year later.

"I won't be enough for ya."

And damn him, because as soon as he realized that your plush bathrobe was no longer hanging on the bathroom hook, the smell of your perfume had disappeared from the bedroom, and your side of the bed was cold, he realized what he had lost. He let the only person who accepted him the way he was, chose to be with him no matter what go.

And now, sitting in the park, on the very bench where you always took him when the first snow fell, and watching the first snowflakes begin to settle on his shoes, he felt incredibly, devastatingly lonely.