Henry seemed so confused.

" Do you mind explaining?" He really seemed so into this.

I huffed "it's a long story "

"I've got time" he replied as he gave me the most sincere smile.

Was I about to tell him one of my greatest regrets in life?

I only know him for a week.

I mean, if I tell him and he doesn't like it he can leave, so I won't have to push him away right?

Fuck Mia, think of what Steph said

Stop running from it.

Ugh, here we go.

"Okay, hang tight cause we've got a long way to go" I chuckled.

He nodded letting me know I could continue.

"I've always been kind of artistic, to be honest, I was doing ballet and liked to draw. But then my parents divorced, I was only 4 at the time. I stayed with my mum and my little sister who was still a newborn then. After some time we were really struggling financially so my mum stopped me from ballet. Which was so heartbreaking to me because I loved it. I tried to drown my sorrow in books. I was 7 at the time, but not your regular 7 year old" I was chuckling at the thought.

"You know what the first book I read was ?" It was more like a rhetorical question, I didn't expect him to answer, so I continued. "The Phantom of the opera. Not something you would expect from a 7-year-old right? My family noticed, and then started pushing me into the more philosophical direction you could say. Note that by that time I was also learning English at a quite quick pace. Not even a year after I found something else that I loved. Taekwondo, my mum signed both me and my sister up. And then I was living my best life, I was doing things I loved. Then I turned 12 or 13 and started getting interested in religion. The lack of actually. I kept reading books about hidden messages and stuff like that. And that's when I had that moment you could say. That's when I realized this is what I was supposed to do. I was supposed to study religion and history, and train my ass off to go the Olympics with Taekwondo." I sighed.

But Henry signaled me to continue.

"And I was studying and training just to make my dreams come true. That's until we moved to the UK. I was 16 at that time . I left everything behind . I stopped Taekwondo because in the UK it was too expensive for me to continue. So one dream crushed ."

I felt my voice breaking but I regained my strength and continued.

"In Greece education is really important, and every Greek person thinks that if you don't go to university you're useless ."

Henry furrowed his brows in either disgust or confusion, I couldn't really tell.

"My family was like that, so they were pushing me to get good grades to go to Oxford. I mean it was my dream and they wanted to see it come true as much as I did right? I was an excellent student in Greece so they thought it would be the same in the UK. But unfortunately, it was not. I joined the college late so I had lost quite a few things and there was no one to help me, I had to face all of this alone. I managed to give final exams for my first year, but I decided for next year I would go to another college and start again. At that college I could do religious studies, so I was really excited. But of course, I couldn't just stick with one subject, I had to choose another two. So I picked English literature and Psychology. Everything was going great for the first two months. Then I realized that I was getting behind in English because what everyone was taught 3 years ago I had not been taught. So I had to teach myself. And it was so much, that I started putting most of my energy there, and then I started getting behind on my other classes as well. That's when I started to have really bad anxiety attacks. To the point where I couldn't walk into college because I was getting dizzy and short of breath. I'm not the person who will show their emotions publicly in the hope of compassion. But one day I had a complete breakdown in college because I was told that apparently, I should have been attending English and Maths classes to pass my GCSEs and that there would be exams soon and if I didn't attend I would have to pay a really large sum as a fee, something neither me or my family had. So I was told that it would be better if I just dropped out since I had lots of absences due to my anxiety attacks. I had this really heavy weight dropped upon me and I didn't know what to do. That was the first and last time I showed any emotions publicly. My teachers passed me and they didn't seem to care. That day I went to my last class of religious studies, we had an exam that day, so I pulled myself together and went fully prepared to do my best. When one of the girls whom I previously heard didn't bother to study pretended to have an anxiety attack. And for that, she got an A. And that was the last straw for me. I stormed out of the class and never went back to college. And obviously all my family was disappointed and didn't talk properly to me in months ".

I paused for a moment.

"And that's how all my dreams came crashing down at me. After that, I just kept working. And every time I was going to work I couldn't help but realize how beautiful nature was. Every time I kept noticing something different that drew my attention, so I decided I wanted to have all these moments saved somewhere . And that's how my love for photography began, of course, all my photographs were really bad in the begging. But as soon as I had enough money, I took several online classes and got all the diplomas I needed. And now I'm here "

I gave him a weak smile.

It was really hard for me to talk to someone else other than Steph about this stuff, I didn't know how they would react. I didn't want their pity.

I sighed heavily "guess photography was my escape plan".

I saw Henry's eyes were glossy and he instantly pulled me into a hug which I returned gladly.

I needed it.

I felt I wanted to sob but I kept it together.

Henry then broke the hug which I was really disappointed about.

But he then cupped my face staring deep into my eyes.

I melted at his touch and grabbed his hand.

"Escape plan or not you're amazing at what you do, and don't let anyone else tell you any different, or they'll have to face my fist," he said jokingly and I couldn't help but smile at his remark.

But I wasn't prepared at what he was about to do next.

He grabbed my waist and pulled me closer to him, carefully touching the back of my head as he placed a soft kiss on my forehead.

I was stunned.

I loved that feeling, and I didn't want to lose it.

Henry then spoke "Mia, do you trust me enough to let me help you ?"

I was still stunned from the kiss that I didn't even think what I was saying.

"Yes"