Chapter 12

                                    

                                          

After pizza and ice cream, we went to play miniature golf. I don't know why I didn't think of this earlier. I guess my brain was still stuck on Top Golf, for obvious reasons. Miniature golf was more my speed, but I doubted it would be as fun.
                          
It actually was a very fun day, and as promised, Mason was more himself, and I was feeling a lot less stressed out as well. 
                          
After watching a few movies, which Mason decided weren't so stupid after all, he was ready to turn in for the night. This left Ryan and I some alone time, and I was thinking more and more about the talk I had planned on having with Ryan. The more I thought about it though, the more I felt like chickening out. I just needed to stop thinking. 
                          
I sat back against him, just letting me hold me, and immediately went right back to thinking. Or overthinking. The age difference and my own emotional scars weighed heavily on me, but his arms felt so good around me. The night we spent together still burned in my brain. He had taken me places I had never been. Touched me in ways I had never experienced. Made me feel things I had never felt.
                          
"What are you so quiet for?" He asked softly.
                          
I decided I wasn't going to put it off. It was now or never. 
                          
"There's some things I need to talk to you about. Things about me I think you should know." I said hesitantly, a slight waver to my voice.
                          
He sensed my anxiety. "Kels, if you are not comfortable with this, we don't have to talk about it now. It can wait until you're ready."
                          
"That's just it. I may never be ready, but it's something I need to do if I want to move forward. I'm probably going to open up some wounds, but they never really healed anyway. I just need some kind of closure. You said you want to know me, but I have to let you in. That's what I'm trying to do. This isn't going to be easy for me. I've repressed a lot of feelings over the years. It's a pretty long story, so feel free to stop me at any point if you want to ask me any questions."
                          
"I do want to know everything about you Kelsie, but you don't have to tell me anything you don't want to." 
                          
"I want to be completely honest with you Ryan. I want you to know why I put up these walls you talked about."
                          
He nodded giving me my cue to go on. 
                          
"I had just started nursing school when Kyle and I met. He was good looking, funny, charming. We hit it off right away. He had just finished at the police academy. Everything was going good, but I'm sure you can do the math. I got pregnant, we got married."
                          
"Did you love him?" Ryan asked. 
                          
"At one point, maybe. I don't know. I was young. I had never been in a relationship before. I definitely felt something, but I don't know if it was love. I don't know that I was ever in love. Later on down the road, when things had gotten bad, Kyle told me I was incapable of love."
                          
Ryan looked as if he wanted to say something at that point, but he didn't, so I went on. 
                          
"When you asked me if I ever did anything for myself with friends, and I told you I just wasn't sociable, that wasn't entirely true. Kyle was the one who wasn't social. He alienated me from everyone, so I lost all of my friends. I literally had no one. He controlled so much of my life." 
                          
I could feel the tears beginning to form, but I blinked them back, knowing if I started crying now, I would never get to the rest. 
                          
"There wasn't anyone you could talk to?" He asked.
                          
I shook my head. "Even if there were, they would just tell me to get out. I wanted to, but it's not that easy. It's enough that a child was involved, but when everything you own is tied to someone else, it makes it that much harder."