Notes: Five times Elizabeth and Henry were just friends and one time they were something more. Title taken from 'Everything Has Changed' by Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran.
i just wanna know you better
1.
Elizabeth Adams loved patterns. Predictable, logical, dependable; they were the constraints that tamed an otherwise chaotic world.
Which was perhaps why the jumble of contradictions who sat in the front row of her 'Intro to Poetry' class and went by the name of Henry had captured her attention. His muscular build and strong jawline suggested he was an athlete, yet his perceptive analyses of Shakespeare and Keats refused to let her reduce him to a jock. His air of cool confidence carried a whiff of high school royalty, yet his penchant for flannel shirts and khakis begged her to label him a nerd.
No matter how she tried to classify him, she couldn't find a fit, couldn't identify the pattern beneath his surface that defined who he was and why he was, and like an itch, her mind wouldn't let go of it. It continued to rub, rub, rub…
"Miss Adams?"
At her name, she whipped around, gaze tearing away from Henry and landing on Dr Matthews where he perched against the desk in front of the dark green chalkboard.
Dr Matthews peered at her, bushy grey eyebrows arched.
She couldn't be sure if he was calling her out for not paying attention or if he was prompting her for an answer to an unheard question, but the way the other students' stares bored into her, half sneering (because she was so clearly intellectually inferior), half pitying (because thank God they hadn't been called upon), suggested it was the latter.
"Well?" Dr Matthews said.
Elizabeth's mouth hinged open. "Uh…" Though she wasn't one to embarrass easily, heat crawled up her neck into her cheeks.
Where was a fire drill when you needed one?
Across the room, someone cleared their throat.
Dr Matthews glanced away from Elizabeth, towards Henry, just as Henry began to speak. "Usually each stanza would consist of four lines alternating between iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter, but here Keats deviates from the form, instead using three tetrameters followed by a dimeter. By making the final line of the stanza half the length of the previous three, he causes the reader to pull up short, much like the knight has been pulled up short, thwarted on his romantic quest."
"Excellent analysis, Henry!" Dr Matthews pushed off from the edge of the desk, grabbed a stub of chalk, and strode towards the board, his exchange with Elizabeth seemingly forgotten.
While Dr Matthews wrote up Henry's comment with a tap-scratch-tap of chalk, Elizabeth let out a sigh of relief and slouched down in her seat, as if doing so would render her invisible. A close call like that was probably her cue to start concentrating.
And she did.
…for all of two seconds.
But then she found her gaze being drawn back to Henry, back to this puzzle of a boy and her search for a unifying pattern.
oOoOo
Class ended, and in clusters of twos and threes, the other students ambled out and filtered into the stream of people that flowed along the corridor. Elizabeth took her time stuffing her books into her backpack, half an eye on Henry as he slotted his notepad, its pages swollen with ink, into the shabby leather satchel balanced on his seat. She pulled the drawstring of her bag tight and hoisted a strap onto her shoulder, then gripping the strap in one hand, her thumb rubbing at its frayed edge, she sidled over to his desk.
A pace away, she stopped.
The tempo of her thumb against the strap quickened.
"Thanks for coming to my rescue," she said.
She didn't know if it had been his intention to save her from humiliation when he'd stepped in and answered the question, and worry he might turn around and tell her it hadn't, he simply didn't appreciate time-wasters, caused her stomach to churn.
(Not that he'd ever given her reason to think he would be so abrupt. And not that it mattered if he was. Who cared what opinion he had of her?)
Henry stopped folding shut the flap on his satchel and turned to her. At first his expression was blank, but within half a second recognition spread across his features, and he smiled, warm and bright, the twinkle in his eyes bordering on conspiratorial.
"No problem," he said.
At his smile, her belly flipped and that pit-of-the-stomach feeling transformed into a flutter; she tried to ignore it, and with chin dipped, she shook her head, setting her hair wavering. "I was miles away. Not sure I could even tell you the title of the poem."
He pulled the strap of his satchel onto his shoulder, then gave a shrug that threatened to dislodge it. "You can always borrow my notes, if you like. I'm Henry, by the way." He held out his hand.
She eyed it for a long second—A little formal… Another note for her mental dossier—then tentatively shook it. "Elizabeth."
Compared to his, her hand was doll-like, yet rather than fragile, in his grip she felt secure.
His smile widened and he echoed, "Elizabeth." The way he said it made it sound like he found hidden meaning in those four syllables, just as he did in the poems they studied.
Still holding her hand, he tilted his head towards the doorway behind him; outside, the stream of students had already thinned. "I was gonna grab a coffee. If you'd like to join me, I could talk you through my notes—save you from having to decipher them."
Notes that might prevent the class from tanking her GPA? The chance to glean more information, maybe decipher him?
How could she refuse?
She nodded, a shy smile pulling at her lips. "Sure."
oOoOo
"How do you know all this stuff anyway?" Elizabeth said through a mouthful of blueberry muffin as she dusted off the crumbs that clung to her fingertips.
She and Henry had nabbed a cosy table in the window of the coffee shop; rays of late afternoon sun beamed through the glass, bathing them in warmth and a lazy golden glow. For the past hour, Henry had been talking her through the poems they'd studied so far that semester, explaining their structure, rhythm, language and context. (Apparently today's poem had been Keats' La Belle Dame sans Merci.) He was clearly knowledgeable, but not in an arrogant way like the straight-A kids at boarding school had been (and like she herself had been, if truth be told, before the events that led her to boarding school); instead, he seemed a touch self-conscious about it, as if, in his experience, intelligence, independent thought, a passion for learning weren't always seen as positive things.
Tearing off a chunk of the muffin that sat, cut in half, on the plate between them, he shrugged. "I read a lot. Plus, I had this great teacher in high school, Mr Eastman. He's the one who first got me into poetry, taught me how to really read a poem."
"I'm afraid my understanding of a poem doesn't go beyond knowing whether or not I like it," she said.
"Knowing what you like is the first step. Once you figure that out, you can start to look deeper for the why."
Somehow, she doubted she'd ever be able to read poetry like he could. She didn't see the words (the world?) how he did. Their minds worked in different ways.
Which, perhaps, only added to her thirst to understand him; she wanted to see what he could see, she wanted to discover what secrets hid in plain sight.
She sipped her coffee—milky and sweet, and now lukewarm. "So, you're an English major?" she said.
He picked up his own mug, and settled back in his chair, the coffee cradled close to his chest. "Actually, I'm a grad student. First year. I majored in Religious Studies."
Grad student?
So, older than she'd guessed.
And Religious Studies?
Could explain his ability to read symbolism.
It didn't explain why he was taking an undergrad poetry class, though.
"So, 'Intro to Poetry' is just for interest?"
"I was—am"—he corrected himself with a shake of the head—"ROTC, which didn't leave much time for anything beyond the compulsory credits. Now my schedule's a little lighter, I thought I'd audit some of the classes I wanted to take before."
ROTC and a Religious Studies major?
It felt like another contradiction, maybe because she linked theologians with pacifism. Though, training for the military would certainly explain his physique…
"What about you?" he said. "'Intro to Poetry' doesn't really seem to be in your comfort zone."
She snorted. "Now, there's an understatement. Give me a differential equation over a verse of poetry any day."
He frowned, silently asking what she meant.
Her lips tweaked into a half-smile. It had been a poor joke, if she could even call it that; no wonder it had confused him. "Math major," she said, then amended, "Planning to be. My uncle's a retired English professor. He made me promise to take at least one English class, so it was either this or 'Intro to Literature', and I thought reading poems would be less work than reading novels."
Henry chuckled, and took a sip of coffee. "You revisiting that logic?"
She tilted her head to one side, and with another self-deprecating smile, she conceded, "Possibly."
A moment later, her smile faded, and with elbows rested to the tabletop, head bowed and shaking, she tore at the edge of a paper napkin. "It'll be a miracle if I actually pass. I don't even want to think about what it's gonna do to my GPA."
"Well, I'm sure devoting my academic career to the study of religion must earn me a miracle or two. I'll put in a good word for you with the Big Man."
She stilled and her gaze flicked up to meet his. At the look in his eyes, at once playful and sincere, like he meant the comment to be taken light-heartedly but genuinely cared enough that he would offer up a prayer, she smiled again—warm, this time—and all worry about her grades dissolved into nothing.
They held that stare a few moments longer, until she became aware of it, of how long it was going on, of how it was beginning to feel intimate, and a flush of heat rolled out from her chest.
Her gaze dipped to the muffin on the plate between them, and she broke off another piece. "So, the military and God…?" She pressed the chunk to the plate, sponging up some of the crumbs before she popped it into her mouth. "Interesting combination."
oOoOo
The conversation flowed with an ease Elizabeth had only ever experienced with her closest friends—though, no friend had ever caused her heart to trip over itself with each flash of his smile or stirred up a flutter in her belly with his every laugh. It wasn't just Henry's looks that had an effect on her (though, she couldn't deny those chiselled features and warm, hazel eyes played their part); it was the passion with which he spoke, his quickness with an apposite quote (or cheesy joke), his surgically sharp intellect.
She didn't know how long they'd been talking when Henry glanced at his watch, but the golden light had crimsoned and all the other tables in the coffee shop had been wiped down, chairs upturned and stacked on top, ready for closing, so at least a few hours must have passed—and no matter how long it had been, she was sure of this: it was nowhere near long enough.
"I have a meeting with my thesis supervisor in ten minutes," Henry said, his expression as regretful as she felt, "so I probably ought to get going."
"No problem." She offered him a broad smile, trying her best to hide her disappointment. "I think they were going to kick us out in a minute anyway."
That earned her a scowl from the waitress who, for the last five minutes, had been hovering.
Henry folded shut the cover of his notepad and leant down to tuck it into his satchel where it rested against the leg of his chair.
Elizabeth watched him. Her heart drummed against her ribs and a slick of sweat dampened her armpits.
Say it. Just say it.
"So…maybe we could do this again sometime?"
Henry paused and looked up at her. For a long moment, he studied her, his expression cautious.
"You mean as friends, right?" he said.
Her chest deflated—slowly, like with that one word he had punctured a hole beneath her sternum, and molecule by molecule, the air was hissing out.
Friends?
That wasn't what she meant.
But of course he wasn't interested in her in that way, of course he didn't want anything more from her than friendship. She'd wanted to get to know him, and though she felt certain even a lifetime wouldn't be enough to learn him completely, she already knew he was smart and kind and handsome, and charming and easygoing and generous, and funny and thoughtful and passionate, and so many other things besides.
In other words, way too good for her.
She forced her smile wider, and at the same time, shoved any feelings she had for him down, to a place so deep and dark that hopefully they'd have no choice but to wither.
"Right," she said, her tone breezy and bright. "Friends."