The Search for Lily Myers ✓

23 | The Calm Before the Storm, Pt. I

"Wait—you don't happen to be allergic to cats, do you?"

"No," Amelia confirmed. "Do you parents have one?"

Henry nodded. It was a rather good thing she wasn't allergic then, considering that they were on their way to his parents' house right now.

"I feel like I should have thought to ask that before now," he admitted sheepishly, his fingers fidgeting with the steering wheel as they waited at a red light.

"Still better now than once we showed up there," she pointed out, a small grin forming on her lips. "Is there anything else I should know?"

"I don't think so."

Tentatively, Amelia asked, "How are they doing with...everything? I mean, I'm not going to mention her regardless, but..."

When she watched the corners of his lips start to tilt downward, she regretted bringing it up. "Nevermind, you don't have to answer–"

"No, it's a fair question," he replied quietly. "I just don't know how to describe...they're sensitive, my parents. But they're tough, too. I'm sure it's affecting them more than they'll ever let on to me. They're pretty good at taking a deep breath and pushing on through the unthinkable."

"Kind of like you?"

Surprisingly, he seemed surprised. "Is that how I come across?"

"Well, yeah. At least when you're around me. You always seem capable of setting your stuff aside for a minute to help me with my own problems—I don't know how you do it."

Henry was silent for a long moment, not in the sense that he was uncomfortable but rather that he was absorbing whatever insight into his own psyche she'd just offered him. "I guess I am a little bit like them, yeah. I don't feel like I'm coping particularly well, though. It's just hard to know when you're supposed to let it all out versus when you need to bottle it all up because you still have to get up and go to work and keep functioning like an adult."

"Yeah," Amelia said softly, reaching over to stroke a thumb along his shoulder since his hands were on the wheel. "I know that feeling, believe me. But if you ever need to have a let it all out kind of day, I'll be here for you then, too."

"I know," he murmured. "Thank you. And on that cheery note, we're almost there."

They hadn't been in the car for all that long; his parents only lived twenty minutes or so from her apartment, where he'd picked her up. She stared out the window as they turned into a neighborhood and slowed when they approached a speed bump in the road. All of the houses that lined the street were modest in size but had fairly large yards, an indicator that they'd been around for a while since nowadays all that builders seemed to care about was exactly the opposite—fitting the biggest house in the smallest amount of space possible. Amelia found the abundance of green grass and shade trees to be charming, abundantly more so than the newer, flashier neighborhoods she used to drive by on her way to Colton's.

"Is this where you grew up?" she asked.

"More or less—we moved into this house when I was seven."

The car came to a stop in front of a single-story house. A short cobblestone path led up from the driveway to the front porch; the door was painted a very pleasant shade of blue. Henry came around to open Amelia's door for her and took her hand in his once she was out of the car.

His parents had apparently left the door unlocked for him and he had apparently been informed of this in advance, so rather than knocking, Henry simply cracked the door and announced their presence with a "Knock, knock," as they stepped inside.