Between the coffee shop, the library, and the intervening days, Elizabeth had been dwelling on Henry almost as much as he'd been dwelling on her. He had mentioned, between two bookshelves that afternoon, that he still had her number and had only refrained from calling her due to his heavy course load that week; Elizabeth could and did appreciate that seriousness in someone, but it didn't stop her from looking at the phone even more after spending the afternoon in the library with him. She really enjoyed talking with him and spending time with him, so much so that she found herself hoping he would call every time she was home. Two days after their impromptu studying session in the library, he did. Elizabeth answered the phone casually with a standard greeting as she tore her eyes away from the page of equations she'd been working through when he had called.
"Elizabeth? It's Henry."
Suddenly, the equations didn't seem that important anymore.
"Henry, hi," Elizabeth answered, her voice warm. Henry smiled reflexively at the sound.
"Hi," he replied. "How are you?"
"Good," she replied, maybe a little more eager-sounding than she'd meant to be. Calm down, Elizabeth. He's just a guy, she told herself. She twirled her finger around the cord of the phone and steadied herself.
"How about you?" she asked.
"Good," Henry echoed quickly. "Really good. Um, so I was calling because...well, because you gave me your number obviously so I was wondering if maybe you'd like to go out with me tonight."
Henry's words were a rush, as if he was forcing himself to get them all out before he could change his mind and damn it if that wasn't really endearing. Elizabeth's joy, however, was short-lived, because as she glanced over at her roommate's desk, currently empty, and recalled the reluctant commitment she'd made to accompany Becky to whatever strange period dance she was so excited about. Elizabeth inwardly cursed having agreed to it, but the thing was tonight. How was she supposed to back down now?
"I'm really sorry, but I can't," Elizabeth replied. "Please don't feel like I'm ditching you or anything," she began, "because this is going to sound like a lame excuse but my crazy roommate wants me to go to that stupid Jane Austen dance thing, and a last minute date isn't going to be a good enough excuse to get me out of it without there being hell to pay later. And I already told her I'd go, in a momentary lapse of judgment."
Henry, though disappointed, had to laugh at that.
"How about tomorrow?" Elizabeth suggested, brightening at even the thought of it.
"Tomorrow's fine," Henry agreed.
"I'm sorry. I really wish I could go out with you instead of...whatever Becky's dragging me to," Elizabeth said.
"It's fine," Henry assured her. "Why don't I pick you up at 6:30 tomorrow?"
"That's perfect," Elizabeth replied. She rattled off her address for him, which Henry printed neatly below her phone number. They said their goodbyes and Henry hung up, leaning back in his chair with a sigh. He stretched his arms above his head and thought about the phone call. It had been nicer than he'd like to admit to hear Elizabeth's voice again. Was that normal for a girl he'd met just twice before? Henry wasn't sure he cared, still riding the high of scheduling an actual, real date with Elizabeth. He did wish that he could have seen her that evening, though, a feeling only amplified by her obvious desire for the same thing. She had sounded genuinely sorry that she'd agreed to her roommate's event, and it was at the moment that he thought about that, that an idea occurred to Henry and he sat up straight again.
He could just go to the dance. It was the perfect plan. Well, Henry mentally amended, maybe not perfect, exactly. For one thing, he didn't have anything that he could wear to something like that, and briefly he wondered if Elizabeth did. He shook that thought off- he'd see tonight, after all- and racked his brains. Then, it hit him and Henry smiled as he slipped into a pair of shoes and his jacket, heading out of his apartment. Two floors down on the left hand-side, Henry knocked on a familiar door, and a moment later a familiar face replaced it.
"Hey, Henry," said Tom Hodges, a friend of Henry's from the time they'd had freshman math together.
"Hey," Henry said with a smile. "Sorry to bother you, but I have kind of an odd favor to ask."
Tom leaned against the doorframe and nodded, signaling Henry to go on.
"Your girlfriend is in theatre, right?" he prefaced, and waited for Tom's answer.
"Yeah," Tom replied, sounding understandably puzzled.
"Okay, so I met this girl," Henry continued, "and I was going to take her out tonight, but she'd already promised her roommate that she'd go to that Jane Austen thing tonight, so...I was thinking I'd just go too. But I have nothing to wear to something like that, and I know the theatre department just did-"
"My Fair Lady, right," Tom said, cottoning on to Henry's plan. Tom glanced down at his wristwatch, and then grinned back up at Henry.
"Yeah, let's go," he agreed, and Henry smiled.
"Thanks, I owe you one," he answered. Tom laughed.
"Must be some girl," he remarked as the two of them set off, and Henry smiled slightly as he nodded.
"Yeah, I think she is."
While Henry was scheming across campus, Elizabeth was in her own dorm apartment, sitting on her bed and sulking. She had been in a mixed mood ever since her phone call with Henry. She was thrilled at the prospect of going out with him the next day, but she couldn't help feeling annoyed that she'd had to turn him down for that evening. She told herself that she'd done the right thing- she had never been able to stand the kind of girl who would cancel on her friends to go out with her boyfriend. Not that Becky was exactly her friend. Becky was a little insane, but she was a decent roommate. And she was just been so excited about this dance, that Elizabeth had said yes. Granted, when she made that decision she had no idea she was just days away from meeting a really cute boy at the coffee shop. She had been banking on complete boredom and nowhere better to go than Becky's dance. As she watched Becky flit about getting ready, the very last thing Elizabeth wanted to do was go with her roommate to this dance.
"Becky?" she said. Her roommate turned inquisitively.
"How upset would you be if I didn't go tonight?" Elizabeth asked. Becky turned a pout in her direction.
"Lizzie, it's going to be really fun!" Becky whined.
"No, I'm sure it is," Elizabeth placated. "It's just that I have this paper to write and I really don't want to do it last minute."
Becky sighed dramatically.
"Okay," she said, "but you don't know what you're missing!"
Elizabeth knew exactly what she was missing- a date with Henry. But with a glance at the clock, she decided that it was too late and would look too desperate to call him back now, so she resigned herself to actually writing the paper that she'd really just been using as an excuse.
The following evening, after returning his borrowed costume to Tom's girlfriend, Henry showered and got ready to meet Elizabeth. She had not shown up the night before, and while he had been disappointed and unsure as to why she'd lie to him, he didn't have a lot of options. He couldn't exactly call her up and ask her why she hadn't been where she had said she would be. He had considered it, but playing out the conversation in his head had made him realize how creepy it would sound and he had nixed that idea. Eventually, as he replayed learning the quadrille in his head, he decided he would just go pick her up as planned.
When he arrived to pick Elizabeth up at 6:25, he found her waiting outside and drew in a breath. With her blonde curls loose around her shoulders and dressed in black pants and a baby blue blouse that made her eyes sparkle even more brilliantly, she was a vision. As she smiled and waved and he responded in kind, Henry almost forgot his worries that she'd blown him off the day before. He kissed her cheek in greeting and Elizabeth tried to hide the blush that crept into her skin where his lips had touched her. Henry opened the passenger door of his car for her and loped easily back around to the driver's side, and moments later they were headed toward the restaurant that Henry had chosen. He glanced over at her, gathering his courage.
"So how was your Jane Austen dance?" he asked, silently congratulating himself on sounding casual. Elizabeth grinned at him.
"I managed to get out of it," she admitted. "Begged off to write a paper."
"Why?" he asked, and Elizabeth sighed.
"Honestly?"
"Of course."
"I was annoyed that I had to turn you down and it kind of ruined my mood," she admitted. Henry smiled slightly and nodded at her, thinking back on his morning coat and top hat.
She hadn't blown him off at all.
Something warm bloomed in Henry's chest, and he pushed aside the memory of the night before, deciding right then that they never needed to speak of it again.
The restaurant Henry had chosen was nice; in fact, it was almost too nice.
They ordered an appetizer, but Elizabeth barely noticed it. She and Henry were chatting about nothing of consequence, and she supposed it was fine, but nerves were biting at her in a way that was surprising, but all too familiar. It had been so long since she'd been on a date, and even then she hadn't been very comfortable doing it. Thinking back on her time in the coffee shop and the library with Henry, she wondered why this felt so different. What had been so easy suddenly felt impossible, stilted, and all the joy and hope she had been harboring for this date seemed to be draining away rapidly now.
"Elizabeth, do you have siblings?" Henry asked, leaning forward slightly. He obviously had a genuine interest in her as a person, and she could appreciate that even as she wondered whether she should be on this date at all. It wasn't that she didn't like Henry; just the opposite, in fact. She liked him a lot, more than she was comfortable with. It was scary to like someone as much as she liked Henry McCord, and after years of relative solitude, she wasn't quite sure how to handle it.
"Yes," she replied, her mouth feeling sticky. "I have a brother. He's, um, he's two years younger than me." Henry was watching her raptly as she spoke, so she decided to keep talking. This she could handle, she thought. Talking about things she was familiar with. At least that way she couldn't dwell on how panicky she was feeling on the inside.
"His name is Will, and he's kind of a brat, actually, but I love him. I don't know if you have siblings, but I think everyone sort of grudgingly loves their siblings, right?" She nervously tucked her hair behind her ear. "Then again," she continued, "that might just be me, considering that I have a bit of a weird situation. My parents were incredible people and Will and I had a totally normal, happy childhood. But then my parents died in a car crash when I was fifteen and that...well, I'm sure you can imagine how that changed things. So I guess that could account for my protectiveness over Will, because he was with them at the time and I was at home doing math homework." She laughed mirthlessly. "I think I protect him because I feel guilty, truth be told. Guilty that I wasn't there, you know? Some part of me just feels like it should have been me; I was his big sister, and he had to see them like that and I was just at home. So anyway, after my parents died it was sort of downhill. It's been a really lonely few years, because my aunt never really wanted children and so there were a lot of boarding schools and not a lot of time for me to be with Will, actually, so I guess on some level I feel guilty for that, too."
Suddenly, Elizabeth glanced up at Henry and horror washed over her as she drew in a sharp breath and reached for her water glass in the silence. Henry opened his mouth to speak, but she cut him off, pushing back from the table as her heart raced in her chest.
"I'm so sorry, I just-" she left it there, hurriedly reaching for her coat as she turned on her heel and walked out of the restaurant, not even hearing Henry calling her name behind her. As she emerged from the door into the cool autumn air, tears stung the backs of her eyes. She just turned, walking blindly down the street and across, toward the nearby park.
"Great," she muttered to herself as she turned, looking for somewhere to go. Spotting a bench to her right, she made a beeline for it and sank onto its slatted surface, leaning forward to rest her head in her hands.
She couldn't even believe that she had just told Henry all of that. He was almost a stranger, albeit a handsome one who was clearly very interested in her. She exhaled heavily, thinking about all of those lonely years. Henry had seen something in her, and he might have even been her ticket to a more enjoyable life, one with companionship and maybe a family to surround herself with again. That was, until she had gone and told him her whole life story in one rambling, jumbled go. She laughed mirthlessly to herself; no guy in his right mind would ever want to be around her after that spectacle. He'd just asked her if she had siblings, and instead of a polite, simple conversation, it had quickly turned into what she was pretty sure was going to go down in history as the worst first real date ever.
The sound of footsteps caught her attention as she wallowed in her annoyance with herself, and she glanced up, shocked to find Henry approaching the bench.
"Henry," she said.
"Hi," he replied. "Mind if I sit?"
"I- sure, I guess," she stuttered. She watched him in confusion as he calmly sat down next to her, leaning back and taking in a breath as if everything about the situation was normal- which, Elizabeth thought, it definitely was not.
"I've got three siblings," Henry said after a moment of silence. "Two sisters and one brother. Maureen is the oldest, then me, and then Shane and then Erin." He chuckled. "You know, I think you might be right about having to love your siblings despite how incredibly frustrating they are. I mean, Maureen is-"
"I don't understand," Elizabeth said, cutting him off. He glanced over at her.
"You don't understand what?" he asked mildly.
"What you're doing here!" she exclaimed. "Why did you follow me?"
"Well, I was under the impression that we were on a date," Henry replied lightly with a little shrug of his shoulders. Elizabeth stared at him, watching the way his warm hazel eyes held steady on her.
"Are you insane?" she asked. Henry grinned, bright and boyish.
"I don't think so," he began, pivoting his upper body toward her on the bench, "but if being here with you makes me insane, then-" he shrugged his shoulders "-then yeah, maybe I am."
Elizabeth could hardly comprehend what she was hearing.
"You really want to spend time around me after that?" she asked. Henry smiled.
"Yes," he replied simply.
"Why?" she inquired.
"Because I think you're amazing," he told her. "And you're cute when you ramble."
Elizabeth scoffed and Henry grinned at her again. Elizabeth thought she could stand to get used to the quick way that his impish smile came and went.
"Come on," he said, standing and holding his hand out to her. "That restaurant was not really my scene, but there's a bowling alley near here with the best burgers I've ever eaten. You in?"
"Burgers and bowling?" she asked.
"Burgers and bowling," Henry confirmed with a heart-melting smile.
She stared at his outstretched hand for a moment, and then smiled too, in spite of herself.
"Alright," she agreed on the breath of a laugh, reaching out to take his hand. He met her eyes and in that moment, hand in hand with Henry McCord, Elizabeth couldn't help but have hope.
Maybe, she thought, there was more to this guy than she was giving him credit for.