strings attached ; firstprince

chapter eight

He slumps into his desk chair and pulls out his phone, he needs to call someone before he has another meltdown. He's had plenty of those lately.

"Hello?" June's voice says, muffled over the phone.

"Hi June." Alex's voice breaks as he speaks, he hears June sigh sadly.

"Alex..." she says sadly. There's a brief pause, and then some shuffling sounds over the phone. "I'm with Nora, you're on speaker."

"I left something... An apology for Henry at their dorm and I haven't heard anything for days–"

"Alex," Nora's voice cuts in, and a brief silence hangs in the air."Henry's been in London."

Alex blinks in disbelief. "What?"

"He went to visit his sister, Pez told us."

"Why wouldn't he tell me earlier?!"

"Apparently, Henry had been giving Pez the cold shoulder as well," June sighs sadly across the line. "He only just got home this morning."

As Alex struggled to digest this information, a sudden, sharp knock on his dorm room door pierces the heavy silence.

"Uh... Someone's here, gotta go," Alex stammers.

Before June or Nora can respond, Alex hastily hangs up the call, his attention now wholly consumed by whoever is standing on the other side of his door. He gets up from his chair and approaches the door, his heartbeat ringing in his ears.

Alex hesitates for a moment, his hand hovering over the doorknob. Alex feels anxious and hopeful all at the same time which becomes a tangled, nauseous feeling in his gut. The knock sounds again, a bit more urgent this time, as if the visitor knows that Alex is on the other side.

With a deep breath, he steels himself and turns the doorknob slowly, allowing the door to creak open. His eyes widen as there stands Henry, his eyes red-rimmed, cheeks tear-streaked, and Alex's CD clutched tightly in his hand. Alex's breath catches in his throat as he takes in the sight of the man he thought he might have lost forever.

Their gazes lock, and for a moment, neither of them speak. The weight of the unspoken words, the hurt, the longing, and the love hung heavily in the air. Alex's heart pounds loudly in his chest, drowning out all other sounds around them.

He side steps to allow space for him to come inside as Henry gives him a curt nod. He stares at the ground whilst Alex shuts the door behind him, wiping his now sweaty palms on his pants.

"Henry..." Alex breathes, his voice barely more than a whisper.

"Christ, Alex you're absolutely unbearable sometimes," Henry shakes his head, looking back up at Alex.

"You don't get to do this. You don't get to hurt me so deeply, and then know me so thoroughly. It's - it's not bloody fair Alex," Henry's frustration surges, and his words tumble out in a torrent of pent-up feelings.

"I want to hate you," Henry continues, his face contorting with a painful mixture of anger and sadness, a combination that shatters Alex's heart into fragments. "God, Alex, I'm furious with you, but more with myself for my inability to do anything but hate you. I tried. This last week, I tried so hard to give you up, to despise you for what you did–Christ Alex, I went to London to try to forget about you and yet, here I am. It's not fair. It's not fair that I so desperately wish I weren't enthralled by your affections. It's not fair that you encapsulate my mind, take me on journeys through leaps and bounds, understand me to my very core and then hurt me so deeply, and still occupy my mind and my heart." His voice breaks on the last word, a single tear tracing its path down his cheek.