in which she swims to forget all the pain, but he sees it all because dallas edlen is not ok and, having loved her for years, seeing that was no task.
ONE BREATH
MINIMINTER
SIDEMEN
DEATHLIES 2016
[COMPLETED]
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FIFTEEN s i m o n
If there was ever anything Simon had loved more than anything or anyone else, it was football. The game was a rush, the surroundings and the team spirit were incomparable. Nothing ever came close to the feeling or relief the game gave him.
But seeing Dallas with her damp, messy bun atop her head and her raincoat, which was far too big for her, wrapped around her body as she sheepishly walked across the side-line of the school pitch to the stands to take her seat broke his stride.
When he'd told her about the game, a part of him had hoped she'd come, but after she'd brushed him off earlier those thoughts had been crushed.
But there she was, scanning the pitch as she took her seat in the second row. She was looking for him and only him. He was the only reason she was here.
Dallas has dragged herself out of the pool and forced herself to brace the outside world as soon as she'd come to the conclusion that she was tumbling back into the low depths that had held her captive before.
Simon met her eyes and she held her hand up, waving at him from her seat. He waved back, not being able to hold back the grin.
She was just in time for the match to start. Warm up had just finished and they were ready to begin. He just hoped that they would win whilst Dallas was watching.
-
Everything had mattered so much more, the win meant so much more, his hat-trick meant so much more, but what mattered even more than all of that was the smiles and the cheers he had earned from Dallas throughout the match. He could hear her shouts above the crowd.
With the match ball in his hands, Simon exits the changing room with the memory of her smile in his head.
He didn't expect to see her waiting there, that very smile plastered across her lips. But up close the smile was distorted by two factors. The first being the bruise across the lower half of her right cheek. It was purple, like a galaxy across her skin. The second could not be determined by him; maybe the bruise was to much. He wondered where it had come from and was dying to ask, but caution was key with Dallas above all else.
"Hey, I didn't expect you to come to the game," Simon says as he walks up to her.
"I wanted to come," She tells him, her eyes shining as they begin to walk together in the direction of home. She bumps her shoulder into him. "Besides, I still want to talk to you."
"Didn't seem like it earlier," He jokes, but he can see, even as she lets out a small laugh, that she does not take the humour well.
"Yeah, sorry," She mutters, folding her hands together in front of herself. "This is going to sound so stupid," She huffs, her head rocking back as she looks into the sky as she walks. No worry of falling. Maybe she trusted Simon to catch her, or maybe she just didn't care.
"I'm sure it won't."
"It will, but I'm going to ask anyway," She says, now looking at him. He looks back at her, tossing the ball up into the air and catching it again. "You consider me your friend, right?"
The question sounded so ridiculous coming from a seventeen year old girl who had popularity that most dreamed of having. In another age, it wouldn't have been so humorous.
Simon chuckles. "Of course I do. Why would you think I didn't?"
"I was just curious. I haven't exactly been the greatest friend to you over the years, but I also wanted to ask that before I took you to a place I've been wanting to share with someone for a long time."
"Now?"
"Why not, right? It's not even late and it's not far from here. You up for it?" There was something about the hope in her voice that made it utterly impossible to decline.
No, that wasn't true. There was something about Dallas that made it utterly impossible to decline. He would have to be a fool to refuse her when she looked at him like she did with those eyes that held the universe within their pupils.
"Let's go," Simon replies with a returning grin, which only widens when her fingers slip around his free hand, softly and ever so gently. As if it were routine, as if they were more than the friends she claimed they were.
"You played really well today, you know? I don't know why I don't come and watch more often," She says. There was something about the way she said it that, somehow, sounded ashamed.
"We have matches most weeks," Simon tells her. "But they're sometimes at the same time as your swimming meets. That's why Marnie doesn't come to every game for Harry."
"Does that upset him?" Dallas asks. Her genuine curiosity was warming like a fire in the heart of a hearth. Perhaps she had a warmer heart than everyone perceived. Like a lake, frozen on the surface but alive on the inside, thriving even.
"I don't know," He answers honestly. "If it does, he doesn't show it."
"Does anyone ever come and watch you?" She glances at him as they walk across the small road, crossing into her street and continuing on.
"Nah, they're to busy."
"Would you mind if I came to watch you? I mean, when I can obviously." There was no hint of a joke to be found. She looked him in the eyes as she asked and her seriousness was laced with a symphony of embarrassment.
"It's ok, you don't have to."
"No, I want to."
"Then, of course I wouldn't mind."
"I'll be there."
She sounds so determined for something so simple. Like if all else failed, she would still have this commitment and that meant an incredible amount to Simon because it meant she cared about him. It proved that it wasn't all a lie.
