Writer's Note: I hope everyone had a good Christmas. Here's the next chapter. Enjoy!
Chapter Fifteen
'Dear Miss Adams…'
Elizabeth sat at the kitchen table in Aunt Joan's apartment, the letter she'd picked up from the mail cubby on her way through the lobby now unfolded and clutched in both hands. The window was wedged open with a French-English dictionary, and the rise and fall of traffic on the road, the bubbling chatter and squeals of kids skipping alongside their mothers on the sidewalk and the scent of spring—a subtle warmth, greenness, earth and grass—drifted in on the evening breeze. Though the sunlight was dimming, its soft golden glow was still bright enough to read by.
She scanned down the letter, devouring the words. From where it perched on the skin over her throat, the Ink kitten peered at the page too.
It took her a couple of passes for the news to sink in:
She'd been offered an interview.
An internship with the CIA was her dream—it was all she wanted, the thing she had worked so hard for—and she ought to have been elated at the news, but the most she felt was a vague shimmer, like the iridescence on the surface of a bubble, empty inside and waiting to pop.
An achievement didn't feel like an achievement when she had no one to share it with.
A moment later, she sank back into the emotional nothingness of before.
Everything had felt a little meaningless that semester, like life had been drained of its colour. In a way, it reminded her of the emptiness that had haunted her when she returned to Houghton Hall after Chris had taken her own life. She'd had a taste of connection, friendship, something more, and then it had gone, leaving her feeling even more lonely than had she never experienced it at all: You can't miss what you never had, but once you have it, you can't go back to the ignorance of before.
Someone had probably put it more succinctly.
No doubt Henry would be able to pull something out of his grab bag of quotes.
At the thought of him, the ache in her chest resurfaced—just like it always did.
She hadn't seen him since the day after the party. Well, perhaps more accurately, she hadn't spoken to him. A few times, she'd almost run into him—amidst the towering shelves at the library, when grabbing a quick coffee, as she hurried to class across the quad—but each time, the tingle of her Ink had alerted her to his presence seconds before impact, and she was able to change her course or hide around a corner before he noticed her. If he had seen her, things would probably have been awkward. Or maybe he would have ignored her, which would have hurt more than it should. Not that she wanted to speak to him, but he hadn't called her once, and it left her feeling like maybe she didn't mean anything to him. Which, of course, she ought to have welcomed—she didn't want to be with him, she didn't want him showing up and making her fall in love with him—and yet…
Why couldn't she forget about him and move on like she'd planned? With the seven new classes she was taking that semester, she had more than enough to think about. But the sound of his voice, the memory of his scent, the ghost of his touch still plagued her. Part of her feared that maybe it was a soulmate thing and that no matter how much time passed, he would always be there, inked onto the coils of her mind. It didn't help that her actual Ink still pined for him, with its listless wandering and broken-hearted mewls. She wished she'd never met him; she wished she could love him without fear; she wished she could find contentment in solitude like she had before.
Pushing him away was for her own protection, she reminded herself—frequently. But those words were beginning to feel more like a mantra that she recited in the hope that if she said them enough times she would believe them, rather than a truth that she already knew.
She folded up the letter and placed it and its torn-open envelope on the stack of papers at the opposite side of the table. Then she pulled her notebook out of the leather purse that slouched next to her feet, the corners of the cover curled and blunted into a soft pulp of paperboard, and thumbed through to the notes she'd made for her 'The Making of the Modern Middle East' assignment.
As she began to skim-read the notes, a muffled bang, like the door to the stairwell swinging shut, echoed along the hall, followed by the faint tread of footsteps.
The Ink kitten's ears pricked and swivelled, and its gaze darted towards the door. A second later, it leapt to its feet, and the skin around it tingled as it scampered in a circle.
Elizabeth stopped reading and stared towards the door, too.
Her heart pounded.
It couldn't be him. Why would it be him? The Ink kitten had to be mistaken.
Silence.
She waited.
Then a rap-tap-tap pulsed through the wood.
She flinched.
The Ink kitten chirruped and mewed.
A moment passed. Then Henry's voice called through. "Elizabeth? It's me. It's Henry."
Elizabeth remained frozen in her seat.
What was he doing there? Why had he shown up now?
Maybe if she stayed quiet, he'd think she wasn't in and—
"Elizabeth, I know you're in there."
What? How the hell did he—
"Elizabeth, I just want to talk."
oOoOo
Henry stood in front of the door, his head bowed as he waited for a response. He'd said he knew Elizabeth was inside. That was a bluff. He was going more by his Ink's excitement than anything else. The Ink puppy ran along to the back of one hand and pawed towards the door and then ran along to the back of the other hand and pawed towards the door again in a way that would suggest that Elizabeth was on the other side. But his Ink hadn't exactly been reliable recently. There had been more than a few occasions when it had suddenly stopped moping, sprung to attention and spun around in tight circles, like it could sense Elizabeth and the Ink kitten were nearby, only for him to look around, this way and that, and find that they were not. Each time came with a bitter sting of disappointment. But maybe it was for the best that he hadn't seen her. She didn't want to see him ever again—or so she'd said—and he didn't want to get into an argument with her and make things worse. Maybe coming to talk to her now wasn't a great idea either—his mother's insistence that he be patient still prodded at the back of his mind—but the silence between them couldn't go on forever.
And, besides, he didn't want her to think that he'd forgotten.
He rapped the knuckles of his first two fingers against the door again.
Rap-tap-tap.
"Elizabeth?"
He waited.
Nothing.
"Elizabeth, look, I know you're still mad at me, but please will you open the door?"
He waited.
Nothing.
He rubbed his brow, his fingertips working deep circles, trying to relieve the tension that clung to each furrow. Then he rested his forehead to the door and spoke through the wood, his voice loud enough that she would be able to hear him if she was inside, but low enough that he wasn't talking to the whole corridor. "Elizabeth, I'm sorry, okay? I'm sorry I didn't tell you about ROTC and the Marines, I'm sorry I didn't give you a chance to get to know me properly, I'm sorry I made promises that I don't know if I can keep. But please can we talk?"
He waited.
The Ink puppy whined impatiently.
Still no response.
He sighed.
This wasn't exactly how he wanted to do things.
He turned around and sat down, his back rested to the door. The layer of tiled carpet provided little cushioning, and the hard surface beneath pressed through, uncomfortable against his sit bones.
He ruffled one hand through his hair. Hopefully she was in the apartment and he wasn't about to embarrass himself for nothing.
So…where to begin?
"My favourite colour is orange, not bright orange but kind of burnt orange, like fall leaves, and my favourite food is cheeseburger pizza…"
He went back through all the questions he could remember having asked her over the previous semester and provided her with answers of his own. It wasn't the same as having a conversation with her or getting to know each other over time, but he wanted them to at least be even—for her to know as much about him as he knew about her. Of course it wouldn't lessen her fear of losing another person she loved, but maybe that fear was something they could work on, if only he could get her talking to him again.
About five minutes in, the Ink puppy trotted along to the inside of his wrist and sniffed at the gap beneath the door. Then it batted one paw towards the gap, tentative yet playful. The action gave him hope that although Elizabeth hadn't said a word, maybe she was sat on the other side, listening.
oOoOo
Elizabeth sat with her back to the door, her knees gathered loosely to her chest. The Ink kitten had scampered along to the exposed skin between the waistband of her jeans and the hem of her shirt, and it was now dabbing its paw towards the gap beneath the door. Had there been any risk of it leaping over onto Henry's skin, she might have pulled it back, but there wasn't, so she let it dab, dab, dab while she listened to him talk.
When he'd exhausted the list of likes and dislikes and basic facts, he moved onto his hopes for the future: how after he finished his master's degree, he would serve out the necessary time in the Marines, and then when he came home, he'd like to return to his studies and get his PhD, and after that maybe he'd go into teaching or writing, or writing while teaching, and how one day he'd like to have a family, complete with picket-fenced house and pet dog. (Perhaps he sensed the Ink kitten's indignant hiss at that, because he quickly added, "Or cat.") The way that he spoke made it all sound so simple, so real, like the path had already been laid out for them and if she wanted that life with him, all she had to do was take it.
The sunlight slowly faded, surrendering the apartment to blue-grey shadows, and the breeze through the window turned from pleasant to chill.
"I miss you," he said, "and I love you, and I can understand why that's scary for you. I just want you to know that I'm here for you, no matter what and whenever you're ready." There was a pause, followed by a rustling. "I'm leaving something here for you. I hope we can talk soon."
He paused again, perhaps waiting for a response. Then came a scuffing, accompanied by a silent yowl from the Ink kitten, presumably as he moved away from the door and rose to his feet.
One final pause, and then the pad, pad, pad of footsteps faded away down the hall, followed by the creak and slam of the stairwell door.
Elizabeth waited a moment and then eased to standing. Her muscles ached and strained from sitting on the floor. She hobbled over to the window, as fast as her legs would allow, hid behind the wall at the edge, so no one looking up would catch sight of her, and peered down at the street below. A few minutes later, Henry appeared from the blind spot in front of the apartment block and crossed the road. Only then did she return to the apartment door, open it, and look out into the hall.
On the tile of carpet immediately in front of the door sat an envelope: square, white, roughly one-and-a-half hands by one-and-a-half hands. She stooped down and picked it up—it was heavier and bulkier than she expected—and as she studied it with a frown, she retreated into the apartment and closed the door behind her with a clunk that reverberated through the wall.
She sat down at one end of the couch, the cushion sagging beneath her, and then slipped her thumb beneath the corner of the envelope flap and tore it open.
Inside was a card. She pulled it out, and whatever had been tucked inside it, adding that weight and bulk, slipped free and fell into the bottom of the envelope.
The card was cream-coloured, with a kitten clinging to a bunch of rainbow-hued balloons in the centre and a banner spelling out 'Happy Birthday' arcing above.
Her frown deepened.
Happy Birthday? But her birthday wasn't until—
Shit.
Her eyes widened.
She'd totally forgotten.
Inside, Henry had written a simple message:
Dear Elizabeth,
Happy Birthday,
All my love,
Henry
xxx
Then he'd added a plus sign and a doodle of a paw print.
On the reverse of the card's design, he'd jotted a second message:
I'll be at Coffee, Cake and Cookies at 9 am tomorrow. I hope you'll join me.
She set the card down on the armrest and then tipped out the contents of the envelope into her hand. A gold-chained necklace slithered out and coiled in the centre of her palm. It had a small, round pendant. The side facing her was engraved with the letter 'E'. When she gripped the pendant by its edges and turned it over, the gold cold to the touch, she found a paw print engraved on the reverse. Her heart caught in her throat.
It looked exactly like the necklace her parents had given her four years ago to the day, just months before the car crash.