Playing Adult | ✔ | 18+

Chapter 28 - Goodbye High Expectations

Author's Notes:

A HUGE thanks to my two beta readers for this chapter, RozamarieH and TheTrebledMom.

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Flashback:

I was sitting at my desk in my room at home - my real home, not at Randall's. Just yesterday, I had lost the bet with Ivan about whether to call Rose the day after our date or if she would call me when I didn't, and my arms were already aching from my first day of lifting.

Ivan had been right. He knew women more than I did. I tried to keep my mind from reconciling the fact that he might've been right about telling Rose the truth about my age.

Rose had told me Saturday night, "I'm willing to wait until we're both ready, but I'd like to be your first, Dimitri." Perhaps that meant she was willing to be understanding and patient about the other things that were standing in my way, too.

I pulled out a sheet of paper and began writing a note to her:

Roza,

I am writing this as a note because I am too afraid to tell you what I have to say in person. If I'm really honest, I think I've loved you since the moment I met you. I know it's too soon for that and I'm probably just being naive and irrational, but I can't help the way that I feel. I've only known you for a little more than a week now, but there's no other word for how I feel about you. That love is why I'm so afraid to tell you what I'm about to say; because it would absolutely break me if this was the reason that you chose to end things with me.

I'm not a kid, but I am still in high school at St. Vladimir's, Roza. I am eighteen years old. My birthday was in November. I'll be graduating at the end of this school year. I'm sorry to have to be so blunt to tell you this way, but there's really no right or easy way to do this, so I am just trying to rip the bandage off and tell you.

I never meant to lie to you. I never told you I was older than eighteen. I just didn't correct it when you assumed I was older than I am. I wanted so badly to be the man you thought I was; the man you wanted me to be. I wanted to be whatever you wanted - because I wanted you. You're all I will ever want. Please don't hold it against me that I wanted you badly enough that I tried to let you think I was what you wanted.

I love you without reservation. I feel like we could have a future together and I want that more than anything. Please don't let this come between us.

Love,

Dimitri

After I finished writing it, I took the note and sat on my bed, staring at it for around ten minutes, reading and re-reading it. Then I folded it, held it in my hand, and sat with it, staring at it as if it were either the cure for cancer or my execution order, just feeling the weight of it for another ten minutes.

Finally, I decided it was a stupid idea and it would never work. Roza would never care for me if she found out how young I really was. She'd be mortified and embarrassed that she had ever even kissed a high school student. I growled and balled the letter up, throwing it in the air, watching as it landed in the hallway. I laid back on my bed, just wallowing in the moment of shame and feeling the ache in my tired arms. I'd pick the note up later.

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Today:

I was putting on my suit for the graduation ceremony. It was one of the few times when both of my parents would be in the same room, so I tried to focus on my family and not on the gnawing hole in my heart from knowing that I wouldn't be going back to Randall's house after this - and therefore I wouldn't be next-door to Rose's again for the rest of the summer while she was living next-door to him.