Writer's Note: Thank you for all of your comments/reviews! They are much appreciated. : )
Warning: Sexual content in the first few paragraphs. (Nothing graphic.)
He moved on in July.
(Or at least he tried to.)
That night, Henry dreamt he was back in his apartment. Elizabeth lay beneath him in bed; her skin glistened with moonlight and sweat; her hair fanned out around her in a wonderfully dishevelled mess. He braced himself on his forearms and then brushed back the strands of hair that stuck to her brow before he dipped down to capture her lips in another lingering kiss. His tongue stroked the roof of her mouth, and as she moaned into him, her hips undulated up to meet his.
When he broke the kiss, a string of saliva stretched between their lips. He stared down at her: her eyes closed, her cheeks flushed, her lips parted. God, she was perfect. And then he turned his attention to her neck. He nuzzled her throat, and then alternated kissing and grazing his teeth over her skin. Meanwhile, her fingertips danced up the muscles of his back, eliciting a shiver, and she threaded her fingers through his hair and held him against her. He could almost taste the tang of salt in her sweat, but as his mind tangled in that thought, the lack of taste, he found himself slipping, the dream fading. He clung to it, clung to her, and trailed his lips down her throat, pausing to nip at her collarbone and then suckle at her pulse before he descended the valley between her breasts.
"Henry…" Her voice was soft and breathy. She tugged at his hair, drawing out a sweet sting.
It spurred him on. Open-mouthed kisses led the way down, down, down, over the soft curve of her stomach, down, down, down.
"Henry…" That whispering plea again.
He wanted to taste her, he wanted to inhale her, he wanted to watch her writhing beneath him.
"Henry." Something in her tone changed.
He stilled and looked up at her.
She stared back at him. Her pupils were so wide that black had engulfed blue, and she gazed at him with an expression he hadn't seen before, so soft, so tender, so cautious yet unyielding.
She cupped his face and caressed his cheekbone with a sweep of her thumb. "I love you."
With that, he awoke. Jolted back to Pittsburgh and the shadows of his bedroom.
His erection was throbbing, his body ached for release, but rather than chasing that high, he rolled onto his side, and with the crisp white sheet clutched around him, he waited for his arousal to subside. I love you. Her words echoed through every recess of his mind. I love you. He could almost feel the warmth of her body radiating against him and the soft-firm-smoothness of her skin. I love you. He closed his eyes and prayed that when he opened them he would find himself with her again. I love you.
But she had gone. The darkness pressed in. And he'd never felt so alone.
He tossed back the sheet, swung his legs over the side of the bed and sat in a hunch at the edge of the mattress. With his feet planted firmly against the cool wooden floorboards and his elbows propped to his knees, he scrubbed the dregs of sleep from his face. The night around him hung so still and silent that he could hear the distant sound of freight train wheels churning along the tracks. It felt like he was the only person alive to witness it. Maybe he was the only person alive to witness it. Time could have frozen except for him and that train and he would never know.
The mind could do strange things when the world turned dark and you found yourself alone.
He lowered his hands and stared vacantly out into the room, and as his eyes adjusted, the black shadows dissolved into deep blue.
When he first found out that Elizabeth had left without so much as a goodbye, he'd felt a little hurt, a little confused, a little like she'd used him—though, of course, nothing that he'd done for her had come with any kind of condition. But feeling anything else, even things that were unjustified, even things that made him feel ashamed, was preferable to feeling the way that he missed her. More than he thought possible. Like she'd carved out and taken away a piece of him.
Which was utterly ridiculous, of course. They had never been a thing. They were just…just…just… He should have had no trouble forgetting her, even if his hope of them meaning something more to one another had been shattered, even if he didn't understand what had made her leave in that way, even if every inch of his body hurt—not so much a phantom limb as a phantom twin.
So he'd dedicated the last month to moving on, to putting that year behind him, to consigning it to some blip of the past like Elizabeth seemed intent upon doing.
The t-shirt that she'd returned to him had lain draped over the chair in his dining room-cum-lounge for weeks. He started by throwing it in the wash in an attempt to rid it of her scent. But the scent had somehow woven itself into the fibres and it refused to fade, no matter how much detergent he doused it in. And from time to time, he found himself lifting that tee from its place in the chest of drawers, holding it to his nose, and breathing in memories of Elizabeth. Her smile and the spark in her eye often came to mind. Though, sometimes, he saw her stood before him, in nothing but a thin strip of pink lace, her nipples pert in the chill air, her body covered in a bleak rainbow of bruises, and the tug of guilt clutched at him again.
Next, he threw himself into training. Not the mandatory training camps he'd completed as an undergrad, but his own torturous form of training. Fasted 5k runs every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Pre-dawn 10k runs every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Each run followed by a brisk cool down walk and a routine of push-ups, planks, sit-ups, pull-ups and burpees. The exercise was supposed to force Elizabeth from his mind, but instead he found himself inundated with thoughts of her. He barely noticed the passing scenery, not when his mind turned to the sound of her laugh, the warmth of her body moulded against his side as he stroked her hair, the image of her with piece of paper in hand, perched atop him. And each morning, when he returned from the park, he found himself checking his mailbox in the hope that a postcard might have arrived, graced with her handwriting.
He even suffered a particularly low moment when he reached out to Rochana and they agreed to meet for coffee. But the conversation was awkward, the silences lengthy, and what was meant to distract him from missing Elizabeth only brought her to the forefront of his mind as he found himself comparing Rochana to her—always unfavourably. And by the time they parted ways with a cringeworthy attempt at a hug and casual, We should do this again some time, that both of them knew would never happen, that ache for Elizabeth had sharpened.
Henry braced his hands against the mattress and eased to his feet. His muscles were still tight from sleep and they strained against each step as he hobbled across the room towards the wicker chair in the corner—that chair never used to be there, but someone had shoved it in his room for storage while he was away. He snatched up the spare pillow from the seat and then hobbled back to bed and collapsed onto the mattress with a squeak of springs, too tired to care if the noise caused someone to stir in one of the neighbouring rooms. He lay on his side and clung to the pillow. No doubt it would hurt when he awoke in the morning to find himself alone once again, but he was too tired to care about that either: for now, all he wanted was to hold her in his dreams.
oOoOo
The oven door whumped shut and a second later the casserole pan clanged against the stovetop.
"You're pining again."
Henry glanced up from the bottle of beer he clutched atop the kitchen table, the label of which he had been absent-mindedly poking at with the edge of his thumbnail, and his gaze darted across the room, skittering in every direction, before finally it landed on his mother. She had dumped the oven mitts on the side in front of the toaster, turned around to face him, and now leant back against the counter with her arms folded across her chest.
"What?" he said, all innocence, and threw in a shimmy of a shrug for good measure.
She arched her eyebrows at him and gave him a pointed stare.
"I'm not pining," he said.
The pointed stare sharpened.
"I'm not pining."
"Maybe he's on his period." Erin's voice came from behind him, causing him to startle and almost knock over his beer, while Erin breezed past the table and headed for the refrigerator.
"Leave your brother alone." Their mother swatted at Erin. Then she gestured to the table. "And you were supposed to set the table. Your father'll be home any minute."
Erin tugged open the refrigerator door, eliciting a clink of milk bottles, and she peered inside. The yellow-white light engulfed her. "Why can't Henry do it?"
"Because Henry's not the teenager."
"Well, he's acting like one."
"Just set the table."
Erin slammed the refrigerator door shut without having taken anything, and Henry caught sight of her eye roll as she turned away from their mother. She opened the cutlery drawer with far more force than was necessary, causing it to slam against the end of its runners and the cutlery inside to clatter. Then she made a show of collecting together the cutlery and laying it out on the table, as though doing so amounted to child labour.
There was no doubt Henry loved his siblings, but he certainly didn't miss the drama.
Erin was still setting the last place, having jostled Henry as she passed, when the sound of the front door creaking open and swinging shut echoed through the lounge.
Their mother placed the casserole pan in the middle of the table, atop a cork serving mat, along with a bowl of boiled potatoes and a second of broccoli. Then she called through, "Kids! Dinner!"
Though, in the end, more than half an hour passed before they actually sat down to dinner, seeing as their father insisted on taking a shower first and they couldn't possibly start without him.
That was another thing Henry didn't miss about being home: the fact that everyone else's routine was dictated by their father.
Henry nudged a floret of broccoli around the plate, through the swamp of stew sauce. The air in the kitchen was already stuffy from the humid day and from the steam that had escaped the oven, and just looking at the food was making him sweat. He set the fork down and snatched up the bottle of beer instead. The cool liquid burned a path down the back of his throat, the buzz of his first bottle still mellow in his veins.
"You wouldn't believe who the higher-ups carted out today." His father stabbed a potato with his fork and the tines screeched against the plate. "Some kid. Barely out of high school. Has some fancy degree in 'something something management'. Sounds made-up if you ask me."
Henry clunked the bottle down against the tabletop and resisted the urge to point out that if the kid had a degree, he could hardly be 'barely out of high school'.
"Says he's the new 'regional manager'," his father said, and he gave a dismissive shake of the head. "Whatever one of those happens to be."
Henry picked up his fork and returned to pushing the broccoli around the plate. A third thing he didn't miss about being home was having to listen to his father's rants. He tried to tune it out. Normally he would succeed in dialling it down to a drone in the background, but today—perhaps because of the heat, perhaps because of his disturbed sleep, perhaps because of Elizabeth—it irked him.
"Reckon he must be someone's son or nephew." His father continued. He paused to chew a mouthful of potato and then wash it down with a swig of beer. "They bought his way through college, they bought him a fancy suit, now they've gifted him a job as well."
Henry chucked down his fork. It clattered off the side of the plate and hit the table. "Did you ever stop to think that maybe he's qualified for the role?"
"Who needs qualifications when you have money?"
"You know, not everyone with money's like that. You can't just paint them all with the same brush." Henry made a broad sweeping motion.
His father pointed one finger at Henry and jabbed it for emphasis, while his brow contorted into a scowl. "He's never done an honest day's work in his life, doesn't have a clue what he's doing—"
"You don't know that." Henry's voice strained.
His mother leant in and laid her hand against his wrist. "Henry, leave it be."
"No." Henry snatched his arm away. "He's constantly judging people based on their bank balance, calling them lazy, saying they don't deserve their jobs or their money, telling us that they're arrogant and they look down on the rest of us. But they're not all like that." He turned back to his father. "And you talking about them like that, you're no better. You're just doing exactly what you say they're doing to you. Maligning them because of their background. You're a hypocrite, you know that? A hypocrite."
The silence that followed rang out with a high-pitched whining sound. Everyone had stopped eating and pretended to stare down at their plates while they surreptitiously swept their gazes back and forth, from one end of the table to the other. Everyone except for their father, who stared at straight Henry, and for Henry, who stared straight back. Part of Henry feared what would come next, and he was grateful that he was no longer the gangly teenager he had been before ROTC, but mostly he didn't care—he meant every word he said. He only wished he had said them sooner.
His father let out a derisive huff and returned to his dinner. "College has changed you, Henry." He stabbed a piece of broccoli and stuffed it into his mouth. He studied Henry with a cold gaze as he chewed the floret. "You used to be smarter."
A tide of crimson heat rose through Henry's cheeks, only fuelling the indignation. "Maybe it has changed me. Changed me for the better. And I'm sorry if you don't like the fact that it's exposed me to something other than your narrow-minded point of view."
He pushed his chair back from the table with a harsh screech of the legs against the vinyl tiles and stormed off to his bedroom.
There was a pause. Then Erin's voice drifted after him, "Definitely on his period," followed by a 'hush' from their mother.
oOoOo
Henry shoved the pile of t-shirts into the kit bag he'd chucked onto his bed. He needed to get out of there, he needed to put as much distance as physically possible between himself and his father.
The door eased open behind him with the whisper of a creak. A moment later, his mother perched beside the bag on the bed, causing the mattress to dip. She watched Henry, while Henry pretended to ignore her. Then she asked, "So…what's her name?"
'Whose name?' Henry's instinct told him to say. Or, 'Why do you assume that just because I spoke my mind, it must be over some girl?'
He didn't, though. His mother knew him better. Perhaps better than he knew himself.
He folded his jeans and placed them in the bag. "Elizabeth."
"Pretty name," his mother said.
Henry said nothing.
"Pretty girl?" she asked.
Henry pressed the clothes down, perhaps a little forcefully, making more room at the top of the bag. That force seeped into his tone too. "She's smart and funny and perceptive. She's strong and kind and forgiving. She's totally crazy. She makes me want to understand things, not just see them from one angle. She makes me want to be a better person."
His mother studied him. Seconds passed, and then she asked, "Do you love her?"
"I—" He stopped.
Love her? How could he love her? He missed her, he cared about her, he wanted to be with her. But love…?
"She's different," he said. His chin dipped and he shook his head. "She's special."
"Have you told her how you feel?"
His lips twitched at one corner—forced—and he shrugged off the question. "I'm just a friend. Probably not even that."
"Well, if you don't tell her…"
Henry shot her a sideways glance. "It's not that simple."
She prompted him with a look.
But how was he supposed to explain that Elizabeth had been his student, that he had fancied her but had pushed her away—possibly pushed her towards Josh—by parroting everything his father had just said, that she had dated Josh, that Josh had hurt her, that he had done nothing but judge her and make her feel like she couldn't turn to him when she desperately needed a friend?
He turned away with a shake of the head. "It would probably never work anyway. Dad would hate her because of her background, wouldn't even give her a chance. Hell, he'd probably hate her just because I like her. And, I don't know…" He sucked in a breath. His chest swelled and his shoulders tensed. "Maybe I just like the idea of her. Maybe it's best for everyone if I just move on."
"You won't know if you don't try."
"I did try and she said she was going to Europe."
That silenced his mother.
She stared at him for a long moment.
Then her gaze drifted away, far beyond the walls of the bedroom. He could sense the thoughts churning in her mind, like rapids currents surging beneath a tranquil surface. He imagined those thoughts related to realisations of just how different Elizabeth's background might be, how his father would react if he turned up with a girl who spent summers travelling in Europe, how their family would greet any girl who 'came from money'.
She laid her hand against Henry's elbow and offered him a small smile, tinged with a kind of sorrow. "Give it time. You'll meet someone new."
And by that, Henry knew, she meant 'someone more suitable'.