"Damn it," Elizabeth whispered to herself. There was smoke in the air around her, and panic coursed through her. "This is not good; this is really not good."
She wasn't sure how exactly it had happened. The cake had looked easy enough to make, and despite her dismal history with food preparation, she had convinced herself that she would be able to do it with little effort. After all, it was just a cake, and she had really wanted to do something to make Henry's birthday special for him. They'd been together long enough to be comfortable together, which was much more enjoyable than the awkward effect of a birthday that came early in a relationship. Plus, she knew how stressed he had been lately, with his math grade and the virus he had caught the previous weekend. And to top it all off, her roommate was out of town for the weekend. She'd been so excited to celebrate his birthday with him, and now...well, now she found herself in a panic.
She sighed, slamming the burnt cake down on the counter. She didn't even know how it happened; she'd been certain she'd followed the instructions to the letter, but clearly she'd missed something, since the so-called cake before her was far from edible. She could feel tears pricking the backs of her eyes, and swore quietly again. This was the last thing she needed. A glance at the clock, however, did nothing to make her feel better. Five forty. She definitely didn't have time to start the process all over. In fact, she'd be running late to meet Henry as it was, even if her cake was perfect now.
She reached for the phone in a panic, twisting the cord around her fingers as she waited for Henry to pick up. On the fourth ring, he did.
"Hello?"
"Henry, it's Elizabeth," she began.
"Hey, I was just about to head over to your place," Henry replied happily. Elizabeth closed her eyes against the sound.
"Yeah, about that," she said. "I'm going to have to cancel. I'm sorry."
There was a beat of silence on the other line.
"What- why?" he asked.
"I just can't make it tonight, Henry. Like I said, I'm really sorry."
"Well- are you sure?" he asked.
"Certain," she replied shortly. "I'm disappointed too," she told him, closing her eyes as she leaned against the wall next to her telephone table, willing herself not to cry.
"Alright," Henry sighed, sounding both sad and confused. "Well, I guess I'll see you tomorrow in class?"
"Yeah, of course," she said. "Again, Henry, I'm- I'm really sorry."
"It's alright," he said softly.
"Happy Birthday," Elizabeth choked, her voice breaking. She hung up quickly and swore softly to herself. She'd been so very close to holding it together for the duration of the phone call. As it were, she just slid to the floor next to the table, trying desperately not to think about Henry, sitting alone at his place with a girlfriend who'd cancelled on him on his birthday.
Not too far away, Henry slowly lowered his phone back to its cradle, confusion having overtaken him. That, he thought, had to be the strangest conversation he and Elizabeth had ever had. After just a moment of debate in his head, he stood, reaching for his jacket as he headed out the door.
A knock on Elizabeth's door propelled her reluctantly from her spot on the floor. She sniffled and swiped at the tears on her cheeks, wincing as she put weight on her foot, which had fallen asleep and was now twinging with pins and needles as she moved toward the door.
As it swung open on its hinges, Elizabeth's breath hitched.
"Henry," she breathed, suddenly very aware of the tears on her face and the puffy quality her eyes had taken on.
"Hi," he said.
"What are you doing here?" Elizabeth asked. Henry shrugged noncommittally.
"Can I come in?" he inquired. Elizabeth sighed, but then nodded and moved aside for him before closing the door behind him before she turned around to face him again. There was something exposing about the whole situation; having him there, the tears on her face, the burnt cake still out on the counter.
"What are you doing here, Henry?" she asked, her voice uncharacteristically soft.
"I was worried about you," he admitted. "You sounded like you were crying on the phone, and...listen, Elizabeth, I just know you really aren't the type of person to cancel on someone's birthday without a good explanation and I just couldn't let it go like that without checking on you. I'm sorry if I'm crossing a line here, but I just- I wanted to make sure you were okay."
Elizabeth stared at him, her heart pounding in her chest. He'd just wanted to make sure she was okay. Of course he had.
"Okay," she sighed. "You want to know the truth? I panicked," she admitted, her blue eyes imploring. "I- I wanted to celebrate your birthday with you, and do something special for you. So I decided that I would make you a cake, but…" she trailed off, gesturing to the burnt approximation of a cake that was resting on the countertop. Henry followed the line of her hand and his eyes landed on it. He couldn't help but smile softly.
"You told me on our first date that you couldn't cook," he said quietly.
"Well, clearly," Elizabeth scoffed. Tears were stinging her eyes again, and Henry turned to her, smiling gently.
"Hey, don't cry," he said. "I- it's a lovely gesture." His words didn't help; tears were soon streaming down her cheeks, and Henry acted on instinct, reaching out to pull her in close. She hesitated, stiff at first, but then she relented and let him hold her, tentative arms hugging him back.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I just didn't know what to do, I had already ruined it."
"Elizabeth," Henry laughed lightly. "You didn't ruin anything."
"You did see that cake, right?" she asked, her voice muffled against his shoulder. He couldn't help but laugh.
"Okay, so maybe you did ruin that," he admitted, pulling back to look at her. There was love in his eyes as he met her gaze, as plain as the nose on his face. It certainly didn't escape her notice; in fact, it made her breath catch in her throat.
"Elizabeth, this is already the best birthday I've ever had," he murmured softly. "And you know why?"
She silently shook her head, continuing to watch him. He smiled and gently tucked a stray tear behind her ear.
"Because I'm here with you," he said, and it was so clearly genuine that Elizabeth felt her heart rate pick up at his words. "I don't need a cake. I need you."
She couldn't help but smile, surprised as she was by the way he'd responded to her panic-induced reaction.
But this was Henry, and looking up at him now, she could barely remember why she ever expected him to respond any other way.
"You're really something, Henry McCord," Elizabeth said softly. "I'm very glad you were born."
He grinned at her, leaning in to press his lips to hers.
"How about you show you me just how glad you are?" he hummed against her skin, brushing light kisses to her neck.
Elizabeth laughed and nodded; later that night, as she lie next to him in the final minutes of his birthday, she couldn't help but think that she just might be the luckiest girl in the world.
With Elizabeth tutoring Henry through the math class that was giving him trouble, the weeks slipped by with increasing rapidity; weekends bled into Mondays, and weeks disappeared in no time, and before either of them knew it, April was over and May loomed with exams. Henry's math grade had improved significantly; whatever had caused his focus to slip seemed to have fallen back into place, and he was on course to finish the semester with an A.
So, one evening when warm temperatures had settled deeply over Virginia, Henry and Elizabeth decided to take the opportunity to get outside and celebrate the nearing end of the school year and the upcoming summer. Both of them were renting their apartments with their roommates and had summer jobs lined up, so the end of the school year didn't signal much other than a relief of the stress of tests and classes, but it still felt nice to have summer on the horizon. Gone were the days of no jobs and no adult responsibilities between May and August, but the feeling of freedom and joy still lingered in the restlessness of the end of the academic term.
And for both of them, hiking was the perfect release before the looming buckle-down spirit of exam week.
So, that evening in early May found Henry and Elizabeth taking to the hills of Virginia in shorts and t-shirts, enjoying the way the light was lingering into the night now that summer was nearly upon them. Their tennis shoes pressed into the mossy earth and leftover dry leaves, crunching and sloshing along the path as they bantered and talked, easy and familiar.
"So when does your summer job start again?" Henry asked conversationally. He was sure Elizabeth had told him, but in his mind he'd lost the date amongst those of tests and his own commitments.
"June second," she replied.
"Are you looking forward to it?" he asked. Elizabeth nodded, truthfully. There was an empty space of nearly three weeks between her exams and when her new job would start, and while part of her was glad she would have a little break, she knew that her hands couldn't be still for that long, and that by the first of June, she would be itching to do something. Now, she said as much to Henry and he nodded in understanding.
"Hey," he said, as if something had just occurred to him, turning slightly toward her on the path as they walked, "I'm not sure I've ever asked you, what do you want to do with your math major?"
Elizabeth knew that Henry was in ROTC, technically considered to be serving his military service, and that his own summer job was Marines-sanctioned work that would be assigned to him at the first of June, and she recalled him telling her very early on how much he hoped to be a pilot one day soon. But upon reflection, she realized he was right; while they had covered his own career plans, they hadn't yet touched on hers.
"Well," she started with a smile, "everyone keeps telling me all I can do with a math major is to work for the government or teach, so..."
She shrugged her shoulders, her eyes sparkling.
"I guess I'll be a spy," she said, and Henry laughed.
"I think you'd make an excellent spy," he told her, and she smiled.
"I would like to teach someday, actually," she admitted. "My father was a professor, and he taught me to love math when I was very young, so I guess in some way I always imagined I would follow in his footsteps."
Henry watched her for a moment. Though they'd been dating now for the better part of the year, and he felt he knew Elizabeth pretty well, he still had heard very little about her parents aside from the rambling spiel she'd given on their very first date the previous fall.
Now, she looked up, caught him studying her, and smiled.
"You can ask," she said.
Caught, Henry smiled.
"I didn't want to pry," he said.
"I know," Elizabeth answered. "You've been very delicate about it." Pausing, she looked up at the forest canopy that spread out above them, and took a drink from her water bottle, then smiled at Henry. To himself, he thought that she looked particularly beautiful like this; hair pulled back, standing in the evening sun, dressed in a threadbare t-shirt and shorts with her tennis shoes on.
"But you can ask," she repeated softly.
"Okay," Henry said, and he smiled at her before they fell into step again and a quiet moment passed.
"What were they like?" he asked finally, and he caught her smile out of the corner of his eye, looking warm and genuine.
"They were...very good people," she said. "My dad was a professor, like I said, his name was Ben. He was...well, sometimes maybe a little hard to connect to, but when we found common ground, he would talk to me for hours. He wanted us to do well, he wanted to...I don't know, impart something on us, I think."
She glanced up at the sky as if she was thinking, and then smiled at Henry.
"I wanted desperately to be like him," she said. "But mostly I was like my mom."
Henry remembered the family photo on the wall of Elizabeth's aunt and uncle's house, and how much he had thought that she looked like her mother.
"What was her name?" he asked.
"Suzanne," she replied. "She was a professor, also."
"Wow," Henry remarked. Elizabeth hesitated, thinking of Henry's blue-collar family and feeling, for the first time, that there was a divide between them in that way.
"They just- loved learning, I think," she said, and Henry smiled; he could relate to that, he thought. It was why he had moved away to college, hoping for something brighter and better for himself, for the children he might one day have.
"I guess you get that from them, too," he said, and was rewarded with a bright, genuine smile from Elizabeth.
"I guess," she laughed. "I also get my hard-headedness from my mom, and my utter inability to cook comes from my dad."
Henry laughed, thinking of his own hard-headed mother and gruff father. He reached for Elizabeth's hand as she fell into a story about a Mother's Day breakfast that had gone very wrong, and thought that perhaps their histories were not that divided, after all.