Chapter 5

It was hours later, near dusk, when Elizabeth and Henry sat on the back steps of the McCord house holding hands and sitting silently next to each other thinking.

"How are you doing?" Elizabeth asked Henry.

"I'm much better about Grandma Rosa. I think she is most definitely in a better place. I'll miss her though."

Elizabeth lay her head on Henry's arm. "Of course. I wish I had the opportunity to know her."

"Yeah, me too." Henry scraped up as much courage as he could muster and started to talk before he could back down. "I've been thinking about things a lot the past few days."

"Me too," Elizabeth interrupted.

"We are kind of new. Only a few months."

"Yeah," Elizabeth said in a resigned voice.

"But the way I feel about you seems-" Henry paused and glanced at Elizabeth to find her looking expectantly at him. "Well, it seems like we've been together longer. I feel like I shouldn't feel the way I feel about you having only dated for four months. It's like, to feel this way, I should be dating you years or something." Elizabeth nodded in agreement. "I look at you and I see my future. Everything about my future can change, except you. You are always by my side."

"With our kids. I want at least 3 and maybe 4," Elizabeth blurted out. Henry was pulled from his own reflections to look at her.

"You want to have kids?" he asked.

Elizabeth blushed, unable to believe that she actually said that, but now that it was out there, she decided she might as well commit to it. "With you, yes, maybe 3 or 4. But not now, though. Later. And I agree with you about thinking it's too soon to feel like this. That's why I've been telling myself that it cannot be real, that it's just infatuation. But it's not, Henry. I'm not just infatuated with you. I love you."

"You do?" he asked, his heart about to burst from his chest and his smile wide

"Yeah, I do."

"I do too. I mean I love you. I've known it for a while now. I was just scared to say it out loud. I was afraid it would scare you off or you'd think I wasn't sincere. Or maybe you just would tell me that you would never feel the same about me." Henry looked away from her, embarrassed.

"I understand, and I get it." She squeezed his hand. "Thank you for everything you've done over the past few days," she said.

"I should be the one thanking you. I can't believe that there was a time that I didn't want you to meet my family."

Elizabeth pulled back, "Why?"

"Because they're crazy and loud and belittling and belligerent, and they don't accept new people. I just didn't want you to meet them and then decide that I wasn't worth the drama they cause." He took a deep breath, "But I should have known better, because you can look past all of that and still see the good in each of them, and that makes me love you more."

"Just wait until you meet Will," she said, rolling her eyes. "You might just decide that I'm the one with too much family drama." She playfully nudged his shoulder and he laughed.

"I doubt that very much. Let's go inside. It's getting cold." Henry stood and pulled Elizabeth up. They started walking into the house together.

"Are we leaving tomorrow?" she asked.

"We're going to have to. I've missed a lot and I'm sure you have too."

"The bright side is that we can spend a lot of quality library time together," she said as she squeezed his arm tight.

"I'm glad you see that as a bright side, because I'm pretty sure that's what it's going to be."

That night, Henry lay in his bed that night looking up at the stars through his window. He was more at peace than he'd been in a long time. Things seemed to be working out with Elizabeth. He and his dad were are better terms than they had been for quite a while. Then there was his grandma. He regretted the time he spent avoiding the idea of bringing Elizabeth home to meet his family. If he had just gone ahead, his grandma would have had the chance to meet Elizabeth and he knew that Grandmas Rosa would have loved her. He said a prayer for Rosa's soul and felt calmed. In that moment, in his heart, he knew that Rosa had seen Elizabeth and approved. He smiled and rolled over falling asleep quickly for the first time in a long time.

Elizabeth was in the next room over, tossing and turning. Her mind was running in a hundred different directions. She forced herself to lay still and try to sort out her thoughts. It was mostly good stuff. She told Henry that she loved him and he loved her too. She felt a peace about her parents that she hadn't even known wasn't there until it was. There was her schoolwork, which would need to be caught up, but she had high grades in every class, so doing the makeup work shouldn't be a problem. None of these things seemed like it would be enough to make her feel so unsettled. What would calm her down? Not sleeping the night before she needed to drive five hours wouldn't be good.

An idea came to mind. It took Elizabeth a few minutes to decide if it was a good idea or not, but finally she surrendered to the notion that this was the best chance she had at going to sleep. She sat up and gathered her blanket. Quietly, she left the girls' room and tiptoed down the hall to Henry's room. She turned the doorknob and silently slipped inside. Her breath hitched when she caught sight of Henry sleeping, the moonlight streaming across his muscular, bare chest. She sucked in a deep breath. Perhaps she hadn't thought this through. She rolled her eyes. "Just trying to go to sleep," she thought. She climbed in between Henry and the wall from the end of the bed and settled on her side next to him, pulling her blanket with her.

Still sleeping, Henry sensed she was there. He turned into her and wrapped an arm around her back, pulling her close. Elizabeth snuggled into Henry's chest and immediately felt calmer. She breathed in his scent and listened to the steady beat of his heart and knew this was where she wanted to spend the rest of her life. She closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep, dreaming of the life she would share with Henry.

AN: This is now complete. I hope you enjoyed it. Just in case, anyone is questioning how fast Henry and Elizabeth professed their love, I just wanted to throw out that I dated my husband for two months before "I love you's" were exchanged and we were engaged at 3 months, married at a year and have been married for nearly 20 years, so it can happen.