#and this line coupled with the fact that baz continues doubting simons love for him

[nelistry]

this will forever be one of my favorite quotes in any book ever

[angelsfalling16]

The Way You Wear That Dress

Inspired by the song Dress by Charlotte Sands

Part of the 20 First Kisses Series

Summary: It's the beginning of eighth year, and Simon can't find Baz at the Welcome Back Picnic, so he goes in search of him. What he finds is unexpected and makes him rethink everything he has ever felt for Baz.

Word Count: 2150

If you want to know what I imagined Baz’s outfit looking like, here are the links to the dress and the boots! (I love the idea of Baz in these boots and have used them in a couple of fics now.)

Read it on ao3

***

Simon

It’s the beginning of eighth year, and I’m pretty sure Baz is already up to something. He isn’t at the Welcome Back picnic with everyone else, so I decide to go in search of him and stop whatever scheme he’s about to put into motion.

I start with our room, wondering if maybe he decided to go back up there, but the room looks the same as it always is at the beginning of term. My side is devoid of any personal items since I didn’t have anything I felt like bringing back from the care homes (not that I really had anything there). Baz’s side is immaculate, all of his things neatly put away in their respective places, filled but not cluttered.

I move over to the window to look out at the school. It seems empty right now with everyone else out at the picnic. My eyes skate over the courtyard where, not long ago, the first years’ fates were sealed by the Crucible. I only hope none of them were given as evil a roommate I was.

My gaze continues over the grounds for anyone who isn’t out on the lawn, and after a minute of searching I catch movement on the ramparts.

It could be anyone, but I know it’s him.

I turn away from the window and head back down the stairs and away from Mummers House. I quickly but quietly make my way to where Baz is, not wanting to scare him off before I can figure out what he’s up to but also wanting to get to him before he disappears again.

I come to a stop several feet away from where he stands on the ramparts. It isn’t what he’s doing that causes me to freeze, though. It’s what he’s wearing.

At first, I wonder if he has decided to don the Watford-issued cape for his final year, but then I realize that the swishing of cloth around him isn’t a cape. It’s a dress.

The dark green material falls to just above his knee in the front, giving just a glimpse of his thighs, but in the back, it nearly grazes the ground. At the top, around Baz’s shoulders and chest and around to his back, the material is sheer with interwoven lace, allowing his pale, grey skin to show through. He wears the dress like it’s nothing, like it was made specifically for him. (Knowing Baz, it probably was).

My eyes follow the line of his dress down to his things and knees, but where I expect to see the rest of his legs – his muscular football calves – I’m met with the sight of knee-high boots that are laced up the back and have a heel that adds at least two inches to two inches Baz already has over me.

I can’t seem to stop staring at his outfit, but I finally manage to force my eyes back up, and that’s when I notice Baz’s hair.

For the first time since I’ve met him, Baz is wearing his hair down with no products slicking it back away from his face. Instead, it’s being pushed back by a thin headband, silver like his eyes, that still allows his hair to fall in natural waves around his face.

Suddenly, my mouth is dry and my throat feels tight. I try to form words in my head, but my mind is blank. All I can think is, legs. And that’s when I know that I’m fucked.

How is it that Baz looks so good in a dress? He should look ridiculous. I should want to ridicule him for it. Instead, all I can do is stare and hope that he doesn’t turn and find me staring at him.

For a full minute, my eyes slowly drag up and down his body, taking it all in, before I force myself to look away, not wanting to get caught staring at him. Inevitably, though, my eyes are drawn back to him. 

It’s hard to believe that it’s really him. I just can’t reconcile this version of Baz with the version I’ve known for seven years. He looks so different, but he also looks very much like himself. Possibly even more like himself than he ever has. (If that makes sense.)

I wonder what happened to him this summer. It’s like there was a shift somewhere within him that made him act and dress differently. I just don’t know what it is.

He is dressed so femininely, but he still holds this masculinity about him, and the whole thing is driving me crazy. He pulls it off so effortlessly.

He’s dripping with confidence as he leans his arms on the ramparts, a lit cigarette hanging between his fingers.

I know the smart thing to do would be to turn away and leave him be, but doing what’s smart has never really been my strong suit.

I take a few steps towards him even though I haven’t consciously made the decision to do so. I feel drawn to him like a string is pulling me towards him, and as I draw nearer, I notice a glossiness to his lips, as if he’s spread lip gloss or something over them.

I want to hit him. Why does he always look so good? It’s annoying. 

My eyes fall back to the dress he’s wearing, and I can only imagine what other people might think if they saw him like this. For starters, he’s out of uniform, and also, he looks bloody well perfect, like nothing he wears will ever make him look bad.

I briefly consider going to find the mage and telling him what Baz is wearing, but breaking dress code isn’t enough to get him kicked out of school. Plus, I’m not sure I want to share this side of Baz with anyone else.

I’m not sure why but it probably has a lot to do with the fact that Baz has obviously chosen a place away from everyone else, maybe so they won’t see him like this and judge him for it. But it could be something else holding me back. Something like this desperate need I’m feeling to put my hands on him.

I want to push him up against the wall and…and…. That’s where my thoughts cut off because usually when I push Baz against the wall, I want to punch him, but today, that’s not what I want. I don’t want to fight him. I want to…

I shake my head. I can’t finish that thought, can’t think about what it means.

And yet…

An image pops into my head of my hands on his hips, rubbing against the luxurious material of the dress he’s wearing. Of my hands in his hair, tangling in it. Of his breath on my cheek. Of the feeling of his glossed lips on mine. Of the moment he starts to kiss me back and--.

And I shake my head again.

I won’t lie and say that I don’t want any of that, but I can’t be foolish enough to allow myself to hope for it. Nothing has changed. Baz still hates me, and he’d laugh in my face if he found out that I want to kiss him.

Because I do. Want to kiss him, that is. And it’s not just because of the dress. I think that was just the thing that pushed me to finally admit how I feel. How I’ve felt for a long time.

But Baz will never feel the same way about me.

I should go. I can’t let him catch me practically drooling at the sight of him in that dress.

I turn away from him, but I turn too quickly and trip on my own feet, cursing loudly as I try to catch myself.

“Simon?” Baz says behind me.

“Uh…” I say stupidly, picking myself up off the ground and slowly turning to face him. “Yeah?”

“What are you doing here?”

“You, uh, you w-weren’t at the picnic. I came looking for y-you,” I stutter out as my face flushes red.

“You weren’t supposed to see me like this,” he says, and his voice sounds strangled.

He drops the cigarette to ground and grounds it out with the toe of a boot that probably costs more than everything I have ever owned. That sight shouldn’t make me even more attracted to him, but it does.

He turns one of his usual sneers on me and snaps something snarky at me, probably the beginning of chewing me out for following him, but I barely hear a word he says because I’m so mesmerized by the way he looks. Also, the sound of his voice is somewhat soothing, even with the biting words that no doubt spill from his glossy lips. I missed hearing it while we were away for the summer.

He’s looking at me expectantly now, like he’s waiting for me to answer a question I didn’t hear, and I feel myself blush even deeper.

What the hell is wrong with me? This is Baz. He’s just wearing a dress. I shouldn’t be acting this weird around him.

That’s when I see his nails, colored all black, a glossy sheen to them, and that’s the last straw.

I can’t possibly think straight anymore, so I push all thoughts from my mind and move to close the distance between us. Careful not to mess up the dress, I shove him up against the wall but stop just before our lips meet.

The heels of his boots cause him to tower over me even more than usual, but I’m not bothered by it. I actually kind of love it.

His mouth is parted as if I stopped him mid-word, and the tips of his ears are turning pink. I can’t tell what he’s thinking, though. I’ve never been very good at reading people, especially not when it’s Baz.

“If you’re going to punch me, get it over with already, Snow,” he sneers.

“You called me Simon before,” I say.

“No, I didn’t.”

I shrug. It doesn’t matter. All that matters is, “I don’t want to punch you. Far from it actually.”

He hasn’t pushed me away yet, and my confidence starts to build. Maybe Baz would be more receptive to this than I originally thought. 

I keep one hand on his hip to keep him pinned to the wall and move the other one up to cup the side of his face.

“Is this okay?” I whisper, hesitantly. He nods, so I move my hand up higher, into his hair. My hand slides over the headband and combs through his hair. “What about this?” I ask, my voice breathy and barely audibly.

He nods again.

My eyes drop down to his mouth, and I want to try one more thing, but I don’t want to push my luck. I don’t want to risk trying too much and losing it all.

“Just do it,” Baz whispers as though he read my mind.

I cock my head at him in a question, uncertain whether he actually means what I think he does. Then he says “kiss me” so I quietly I almost don’t hear him. But I do hear him, and it only takes me a beat to lean forward and press my lips firmly to his.

The kiss is everything I imagined and more. His lips taste like cherry cola, and I feel drunk on the taste of him. Like I’ve lost all sense. (And maybe I have since I’m kissing Baz of all people.)

It only takes a moment for Baz to begin kissing me back, his arms coming up to wrap around me and pull me closer. I can feel the dress move along his body as he moves under my hand, and I feel lucky that I get to experience this. It’s a shame that he’ll only be wearing the uniform after this.

I wonder if he would even want to wear this dress in front of other people if he could.

I like the way he looks in it, but I obviously wasn’t meant to see him like this. Does he like wearing the dress? Is he afraid of what other people might think? Has he worn it before?

I have a million questions, but now is not the time to ask. If Baz wants to talk to me about his choice to wear the dress, I’ll be there to listen. But I won’t pressure him into talking about it.

So, for now, I’m going to enjoy it while I can.

I’m going to enjoy this while I can. Having Baz in my hands and not fighting with him. This is so much better than fighting, I think, and I continue to kiss him, thinking about how this may be the best year at Watford yet.

[angelsfalling16]

The Thin Line Between Pretending and Actually Loving You - Chapter 6

Chapter 1 || Chapter 2 || Chapter 3 || Chapter 4 || Chapter 5 || Read on ao3

Summary: Simon and Baz do their Christmas shopping together.

Word Count: 1359

A/N: I am so sorry for how long it took me to update this. I really did want to get the next couple of chapters finished by Christmas, but I've been really busy and haven't found time to write.

I hope you all are liking this, though! I really appreciate all of your comments, which I haven't gotten the chance to answer all of yet, but I will get to those as soon as I can. Thank you all for being patient with me.

***

Baz

Christmas shopping is a lot better when I’m doing it with Simon.

I hadn’t meant to leave all of my shopping for the week of Christmas, but I’ve been so busy with work and planning Dev and Niall’s engagement party and this whole fake boyfriend thing that I just haven’t found the time to do it.

Usually, I would move through the shops methodically, grabbing what I need and getting out as quickly as possible, but with Simon by my side, it’s almost like I brought one of the twins with me.

He wants to look at everything that catches his eye. It wouldn’t be so bad if he looked with his eyes and not his hands. He has picked up at least five different things and we just walked into the store. Luckily, one of those things is what he intended to buy.

I’m not really complaining. It’s kind of endearing actually. I just don’t like having to squeeze through the crowds of people. This of course means that I am forced to walk close to Simon, but he either doesn’t seem to mind or doesn’t notice. In fact, we have finally found an open area in the bookstore that we are currently perusing, and he hasn’t moved to put more distance between us.

“What is your sister’s name? The one who likes bugs, I mean.”

“Ula.”

“Right. Is that short for something?” He asks, looking up at me curiously.

“It’s short for Eulalia.”

“Wow. Your family really likes unique names. Where did they even come up with that?”

“I’m not sure. But it means ‘gem of the sea.’”

“Oh. That sounds really nice. What does your name mean? Your first name,” he clarifies, moving down the shelves a bit.

He appears to be looking for something specific, but I’m not sure what. He already got the book he was looking for to give to his friend, Penny.

“It means ‘a prince’ or ‘one that reigns.’”

I instantly regret telling him that when I see the look on his face. He looks absolutely delighted, and I prepare myself to be mocked by him.

“Ah. So, you’re quite princely, eh?”

“It’s just a name. It doesn’t mean it’s true.”

“Hmm,” he hums, looking at me thoughtfully. “You could make a handsome prince if you wanted to.”

“Thank you?” I reply, willing myself not to blush at the subtle compliment.

Simon has moved on, though, dropping to the bottom shelf with a quiet, “aha!”

“Did you find what you were looking for?”

“I think so. Do you think Ula would be into a book about insects?”

“Um, yeah, probably.”

“Great. I’ll get her one then.”

“Wait, you know that you don’t have to buy gifts for my siblings, right? I already got her Real Bug Dig Kit.”

“I can’t show up to your house without anything.”

“Of course, you can. Or we could say that my gifts are from the both of us.”

“That wouldn’t feel right. I want to help pick out something for them.”

“Alright, but how about we pick out the rest of the gifts for the others together and split the cost? That way, it will look like we bought them things as a couple, and we can both save a bit of money.

He thinks about it for a moment, then nods. “Okay. Sounds like a plan. I’m still getting this book, though.”

“Alright. I already have an idea of what I wanted to buy for Mordelia.”

“What is it?”

“The new book in this series that she’s been reading.”

“What’s it called?”

“When the Sun and Moon Collide.”

He stands up again, and he’s far too close to me, but I can’t bring myself to move too far away as we head towards a different part of the shop.

“That’s interesting. What’s it about?”

I look at him curiously, wondering if he’s actually interested or if this is just his way of trying to be nice. It’s hard to tell.

I used to be really good at reading him, but after all of these years apart, he seems like an entirely different person.

“Well, the first book, Burning Bright, is about a silent war that has been going on between these magicians and vampires. The two main characters are put right in the middle of it, and they both know that the only way that it will end is with some big battle that they know they won’t both make it through. They begin as enemies, but as they start to learn more about the past and what started the feud, they start to work together to find a way to stop the fighting before any more blood is shed.”

I pause for a moment to glance over at Simon. He’s watching me with genuine interest, so I continue.

“The second book follows the two boys as they grow closer while everything – and everyone – else is working to pull them apart. It ended on a terrible cliffhanger, and everyone’s dying to know what happens next. And this new book,” I add, picking it up from the large display, “is supposed to be the last one, but there’s talk of it continuing on.”

“You seem to know an awful lot about these books,” he comments, but his tone is pleasant.

“My sister talks about them a lot, and I may or may not have read them so that I could have some kind of clue about what she was talking about.”

“That’s sweet.”

“More like it was selfish, to save myself from going insane, trying to follow the plot without actually having read it.”

“Hm,” he says, looking at me thoughtfully. I have to look away from the weight of his gaze before it crushes me. “Maybe I should buy a copy so that I can talk to her about it when I’m over at your house.”

I want to mention that the likelihood of him seeing her again and having to talk about those books after Christmas isn’t very high, but he’s already picking up the book, a quiet smile on his face, and I don’t want to be the person who makes that disappear.

I doubt he’ll even be able to read it before then. When we were in school, I rarely saw him pick up a book for class. It’s a wonder he even managed to graduate.

The rest of the shopping goes by pretty quickly. Simon finds this really neat science kit for Adelaide, who is into all things science at the moment. And for Theo, we get some Pokémon cards and a couple of Barbie dolls. He always steals the twins’ dolls, so I thought that I would get him some of his own to play with.

With Simon right next to me, I didn’t manage to get him anything, so I will probably have to go back out tomorrow, but I can’t say that I’m mad. I actually wish that I could spend more time with him.

Somehow, that wish comes true a moment after I’ve thought it when Simon’s stomach growls audibly.

He turns to me with a sheepish smile and asks, “Ready to go get dinner?”

“You know, I was just saying that earlier so that I didn’t have to go out with that guy. You don’t actually have to go to dinner with me.”

“I know, but I want to.”

I almost ask him why, but I don’t want this to turn into an argument. Today has been really nice, and I don’t want to ruin it. So, I agree to go to dinner with him, and we don’t part ways until after the sun has nearly set.

I know that I will see him on Christmas Eve when he comes with me to my family dinner, but as we part ways to head towards our separate cars, I feel a pang in my chest, already missing him.

I don’t know what I’m going to do when all of this ends and we go back to only seeing each other every couple of years. I can already tell that it is going to ruin me.

[angelsfalling16]

The Thin Line Between Pretending and Actually Loving You - Chapter 4

Chapter 1 || Chapter 2 || Chapter 3 || Read on ao3

Summary: Simon and Baz learn more about each other and maybe even grow closer.

Word Count: 2373

A/N: I actually managed to write this chapter pretty quickly. I only did a quick edit, though, so I'm sorry for any mistakes!

***

Baz

“Games? That’s how we’re going to get to know each other better?”

“Do you have a better idea?”

“Yeah. We could simply talk to each other and learn things that way. You know. In the same way you would normally get to know each other.”

Leave it to Simon to try to ruin my plans. And come up with a better, more obvious, way to go about doing things.

I rather like my idea, though. It won’t feel so forced, and I feel like it will be easier to open up to each other if we have something to guide us.

“You and I have never really been normal around each other, have we?” I point out. “We have never been that great at communicating, and we have never gotten along.”

“Then, why did you agree to this? If you honestly believed that we would never be able to pull this off, why did you accept my offer?”

“I didn’t really have any other choice.”

Simon is obviously hurt by my words, and I wish that I could take them back. I don’t want to hurt him, but I can’t tell him the truth either. That I accepted his offer because I liked the prospect of spending more time with him.

I can’t let him know that the pretending isn’t what’s difficult for me. It’s the part where I try not to cross the line between pretending and showing him that I actually love him.

The reason that I struggled to act like a couple around Dev and Niall is because I’m holding myself back. I have to find a good balance, and I am hoping that these games will help. I just need to find a way to get closer to Simon without falling further in love with him.

“Look,” I say, softening my voice. “if you want to back out of all of this, I understand. I will tell my friends the truth, and you and I can go our separate ways once more.”

Once again, I’m giving him an out. And once again, he doesn’t take it.

“That’s not what I want!” I’m surprised by his tone. He almost sounds…upset.

But that doesn’t make sense. Why would he care whether we continue this ruse? It’s not like he is getting anything out of it. He only offered to do this because… Well, I’m not really sure.

It doesn’t seem like he would do this just so we could get the chance to start over. We could have tried that without him pretending to be my boyfriend. Maybe he thought that I would never agree to trying to be friends. Not after everything that I put him through.

“What do you want then?” I ask quietly.

“I want to get to know you, but I don’t understand why all of this has to be so complicated.”

“It is not complicated. I actually thought that playing games would be more fun than forced conversation,” I admit, and I can see him starting to give in.

 Simon

I don’t know about fun, but these games are certainly interesting.

They aren’t even games exactly. They are quizzes that Baz found online for us to take. They’re supposed to tell us how well we know each other.

I don’t need a quiz to tell me that I don’t know anything about Baz Pitch.

I spent four years living with him, but we spent so much time antagonizing each other that we never took the time to learn anything about each other. We shouldn’t have even continued to be roommates after the first year of college. I could have requested a different roommate or moved into an apartment or a different dorm, but I chose to stay.

I feel for him, and I couldn’t imagine leaving him.

It makes me wonder why Baz chose to stay. I know it wasn’t for the same reason, no matter how much I wish it was. He was probably just worried that no one else would want to room with him if they heard how awful he had been with me.

It weird to think that I feel for a boy who I apparently know nothing about, I realize as I fail the second “how well do you know your partner?” that I’ve taken today.

I only got 6 out of 22 points, which is pretty much the worst that you can do. My results tell me that our relationship could stand some improvement. (Obviously.) It also says, “Perhaps you never had the time or the tools to really get to know each other.” That is actually pretty spot on.

Like Baz said, we never figured out how to get to know one another. We always struggled to just sit down and talk, which I guess is why Baz thought these quizzes would help us. I don’t know how this is supposed to help, though.

With a sigh, I shut my computer and slump down into the corner of Baz’s couch before voicing my concerns to him.

“I don’t understand how this is going to help me get to know you. If anything, it has solidified the fact that I don’t know you at all.”

“That was just the beginning,” he says, looking up at me from his own quiz. “To see where we stand. Don’t worry, I didn’t do much better.”

I’ve never seen Baz act so calmly about failing a quiz, and it makes me wonder what score he actually got. Surely, he doesn’t know me better than I know him.

“Here,” he says, clicking something on his computer. “I have another quiz that we can both do. Write down your answers on a piece of paper and answer how you would answer them about me and then about yourself. I will do the same, and then, we will compare our answers to see what we got right.”

“So, now you are going to grade me on how well I know you? Why, so you can judge me?”

“No. That way we know what we need to talk about, what we need to learn about each other.”

“Fine. But I get to choose the next quiz we do.”

“Deal.”

Baz sends me the link to the quiz and finds me a notebook and pencil, and I move to stretch out on the floor while I answer this set of questions.

There are only 21 questions here. Is that really enough to test how well we know each other?

I suppose we’ll find out.

Reading the first question, I am already doubtful of the helpfulness of this quiz.

What’s your partner’s least favorite body part?

Why would I know that? I don’t even know what my least favorite body part is.

After considering this for a minute, I decide to go with his nose because I’m sure that every time he looks at it in the mirror, it reminds him of me. It’s crooked from that time I punched during a particularly vicious argument that we got into our first semester. The last thing Baz would have wanted was a reminder of me, the person he used to hate.

I continue on through the questions. The next two give me a little bit of trouble, but four and five are easy.

Did your partner have a nickname as a child? What was it? Bonus point: Did they like the nickname? Why? and Which of your partner's aunts or uncles are they closest to?

Baz is his nickname that we was given when he was younger, and I’m assuming that he likes it because he still uses it. And his favorite aunt is Fiona. She’s just as awful as Baz used to act. Whenever she came to school to visit, I made sure to stay away from our door. Baz by himself was bad enough to deal with.

I guess on a lot of the questions, and there are some that I just don’t have the answer to. Like, Name two of your partner's grandparents. I can’t even name one of them. And what is your partner’s favorite smell? Why would I know that?

I didn’t even know that I had a favorite scent until after I graduated college. Until I left our dorm and realized that I missed the familiar scent of it. And then it wasn’t until a while later that I realized that the scent was Baz and his posh shampoo. Cedar and bergamot.

I can’t write that as my own answer, though, because that would mean admitting that I like the way Baz smells. I absolutely cannot do that, so I write down cherry scones for myself and leave it blank for Baz.

It takes me about ten more minutes to answer the rest of the questions. Baz is already done, and I’m not sure if that’s because he had an easier time answering the questions or if he left several of them blank, like I did.

 Baz

Some of the answers that Simon wrote down are completely absurd. For example, when it asked what your partner did during the summer as a child, he said that I spent them travelling the world and exploring castles.

He was pretty surprised when I told him that I spent most summers working on a farm with my father’s family. Apparently, he thought that I had never done any kind of physical labor in my life.

I won’t say that I did much better than Simon, but at least I tried.

A lot of these questions would be impossible to answer unless you had spent a lot of time with your partner. Something that Simon and I have definitely never done. They do help me learn a bit more about him.

I find out that Simon secretly likes country music, which makes me almost stop being in love with him. He says that, in his defense, that’s mostly what he listened to while in group homes. It’s what the other boys liked to listen to, so it’s what he was exposed to the most.

I decide to forgive him this opinion since he didn’t really have a choice in the matter but make a mental note to try to expand his music taste later on.

I also find out that he is afraid of dying alone. He has felt so alone for so much of his life that he hopes that when his life ends that he will have finally met someone who will always be there for him. It doesn’t have to necessarily be a romantic partner, but he wants to have someone in his life who he knows won’t abandon him.

I wish that I could help him find this. I want to be someone who makes him feel like he belongs somewhere, but I’m not sure that he would want me to be that for him.

I feel bad for always be so cruel to him when we were younger, and I decide now that even if this whole fake dating thing fails, I am going to do my best to make up for the way that I treated.

As we go through the rest of the questions, Simon and I both admit to things, both serious and not, before Simon searches for another quiz for us to go through.

“What about this one?” He asks, turning his computer screen towards me.

“340 is a lot of questions,” I say, reading the title.

“We don’t have to answer them all. Like you said, it’s only to get a conversation started.”

“Alright,” I agree. “Ask me the first question.”

He smiles quickly at me before turning his computer back towards him so that he can read it.

“What is my middle name?”

“That’s not fair. You don’t even know the answer to that.”

“Actually…”

***

The quiz that Simon turns out to be a great way for us to learn about each other. We learn a lot of small things about each other, but those things build up to a bigger picture that help me better see Simon for the amazingly sweet person that he is.

It also gives Simon the opportunity to open up to me about what he has been doing these past couple of years.

Apparently, he did find out more about his birth mother. The man he suspected to be his father really is his birth father, but he passed away before Simon took off on his little adventure.

Knowing who he was helped him find out who his mother was.

Her name was Lucy Salisbury, and she grew up in a small town with Simon’s father, David. She passed away during childbirth, but she got to name Simon before he was born.

Simon Snow Salisbury.

Not only is it nicely alliterative, but it also means that what Simon thought was his last name is actually his middle name.

I’m not sure where exactly Simon found all of this information, but the way he talks about it, it seems like he feels a little bit more whole knowing where he comes from, and I am happy for him.

Learning about his mother evidently is what made him change career paths. He thought that working with children who came from similar backgrounds as him would help, but now, he thinks that he wants to get away from his past, to try to move on from it.

He still wants to work with children, though, which is why he is going back to school to get a teach degree. I think that it is a lovely idea, and his reasons for it are touching.

The whole point of this was simply to get to know more about Simon, and even though I feel like I have accomplished that, I think I also fell more in love with him, the one thing I didn’t want to do.

Hiding my feelings from Simon is going to be difficult, but as we talked about our families, I realized that it’s going to be even worse when I have to introduce him to my family at Christmas.

Luckily, I still have some time before then. Time to prepare myself and find a way to better protect my heart.

***

Thanks for reading and happy holidays, everyone! <3

I took the questions from real quizzes that I found so here are the links to them:

How well do you know your partner?: https://www.gottman.com/how-well-do-you-know-your-partner/ 21 Questions to Test How Well You Really Know Your Partner: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/in-practice/201607/21-questions-test-how-well-you-really-know-your-partner 340 How Well Do You Know Me Questions: https://www.luvze.com/how-well-do-you-know-me-questions/