Author's Note: Heyy, sorry that this update has taken so long but along with me, my muse has decided to take a vacation and along with my caught-upness it's a no-no-combination for story updates, thanks for waiting and I hope you enjoy this little chapter. :)

Love to you all!

(500) Days Of Autumn

Chapter Two

(10) Days Of Confusion – Part Three

The first rays of sunlight crept through the half closed shades and gently brought Autumn back from the ocean of dreams she'd floated through just minutes before. She unusual sultriness already caused a thin layer of sweat to linger on her delicate skin and she felt it pushing her down into the linen, but not in an uncomfortable way, it made her feel dull and heavy but relaxed and comfortably numb. The very second she slowly opened her eyes she realized that she was actually happy and not the kind of happy you get when you have school off early but the perfectly-fine-nothing is wrong-it could stay like this forever-happy.

The last few days at the shore had been so exhausting as they had been fun, they'd been hiking, they did walks on the beach, she, Jack and Henry had snook off to drink beer in a bar and got grounded for half a day, even Jack, who really was too old to get grounded...but looking at his father, who could be mighty frightening if he wanted, even Jack stayed in for a couple of hours.

Though if Autumn had to be honest, despite her nice happy-feeling, deep down inside a nagging fear had pushed itself in between the place in her chest where her heart was and her stomach where it got comfortable and made itself noticed by closing up her throat and causing a raging heartbeat whenever Henry got too close to her.

She ignored it the best way she could but the horrible part was that she, once her heart had started beating faster under his accidental touch, was actually even happier. And the fear inside of her remained the same as it had been before; that she was irrevocably starting to fall in love with her best friend.

It had been most threatening when Henry and her had been going to the beach after dark just because they could as all the adults had been playing Charade in the living room and both of them weren't remotely interested in watching Henry's mother portraying an elephant or Autumns Dad over-complicatedly explaining the jet stream.

So they'd been strolling down the beach, amused about Jack's lame excuse for not coming along (he still needed to catch up on his studies, blah blah blah) and talked about everything and anything. Like numerous times before she practically blasted with relief that he acted perfectly normal again, the glum look on his face that he'd worn so stubbornly in DC had disappeared, at least nearly. Whenever he thought no one was watching he bit his lip and stared off into nothingness and Autumn could only guess where his mind went. He seemed so...sad, troubled. She knew that he wasn't the one to be wimpy about nothing, she wondered if it had to do with his new friends but then again, he'd chosen them and when he rode around the blocks with them he always looked so smug. As shocked as she'd been to see that unknown side of him, the side that ignored her when they passed each other in school and wouldn't even say 'hi', as glad she was to have her Henry back, her thoughtful, considerate, funny and easy-going Henry.

The sand tickled under her feet and with the setting sun and soft breeze sent shivers down her spine as her heart thudded with a slight stroke of Henry's hand against hers. She needed to suppress this feeling, it wasn't right.

"What's up, Autumn?", she heard him say and realized that she'd held her breath automatically when their hands had met.

"Nothing", she shook the damp feeling of guilt of and smiled it away, "it's just a beautiful sunset"

"Yeah", he said, his voice trailing off before he pointed to a deserted beach-guard house, "Wanna sit down?"

She nodded, happily at the suggestion because her feet were getting sore from the indulgent sand, she tiptoed over the wooden ramp, up to the box-shaped hut and sat down beside Henry, resting her back against the planks.

A chilly breeze blew over their heads, making Autumns curls hit against the hut and along with her lips, her whole body began to quiver. It was getting cold and she should have brought a jacket.

"Are you cold?", Henry asked playfully and nudged her shoulder with his, a smile brightening up his features in the purplish twilight.

"A little bit", she admitted and tried to silence the voices inside her head that fought for possession of her mind – one saying she should take her feet and run from the awkwardness that she was getting herself in for and the other one telling her to lean in closer to him, hoping he's catch the hint and put his arm around her.

But he didn't, he took his jacket off without hesitation and carefully put it over her shoulders and rubbed them with his hands so she would warm up. Neither of them said a word and he kept his hands on her body and suddenly she felt very hot although her teeth were still chattering.

They sat there for a while and Autumn couldn't recall a time where they hadn't shared a word in such a long moment. The silence was both disturbing and frightening to her, it felt like something had changed and her pending crush on him that she tried so desperately to lie away, felt more present than ever.

It also felt like he was a bit...uneasy, nervous almost...had he picked up on her weird mood or was he like that for another reason?

"You know what?", he suddenly said and then looked at her for a moment, as if considering something before sucking in a wave of breath and with one swift movement, pulled her close to him, closing his arms around her and making her lean against his firm chest, so she finally sat between his legs, "that should make the cold go away better, right?"

But it doesn't make the really annoying things go away, she thought with her heart beating unpleasantly heavy against her ribcage. She nodded faintly, still unable to regain the ability to speak.

"I used to laugh at people who said that they like watching sunsets", Henry said with a hint of awkwardness and a nervous giggle swaying along in his voice and she could feel his chest go up and down as he spoke, "but this is really quite pretty"

"You're aware that I will use that against you", Autumn tried desperately to bring back their cat and mouse games, the teasing, the normality to this absurd abnormal situation, "if I tell your too cool for school friends at home that you said that, your street-creds will be gone with the wind"

"Tell them all you want", he smiled wryly instead of being annoyed, rocking her a little, "right now I don't give a damn about anything that's not in a six inches radius around me"

"Which puts me in the 'I do give a damn-area'?", it wasn't supposed to sound so much like a question but she turned to face him either way to see his reaction but the unexpected seriousness painting his features threw her off track.

"Actually you are the center of that area, it revolves around you...it's everywhere around you", he almost whispered, looking past her at the sea.

Autumn wasn't sure if she had heard right, she didn't know what to make of it and she surely had not the slightest idea what to say, so she just giggled dumb, the way you wouldn't think a genius could.

They'd sat there for a while before her Mom called, worried about them and asking them to come home as soon as possible and they did, somewhere on the way finding their speech back and talked about poker and sunglasses for the rest of the way.

Right now, lying in her bed, reliving that very evening she wasn't so happy anymore, knowing him in bed in the room beside her, so close but so so far away, she was just one thing; confused.