august 2017 : 3 years and 1 month ago
"I don't like this," Lily muttered, the late morning sun forcing her to squint as she peered across the square at the herd of pharmacy students.
Katie glanced up from her book. "Don't like what?"
"Henry's attracting the female species."
After three years of being at different schools, she was one week into college and finally getting to see her cousin on his home turf.
It was not at all what she expected.
The only context she ever saw him in before now was with her. Their dynamic didn't change that much when he went off to college, so she didn't notice that he was slowly changing over time, growing into his own skin. She still thought of him as the dorky boy from high school, so it was quite the jolt to her system to see him not holed up in the library but smack at the center of attention and appearing to enjoy it.
The Starbucks patio, right by the center square of campus, was a great place for people-watching. She and her friends were just there while they waited on their drinks, but moments after they sat down, Henry and his entourage of at least ten people (seriously, why did the health sciences majors seem to always travel in packs and gallivant around campus like they owned the place?) wandered into the square. Lily watched on in surprise at him smiling and laughing and joking around with who were apparently his friends, including - she really couldn't believe she was seeing this - some blonde chick who was practically glued to his side and not at all being subtle about the fact that she was interested.
Katie, however, didn't seem to find this nearly as shocking as Lily did and simply slurped her iced coffee. "I think it's the tattoos."
There were a few more of those, all black, littered across his arm now. Katie was probably right. High school was the land of cookie-cutter jocks, but college was an entirely different ball park. This city was a magnet for hipster girls who were convinced that they were going to become famous musicians and thought that somehow made them stand out despite the fact that literally everyone else around them was doing the exact same thing. And those girls had no interest in the bowl-cut, pot-smoking football players; they liked boys who were "edgy" or "different." They liked...the Henrys, apparently.
Katie and Lily's new friend Izzy followed their gazes until her eyes landed on Henry. "I'm gonna go out on a limb and assume he's the one with the tattoos."
"I'm sure you'll meet him soon enough," Katie nodded. "I'm surprised you haven't already. They're kind of a package deal."
The future of that was questionable, however, considering that his attention was currently very occupied by the girl fawning over him. He was probably over there impressing her with the whole five sentences of Italian he knew and pretending it was romantic even though Lily knew for a fact that it was all stupid stuff like where's the bathroom?
She pulled her attention off of Henry and whatsherface and back to her friends. Katie was always a consistent presence in her life, sometimes even more so than Henry, but looked like a new person these days due to the pair of thin-rimmed round glasses that had replaced her old square ones and the bangs she now sported. Lily would never be able to pull that look off, but it worked really well with Katie's fair hair and hazel eyes.
Then there was the newest addition to their little friend group, Isadora Anderson - or simply Izzy - who they met on move-in day. She lived in the room next to theirs and they immediately got along despite the fact that she was way cooler than either of them would ever be, both in looks and personality. Her black hair was trimmed down to a pixie cut, she had a nose stud, and she played the freaking saxophone.
"Did I tell you guys about my hot professor?" she asked out of nowhere.
Lily nearly choked on her coffee. "Sorry, what?" She had yet to encounter any professors who were even mildly attractive.
"Hold on, I'll try to stalk his Instagram." Izzy whipped out her phone and found him in less than ten seconds. "Here we go."
Lily's eyes widened when she and Katie leaned over to look at the picture. All of their professors were stuck-up boomers and Izzy got to look at that? How rude.
"That is certainly not a bad-looking man," Katie observed.
"Not gonna lie, it makes it kind of hard to focus in class," Izzy admitted.
Lily sipped her drink. "That's a sacrifice I would be willing to make."
Her focus kept darting back to Henry, so she was only halfway listening as Katie and Izzy went off on a tangent sharing the random bits and pieces of gossip they had picked up on. She didn't know there was so much drama to go around after only one week of school, but apparently they were also getting tea from some of the sophomores - who's dating who, who said what at which party, which professors to avoid, and so forth. Lily started to zone out, their chatter going in one ear and out the other. Some girl named Mikayla Ashford tripped and broke her leg on the first day of class. Everyone had a crush on Izzy's hot professor. Mason Stewart, the captain of the men's soccer team, was newly single. The sophomore class president, Caroline Davis, was seeing someone new after things ended with that shady Liam guy no one had heard a word from since-
Lily was finally snapped out of her wandering thoughts and nearly jumped into the conversation, but she stopped herself.
"Wait, why are we talking about people we don't even know?" she frowned as an unpleasant knot formed in her stomach.
It wasn't that she thought she was above all the petty gossip - she often got sucked into it as easily as anyone else would - but sometimes, like now, it transported her back to almost two years ago when Jacob went and told all his friends everything he knew about her.
"Sorry," Katie said sheepishly.
"Yeah, you're right. We're trash," Izzy conceded. "My sandwich is probably done by now, I'm gonna go check."
She popped back inside Starbucks and reemerged in a matter of seconds with a small brown paper bag in her hand. Lily grabbed her coffee with one hand and the textbook that was sitting on the table in front of her with the other. Starbucks was sadly just a pit stop on their way to the library. They needed to crack down and get some homework done and although Lily loved being outside, it was too distracting and currently way too hot.
A warm breeze rustled the vibrant green leaves in the trees, the sound almost reminiscent of rainfall, as the girls started off down the sidewalk towards the library. Lily nearly jumped when she heard the grass crunch and Henry was suddenly there, bounding a few steps ahead of them and attempting to walk backwards so that he could face her while they talked.
"Jesus Christ," she muttered.
A goofy grin plastered itself on his face. "Just me." He must have noticed that something was off with her because the corners of his mouth turned down into the slightest frown. "What's up with you?"
"Nothing's up with me."
There was a tiny slurping sound as Katie took another sip of her drink. "She's jealous that girls actually like you now," she corrected flatly.
Lily's jaw fell. Such betrayal! She forced her mouth shut as Henry raised his eyebrows at her. Ugh, he was definitely going to get a kick out of this.
"I hate both of you," she announced.
Henry chose to ignore the implied insult that no one had liked him before. "What's wrong?" he teased, his friendly grin turning into more of an amused smirk. "You can't handle that I'm hotter than you now?"
The audacity of this boy. "Don't flatter yourself."
When he nearly lost his footing and stumbled for a second, she tried not to giggle. "I'm not gonna tell you if you're about to run into something," she added. "Or someone."
"You're no fun," he complained lightheartedly before flashing a smile at her best friend. "But Katie's nicer to me than that, right?"
"Don't look at me. It's not my job to stop you from looking like an idiot," Katie deadpanned. "So are you gonna tell us about Blondie back there?"
Henry scrunched his nose. "Blondie? You mean Hannah? There's nothing to tell. We barely know each other."
Lily was unconvinced, although it wasn't like his taste in women was something they ever actually talked about. His love life was a total mystery to her. "Uh huh, sure."
He rolled his eyes but turned his attention to Izzy, who had been silently observing the three of them poke fun at each other. "I don't believe we've met."
It was probably slightly rude of Lily to not have introduced them immediately. Oops. "Henry, this is Izzy. Izzy, Henry." Lily looked over at Izzy after Henry shook her hand. "He's not usually this...special," she promised.
"I'm literally still standing right here."
"I'm aware," Lily assured him.
He didn't try to defend himself further and instead nodded at the iced latte in her hand. "Is that thing any good?"
She handed it over for him to try. He nodded in approval as he took entirely too large of a sip, even going so far as to chew down on the straw to dent it and annoy her before passing it back. She really needed to get a metal one so that he couldn't pull this crap.
"You're a loser," she grumbled as she squished the green straw back into its normal shape.
That only made him smile, one of those genuine smiles that made it impossible to even pretend to be irritated with him. "Buuuut," he prompted innocently.
"You're really gonna make me say it?"
"Yes."
Lily sighed in defeat. "But you're my loser."
His smile widened. "You guys should come over for dinner sometime," he offered. He had finally gotten an apartment last year after staying with his parents for his freshman and sophomore years. "You're gonna get sick if you eat too much of that cafeteria food."
The cafeteria food definitely seemed a little questionable so far. "You know I never turn down free food."
Before either Katie or Izzy could reject or decline his offer, Henry - still not at all watching where he was going - slammed into a girl behind him, causing her to drop the textbook she was carrying. It fell out of her arms and onto the cement with a loud crack.
He whirled around towards the dark-haired stranger he just collided with, she looking surprised and he looking mortified. They both tried to apologize at the same time.
"Sorry, I-"
Henry's cheeks flushed, a crimson undertone rising under his tan skin. "No, I, um-" he spluttered. Not so confident around the ladies anymore, huh?
She moved to kneel down and grab her book, but he swiftly (and clumsily) did it for her. Lily caught a glimpse of a name written inside the front cover - something that started with an A - before he shut it and picked the book up.
"Oh, thanks," the girl mumbled, offering a hand to help him up.
She pulled him back to his feet, the two of them staring at each other like deer in headlights and Henry's hand clutching hers for an awkward half-second too long before he realized it and abruptly let go, softly clearing his throat. Dear Lord. This was painful to watch.
He quickly passed her back her copy of Art of the Middle Ages and Renaissance and opened his mouth to say something else but couldn't seem to spit it out. "Uh-"
Lily finally decided to intervene before she or anyone else could die from the secondhand cringe. "He's an idiot, sorry," she apologized, grabbing his arm and yanking him away before he could make himself look even more stupid.
She pulled him out of the way of the other students passing by, off the sidewalk and into the grass.
"Cat got your tongue?" she questioned, glancing back to where the girl he bumped into just was, but she had already disappeared into a building.
Henry was still slightly pink. "We're forgetting that ever happened."
He looked embarrassed enough and Lily was benevolent enough that she decided to oblige. "Fine."
With how busy the semester already was so early on she wasn't entirely sure when she would see him again, so she decided to take advantage of the opportunity to have a minute to themselves while she had his attention.
She glanced back towards Katie and Izzy. "I'll catch up in a sec," she told them. They nodded and continued on to the library.
When she turned back to Henry, he had leisurely leaned back against a big oak tree and was regarding her with an expression she was all too familiar with. Now that it was just the two of them, his smile was still there but had morphed into something less hyper and much softer. Much more...brotherly.
"Did you need to talk about something?" he asked.
"Not really," she admitted. "I just wanted to see you, but you can get back to your pharmacy cult. I know it's not cool to hang out with the freshmen."
He let out a small laugh. "It's not a cult. And seniors aren't any cooler. They're just more full of themselves."
Lily felt her lips curve up into a smile. "I can tell."
"Oh, shut up." He lightly elbowed her.
"You brought that one upon yourself."
His eyes flickered down to the Introduction to Social Work nestled in the crook of her elbow. Picking a major was difficult, even though Lily knew there was time to change it. She spent a lot of time last year thinking about it. She didn't really flourish in any of the subjects she was taught in high school and felt somewhat lost because of it, but she tried to consider what had meaning to her. She debated psychology but decided that it hit a little too close to home. Then social work crossed her mind and to her surprise, it resonated.
She imagined it had a lot to do with the particular phase of life she was in. While senior year was an extremely stressful time for most of her peers, for Lily it was more so a time of rest and reflection. Of looking back at the giant mess that was her sophomore and junior years and understanding that she had come out on the other side of it. She didn't necessarily feel stronger or changed for the better, but she felt okay. She had survived. And she had what she needed to keep surviving.
But the kicker was that what she needed to survive was a lot. She had parents who loved her, who cared about her well-being and could financially support her. Between the hospital stay, psychiatrist appointments, and her medications, the costs really added up. And she had Henry and Katie who carried her through it when she couldn't carry herself.
It all got her thinking about where she might be if her circumstances were different, if she was having the same mental health issues but wasn't from a well-to-do white middle-class family. If she didn't have two parents who were emotionally available to help her. It could have all looked totally different.
And then, as she always did, she thought about Henry. She could never imagine what it might be like to lose a sister. Since she was an only child, he was the closest thing she had to a sibling. But he was only in kindergarten when Sarah died and Lily reckoned that was just about as much pain as anyone could go through by that age. But he was here. He survived, too.
Yet she wondered where he would be today if he didn't have some of the best parents on the planet. There had to be lots of kids out there like him, kids who were going through the darkest moments of their lives and didn't have the same kind of support he did.
She looked at her cousin and knew that she couldn't undo what he had gone through. She couldn't get rid of his pain. But at this crossroads in her life, she realized that she had an opportunity. She wanted to go help all the other little Henrys out there.
So here Lily was, clinging onto the social work textbook that Henry just noticed.
"Is everything going okay?" he asked quietly.
She nodded. "I promise I'd tell you if it wasn't."
He gave her a goodbye hug and she returned it as well as she could with stuff in both of her hands.
"Hey, Henry?" she whispered before he let go.
"Hmm?"
"You can't date this Hannah girl if she doesn't like Tangled."
Lily felt the slight vibration of his chest as he laughed. "I'm not dating Hannah."
"Whatever you say."
When he walked away, Lily lingered behind and watched his retreating figure for another moment before she rushed off to the library. That girl he ran into had already slipped out of both their minds.
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Big yikes at Lily singlehandedly stopping Henry and Amelia from dating three years sooner, but I hope you guys enjoyed that little cameo! I always wanted to find a way for her to make an appearance in this book since it was mentioned in the last one that they went to college together, so shoutout to my beta reader friend for suggesting this :D
Just as a heads up, the next chapter is super short because it basically just sets you up for what's going to happen in Chapter 20, but I'll try to post those 2 on back-to-back days. See you then!
Thanks for reading and don't forget to vote if you enjoyed <3