I know I know it's been a while. I haven't forgotten about you I promise. I have new Readers and that makes me happy, So here is another chapter. I know it's short but you know the classic excuse for that...so uh..enjoy.

I heard the gym doors creak open just as the current song faded to an end. Only I'm going to guess he didn't know I heard him come in., which was a good thing because I could delay the 'talk' that I knew, was coming. Unfazed I continued to kick the dummy in his sides and make quick jabs to his face. At the moment I was looking at everything wrong in my life as I kicked away at the helpless dummy. Christian, and Lissa who I haven't actually had a full conversation with in about three weeks, my therapist, Adrian, Dimitri, and Tasha, then the whole victor trial. There was just to much going on and the only neutral ground was this gym and this unmoving and unseeing dummy.

"Roza?" I thought I heard Dimitri say but I brushed that off as to what could have been. I loved Dimitri, he was actually the first one that I have ever loved making it a lot less scary to fall in love with Christian. If that's what you call this little rebound relationship we're in. "Rose!" I heard a little louder. "Stop and look at me"

Why couldn't people leave me alone? "Yes?" I asked showing my annoyance.

"It's your day off and you spend it beating away at a piece of rubber."

"Yeah well you know me," I said lamely.

"Yeah I do which is why I know something is wrong"

"So? Isn't something always wrong with me" I asked getting annoyed with just standing there talking to him. I knew that he had wanted to say yes anyway because he stayed quite instead of saying no as that would have been a lie and well, Dimitri doesn't lie… well about important things. "Just what I thought," I said turning back to my exercises.

"Come on Rose, what's bothering you, I won't tell anyone else if you don't want me to."

"I…already have…a shrink…thank you very much." I said in between breaths.

"Rose…"

"Save…it"

"Damn it, how many times do I have to say I'm sorry?" this caught my attention and I stopped punching again.

"You never actually meant it when you did say it. Your feelings were implied but it's not the same."

"So that's what this is about? You're pissed because I didn't apologize for doing exactly what you told me to?" I could tell that he was starting to get angry. I was too.

"You'd like to think that wouldn't you, you'd like to think that's why I was so hateful, admit it you loved being the center of my world you just didn't love me. You were looking for an out and I was stupid enough to give you one. But I wanted you to stay because you wanted to." he ran his hand through his hair which had gotten slightly longer since he'd gotten back.

"Oh"

"Yeah, oh" I said even though on the inside I was scolding myself for telling him and angry that he confirmed my thoughts and furthermore that he was speechless. Any other time I would have loved to be the one to render Dimitri speechless but all I really wanted was for him to say that's not true, or anything hell I wouldn't even mind it if he lied to me. However, he wouldn't, I didn't get where this urge to be completely honest with me had come from but I was not enjoying it. He had lied to me in all the glances and touches before Tasha but he was all of a sudden repulsively truthful at my expense.

"Look, rose…we are, or we were rather close. closer than allowed but I did feel something, no I didn't like the feelings and yes I was trying to find a way to have it all both you and a 'normal' life, that's why I came back, I figured since you told me to go that it would be okay to come back. I mean what we had-"

"We NEVER had anything; you claim that going away was best for both of us, that we couldn't see each other. Yet you always contradict yourself, I understood that there were things your morals wouldn't let you do and frankly, I could have gone with out it. But to stand here and say we had something is a lie," I said wiping away at the angry tears the leaked down my face. "You want to know why I am so mad at you." I asked since this was obviously what he was after.

No answer.

"Well do you? I mean isn't that what you wanted to know? Why I was constantly treating you and Tasha like shit?"

Again, no answer instead he just stood there averting his gaze. I wondered how I looked to him. A short 17 year old staring up at him all red faced and teary eyed? Or an ex that was being to childish to have ever been with him in the first place? Although I couldn't see how I was an ex since there was nothing there to begin with.

"Fine don't answer but I'm going to tell you anyway." I waited a moment before continuing. "Mason died because of me, and my damn attraction to you" he opened his mouth to protest but I cut him off on the first breath. "don't say anything, when you told me about Spokane you did it in an attempt to get me to grow up, I didn't think much of it at the time but now I see you were trying to convince yourself that what ever went on between you and I was okay. You told me not to tell but then she showed up and I got mad and told mason about the strigoi.

"And then he got mad at me because I wouldn't sleep with him" Dimitri's stone-faced turned soft at that. "It wouldn't have been fair to him if I was with him in person but with you in my mind. It wouldn't have been fair to me either. So he left to fight, we all know what happens after that but do you know he came back thinking he could save me and we'd be together when in all reality there was no way at the time that I wanted anyone but you, he was still my best friend though. He came back because he loved me, he didn't die heart broken but he did die in vain, I needed you after that, I seriously went insane and all you could do was leave, you couldn't even wait until I was at least a little stable. You left two weeks after he was killed. And what pisses me off is that you always told me that you would throw yourself in front of me but instead you threw me under the bus. And I blamed Tasha because she was content, she had you Lissa and Christian wrapped around her fingers. And me, I had no one that could relate to what I was going through."

"I thought you were okay, honestly I wouldn't have left you had I known. And as far as no one to relate you had Lissa." He said looking hurt and guilty.

"Whose parents died in a car accident not because they sacrificed themselves in vain. but you should have known, you should have helped me. It's to late now the damage has been done."

"I…"

"Save it, apologies won't change anything that happened; I really did miss talking to you though things would have been a lot different."

"Your right about a lot of things but your also wrong about a lot too. One being that I wasn't trying to make you grow up for me. I was doing it for you, and the second is that I did have feelings for you…I still do and I can still find myself being a little overprotective of you. I can see why you wanted to believe the worst of me, I would have too, but you know this can't happen. It never could whenever we were near each other though, our self control was nothing but a memory. Roza I love you more than you'd want to believe but it's not about us anymore it's about them and right now I am still trying to get over the shock that I am going to be someone's father and I love Tasha too. And you, you have Christian. We can be friends again with time. Later on in life we will look back and laugh at this."

"Zen life Lessons 101" I said giving him a weak smile. Even though my thoughts were stuck on the part where he said he loved me. "And I love you too, so how do we fix this from here?"

"One day at a time, krasivyj" he said pulling me into a hug that was both welcome and unexpected. Instantly everything I had forgotten about his touch came rushing back at full speed. He was definitely right it would take a while, and I would have to let him know that hugging me like this was not the best way to achieve mutual grounds…just yet.

I was reading the story from start to finish you know to get inspired and i noticed that rose and Dimitri never actually made up. And what good is a romance story without some unrequited love...i guess. but i hope you enjoyed.

D. Christie.