Dedicating this chapter to cebaiser_ for the amazing banner on the side. :)

All confusions of last chapter would be cleared up in this one.

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CHAPTER - 35

CONFRONTING THE CONFRONTATIONS

I swallowed the lump in my throat and lightly gritted my teeth. My palms started sweating on their own accord. I rubbed them on my cargos to get rid of the sweat, or better to get rid of the situation I was stuck in.

Ha! As if it was even possible. God had not been fair in giving all the superpowers and magical powers to Harry Potter and his gang. I wanted a few powers too. Something like an invisibility cloak or better deleting someone's memory. How f*cking wonderful it would have been if I had any of these?

But, now was not the time to crib about my non-existence powers, especially not when Kim's skeptical brown eyes were fixed on me, watching my face to gauge any reaction that might appear there. I tried my best to fool her by chuckling slightly and saying, "That was eight years back, Kim. How can you remember something so precisely? I'm sure you're mistaken." Smirking at her, I got up from the sand and stretched my arms above my head. "And if you've forgotten, I'm a football player and pretty much everyone knows me. So, there is nothing to be surprised about." I smirked at the end in order to mae her believe in whatever sh*t I was saying.

She didn't say anything, about which I was glad. I took the chance and told her, "Get up! We need to go as we've a flight to catch early morning." I didn't wait for her to reply and turned my back to her.

Once my back was towards her, I pinched the bridge of my nose and started walking towards my parked bike. I wanted to get rid of this situation. I didn't want to answer any of her questions. Why should I? I didn't even get a chance to ask her the many questions that were bottled up inside me. I was not liable to answer her for anything I had done in these years. It was all because of her; and I was never going to tell her that. Never!

"Who are you trying to fool with this 'famous footballer' bullsh*t, Keith? You're running away from problems. You're acting like a coward." Her voice reached my ears along with the wind and I halted at my spot. She had managed to push exactly the wrong buttons with her two sentences and I knew I couldn't control my f*cking feelings any longer. Everything needed to come out in the open now. It was now or never.

For me, it was now and not never.

With tightly clenched jaw and fists tightly closed in a deadly grip, I turned around and faced her. She was standing on her spot now and looking at me with an irritated expression. An involuntary bitter laughter escaped my lips and I tilted my head to the right to have a better look at her face in the moon's dim light.

"I'm running away? And, you are the one to ask me about it? Seriously, Kim?" My voice came out much more bitter than I had intended it to be. I didn't try to tone it down. Anger of five long years had been preserved inside me and it was time to take it out.

"What?" she asked in confusion with her eyebrows scrunched up together. But, more than confusion there was shock on her face; shock of seeing me like this. I had never been like this with her. I guess, after bringing out the best in me in the times we had met, she finally managed to bring out the worst as well.

I shook my head and narrowed my eyes at her. "Shouldn't I be the one to ask this question from you?"

She opened and closed her mouth several times, looking at me with confusion and finally managed to say, "I don't know what you're talking about."

This made me chuckle bitterly and I took steps towards her while venting out everything that had been stored in my heart for years. "I'm not the one to run away from problems, Kim. It has always been you." She looked at me with wide eyes and shocked expressions, but I didn't let it affect me as I continued, "You ran away from your house on your birthday eight years back so you won't have to celebrate your birthday alone. You ran away from Miami five years back so you won't have to face your mother on Christmas. You ran away from the ice rink so you won't have to skate. You ran away from the New Year Party so you won't have to face me after that kiss. You ran away the next morning without even telling me so you won't have to talk to me. You ran away last night so you won't have to face the awkward conversation. You ran away today and came here so you won't have to see me again." She was looking at me with wide eyes and open mouth. With each word I had said, I had moved closer to her and by the end of my rant, I was towering her. With tightly clenched jaw, I told her in a very low and hard voice, "I might be acting like a coward this one time, but it's you who has always been a coward, Kimberly Jones."

She flinched as I said the last sentence or maybe it was because of the fact that I used her full name. Whatever the reason was, I didn't care at that moment. She lowered her head to stare at the sand between our feet. She couldn't deny any of the things I had said. I knew I was right and by the looks of it, she knew it too.

I let out a huge breath and pinched the bridge of my nose to calm myself down a little. There was no use of playing the blame game now. We were two mature individuals and we could definitely handle this situation.

With a lot of calm and composure in my head as compared to before, I continued and told her the truth, "I... I did come to Miami to look for you." Her head snapped towards me at the speed of lightening. I didn't let the look of pure surprise on her face affect me and continued, "I liked you so much, Kim," I told her the one truth that I had wanted to tell her that one morning when she had decided to leave; the one truth that I had managed to bury deep inside my heart in all these years. Her mouth gaped open as if she couldn't believe what she was listening was true.

"I was mad and broken when you left without saying anything. I never thought that I'd let one person affect me so much but I was so f*cking wrong; and, I realized that after you went away. That summer I came here, and went to Martin. He was the only person that I knew could tell me anything about you." I paused as the memories of that day flooded my mind. The way Martin was shocked yet pleased to see that I'd come in search of Kim. The disappointment I had felt upon knowing that Kim had shifted to Europe was still fresh deep down inside.

Maybe the bitterness in my voice was because of me not being vocal about any of these things with anyone. Maybe I was being like this because I had to finally vent it out to the person who was responsible for all this.

I turned away from her and faced the open sea. Taking a few deep breaths, I tried to not let the old painful memories affect me as looking at Kim's face was not helping me at all. I continued, "But you were not here. You had already gone without telling much to Martin. Do you think I came here just once five years back?" Without giving her a chance to reply, I continued again, "I came here every summer for three years, Kim. But I never heard a word about you."

The sounds of the crashing waves overtook the silence that had formed when I stopped talking. It was so silent that for a moment I wondered if she had ran away this time too, and just as I was about to turn to check on her, she spoke, "Why?" I turned and looked at her in confusion. She was looking at me with a very weird look in her eyes. "Why did you come to find me?" she asked further when she noticed my confusion. Her face, her slightly trembling hands were enough to tell me that she couldn't wrap her head around the turn of events. I couldn't blame her at all.

Looking straight in her eyes with the most meaningful look, I told her the truth, "I missed you." All I could do was hope that she would understand the feelings I had behind it; the tough times I had went through in these five years. All I could do was hope that she would understand the pain that was buried deep inside my voice and my heart.

We kept staring into each other's eyes with so many emotions flowing between us. Relief of saying out loud everything had filled up my head, but there was immense tension as to what would happen next. I wanted to enter Kim's head and know each and every thing she was thinking about. I wanted to know what was going through her mind. I wanted to know it all as her expressions were hardly a giveaway of her feelings.

It was again me who cut off the silence that had settled between us. "I told you I had to talk to you about something. I told you I had to talk to you about something important, but you were not there when I woke up the next morning." Her eyes were fixed on me and looking straight in her eyes, I asked her the one question that had been haunting me all these years, "Why did you leave, Kim? Why?"

"Because I was in love with you," she answered in an instant, looking straight in my eyes and with that she blew my mind away effectively.

I stared at her in complete shock as she kept looking at me with those brown eyes that had always managed to send warmth deep inside my soul. There was so much going on in those eyes that I couldn't point out any one emotion. But, a lot more was going on in my heart as I heard her confess to me. My head, my heart were a whirlwind of emotions and feelings that I didn't know ever existed in me. I was beyond confused and unbelievably stunned.

'You loved me? But, then why? Why did you leave? All you had to do was confess your feelings to me and we would have definitely sorted out everything.'

These were the things I wanted to say to her but I was too tongue tied to utter even a word. All I could do in my completely speechless mode was to stare at Kim with wide eyes and slightly parted mouth. I was the living definition of 'shock'.

Noticing my shocked stance, Kim smiled tight lipped at me, though that smile didn't reach her eyes. "Shocker, huh?" She chuckled and shook her head slightly. My lack of any kind of response made her continue, "There is nothing to be shocked about it, Keith. I was just one of those many girls who fell in love with you."

My shock was overcame by confusion and I asked her in a voice that was somewhat a mixture of confusion and ridiculousness, "And you think I cared about any of those girls as much as I cared about you? I liked you, dammit. I liked you so damn much. I skipped my family vacation and plans of Christmas for you. I had a fight with Adam for you. I lied to everyone just to spend time with you, Kim. Weren't my actions enough to convey how I felt for you? Wasn't that kiss enough to explain my feelings for you?"

The only thought that was running through my mind was what would have happened if we had gotten the chance to talk about our feelings. What if she had confessed her feelings to me five years back? What if I had told her that I felt the same? What if I had made her stay?

"I never wanted to fall in love with you, Keith," she said out loud in her firm voice. "I knew it would be trouble for me. I knew it would be me who would suffer in the end, but I couldn't help it." She finished with slightly trembling voice. The vulnerability that I had never heard in her voice or seen on her face were starting to get clearer as she said further, "Everything about you was so wonderful. Your looks, your humor, the way you cared for me, the way you listened to every crap I had to say and the way you never judged me, the way you looked at me, your smile, your eyes, your family, your... everything. I couldn't help it."

"I had never seen so much love in a family before and it was stupid of me to start thinking that in those five days I had become a part of you guys. And, then you had to take me on that date and be all nice to me. It was all too much to absorb for me. I couldn't handle it."

She took a deep breath as I continued to listen to whatever she had to say. I didn't want to interrupt. It had taken us five years to open up about our feelings and I wanted to make sure that nothing would be kept hidden anymore.

"Do you remember that at New Year's party you told me that if you really liked me, no other girl would ever matter to you? You told me that if a guy doesn't gets what he wants from one girl, then he would find another, unless he really likes that girl. Do you remember that?" she asked, looking straight in my eyes with her brown eyes that looked glazed now.

In an instant, my mind went back to the night we had kissed. I had said these things to her when we were dancing and she had replied with, 'I hope so.' Now, I understood what that 'hope so' meant. Noticing the realization on my face, she smiled slightly and said, "Now you get it."

"I do," I whispered, feeling dumb that I couldn't understand her at that time.

"And after kissing me-" she said and paused to take a deep breath as if she was recalling that night, then she continued, "-you found Hannah."

All the dumbness and surprise that I had felt hardly a minute back was thrown out of the window and it was replaced by complete shock; shock of hearing this from Kim, shock of knowing that Kim had seen Hannah throw herself at me.

Nothing came out of my mouth as I recalled everything that had happened that night; everything from feeling jealous because Kim was dancing with someone else to her dance with me; everything from kissing her soft lips when the clock had hit twelve to going in search of Adam; everything from Hannah throwing herself at me to Precious slapping Adam; Adam and me getting completely drunk to sleeping in Kim's bed; each and everything was still fresh in my mind. How I could ever forget any of that?

I shook my head at her when I understood what she was trying to imply here and told her defending myself, "I didn't find her. She threw herself at me and I backed off. I told her that I liked you." She needed to know all this. She needed to know the truth behind everything.

She closed her eyes tightly and sighed heavily. "I didn't know that at that time. I felt betrayed and used." Even the Kim I had always known to be very strong couldn't stop her lips from trembling as she said this; even she couldn't stop the tears that started flowing from her eyes. On their own accord, my hands went up to wipe those tears away, but she was faster. Before my hands could reach her, she rubbed the back of her hands on her eyes and wiped away those tears roughly. I had never felt so helpless.

"I went away from the party to give myself some time to think. When you came to my room that night, I knew that none of it was your fault. I heard you," she said and looked straight in my eyes as I waited for her to continue. We both needed this. We needed to vent it all out. She continued in merely a whisper, "I heard you when you, before sleeping, said that you liked me." At this, all I could do was stare at her in complete shock.

'I had told her that?' I couldn't remember that. All I could recall was sleeping with Kim in my arms. Now, I felt even more dumb and clueless than before.

My stunned expressions and lack of response made her continue, "We couldn't do anything even though we felt the same, Keith." Her voice was similar to the emotion I was feeling a minute back - helplessness. "You had your own life in Nashville. I had mine in London. It just could never happen." She shrugged her shoulders at the end as she looked at me with teary eyes.

In between all the emotional talks, I managed to find my voice back and I said, "We could have given it a try, Kim. We could have given 'us' a try." This time, I didn't scold myself for sounding so girly or for the way my voice sounded so heavy with emotions. I just wanted to go with the flow. I wanted everything to come out in the open.

She didn't respond but kept staring at me with those gorgeous brown eyes that were glazed with unshed tears. I clenched my jaw tightly to stop myself from shedding any tears; in that process, my fists shut tightly in reflex. Eventually, she shook her head and said in a low but firm voice, "We were not meant to be together, Keith."

Even though what she said hurt me like hell, I couldn't argue on that as I knew that she was completely right. Getting the cue of things, I nodded my head slowly. "Do you love Josh?" The question slipped my tongue before I could even think about it.

Obviously, she was stunned at my sudden question but recomposed herself rather quickly as she smiled slightly and answered, "Of course! Why else do you think I'm marrying him?" The smile neither reached her eyes nor her voice. "We've come a long way in life, Keith. Five years are enough to change everything. I'm glad that I met you. The times I had spent with you will always be extremely special for me, but we both know that we can't continue this and spoil what the future holds for us; seperately."

Wasn't I here to say the same things to her? Wasn't I here to have a final closure with her? Here, she was doing it for me.  But then, why did it hurt so much? Why did my heart suddenly feel so heavy?

"You're right. We both have found someone in our lives. Everything was past, which is over now," I said with a heavy heart. I didn't want to lose her. I was not ready to let her go, again. "It's over!" I repeated myself. It was strange how everything was over between us even before we had a chance to start anything. Life was strange.

She stared at me for a moment and then, nodded her head showing her agreement. Couldn't she disagree with me? Couldn't she act like the stubborn Kim I had always known?

After a while of staring into each other's eyes with many questions and emotions between us, she broke the silence. "Do you remember the deal we made eight years back?" she asked with a smile. I smiled back as I saw her smile for the first time this night. "You'll have to do one thing I'd ask you to do. Remember?" Again, I nodded my head telling her that I remembered everything as if it all happened just yesterday. "Will you do something if I'll ask you to do?" There was a slight uncertainty in her voice and on her expressions.

"Of course! It was the deal," I replied in a heartbeat, removing all sorts of uncertainty from her face.

"Keep Veronica happy, always," she whispered. The smiles from both of our faces slowly vanished as she said this and as her words settled in my mind. This really was a goodbye; our final goodbye.

I could neither nod nor could I utter even a single word from my mouth. When I didn't reply, she came closer and hugged me tightly. It took me a moment to get over the shock and eventually, I snaked my arms around her waist. My heart was thumping so loudly that I was sure that she could hear it very loud and clear as her cheek rested against my shoulder. I tightened my grip around her as I inhaled her smell for the last time. We lived the moment as we knew that it was completely our moment; our last moment.

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A/N

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So, they've said their goodbyes. I wonder what'll happen next. Yes, the story is not over yet. 2 more chapters to go before the epilogue. Stay tuned & don't lose hope on Keith & Kim. :D

 PS. I actually cried while writing this chapter, especially the last part :'(

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