48. Amelie
48
AMELIE
Henry stops the car in front of a beach.
A beach.
At eleven o’clock at night. As if it isn’t freezing outside.
All I have to warm me is the jacket that I stole from him. He’s folded himself in his sweater, and I feel slightly guilty for taking it, but it’s well within my rights. I think there’s something in the Constitution about taking the coat of a person who makes you stand in forty degree weather. It should be legal. Encouraged , even.
“This is ridiculous,” I say plainly, slipping my shoes off so I don’t fill them with sand. “Our toes are going to snap off.”
“I don’t think that’s going to happen.” Henry removes his shoes and offers me his hand, and I take it, albeit reluctantly. This isn’t normal behavior. This beach is literally empty aside from us. If this were something that people do, surely there’d be at least one other person here.
Henry starts walking toward the shoreline, and since he still has a grip on my hand, I follow. I’m trying to be at least mildly optimistic, but I get moody when I’m cold. Hence the reason I took his coat when we arrived.
“Do you recognize it?” He asks once we’re stopped directly in front of the ocean. Our feet are covered by the foaming waves, and the hem of my pants is damp, but I find that I don’t care. The water in contrast to the cold air isn’t as bad as I’d expected it to be.
I hold my breath. “Not…really?”
He nods and looks down at the ground.
“But it’s dark,” I continue, somehow feeling guilty over this. “Maybe I’d recognize it during the day.”
He laughs. “You don’t have to feel bad.”
“But you remember it,” I say.
He just shrugs and turns on his heel, pulling me along behind him as he keeps walking down the beach. I continue to look around as I walk mindlessly, looking for some tell as to why I should recognize this place, but nothing sticks out. It’s sand and water. You could put me on seven different beaches and I wouldn’t be able to tell you one from the other.
We’re walking toward a pier, I realize, when my eyes adjust more to the dark. A run-down one, set out over the water. The moonlight is glistening off the waves, and Henry doesn’t stop until we’re about a hundred yards away. He stares at this, too, like I should recognize it.
I know we aren’t here to just stare. There’s a reason we’re here, but I don’t know it.
“You brought me here to talk,” I say, when I feel like the silence is going to kill me. “So talk.”
Henry drops my hand and slips his into his pocket, and I try not to focus on the lack of his warmth. Slowly, he pulls the memory card out of his pocket, and before I can even ask what he’s doing, he takes a step forward and throws it.
Right into the rolling tide.
I look up at him. “Is that what?—”
“Why do you hate my paintings so much?” He asks, keeping his eyes on the ground.
I gape, taken aback. “What?”
“I just want to know. I don’t care that you hate them. I just…want to know what changed.”
I bite my lip and stare at the waves because I don’t have an answer. I decided to hate Henry’s paintings, yes, but as for my reasoning? I don’t have one. Not that goes beyond something petty.
I can’t even say that I’ve truly hated his work, because I haven’t. Fleur of Words is my favorite piece in the museum, and I always knew it could be his. I always felt that it was, and I still loved it. It was something that I looked at every time I went.
“I don’t,” I say finally, and I’m shocked to feel confident in that answer.
He looks over at me with a heavy gaze. “You said you did.”
I shake my head once. “I think I hated the emotions they elicit from me. I hated that you could still make me feel, even after I said I wouldn’t let you do that again. Your paintings are beautiful, Henry. I’m drawn to them.”
He opens his mouth to respond, then turns away without saying a word, so I keep talking.
“Your piece, Fleur of Words? It’s my favorite thing you’ve made. And it’s not just because my name is in it. It’s the tangle of words together. The absolute chaos that you made look beautiful. I didn’t even know it was yours until a few weeks ago. I refused to look at the nameplate because I thought it was you.”
“You’re in all my pieces in some way, Amelie.” His eyes pin me in place. “Your name, it’s there. It’s what I based the piece around. And the ocean in Nautical Abyss —” He motions to the water in front of us. “—is this. I came here and painted the base of the piece one evening.”
I stay silent, staring directly at the wooden structure in the distance.
And then it clicks.
“You kissed me here,” I say quietly.
Now that I’ve remembered, it’s obvious.
It was a summer night, right before dark. Henry suggested we go down to the pier and watch the sun set, so we did. But we didn’t go home immediately after; we stayed and talked until the moon was the only thing to light our path. My parents were positively livid when I made it home.
But he kissed me for the first time here.
It’s one of those things I tried to forget, though I never fully succeeded.
Henry nods to confirm my answer. “You’re in everything for me, Amelie. Everything.”
My heart speeds up at those words.
You’re in everything for me.
I frown and turn toward him to tell him that we can’t do this. Not again. But before I even get my first word out, he’s shaking his head, taking a step closer to me.
“No,” he says. “Amelie, I have to tell you.”
“I don’t?—”
“ Please ,” he begs, voice dropping lower. “Let me.”
I swallow. Trace the lines of his face with my gaze instead of looking away. “Okay,” I whisper. “Tell me.”
He holds my eyes as he speaks, looking more intent than I’ve seen him in ages. “I want you,” he says softly. “And before you say anything about how that answer isn’t good enough, let me finish talking.”
My mouth is already open to argue, and he grins slightly when I close it. “Alright. Sorry.”
“Thank you.” He laughs quietly before continuing. “The other day, you asked me what’s changed. And I didn’t say it at the time, because I wanted to make sure I could say exactly what I wanted. But I know it now.” He takes a breath. “ We have changed. We’re different people, Amelie. Different from each other, and different from who we were four years ago. Your choices are—and always will be—your own. So will mine. But my choice is you, and it’s always going to be you.”
I swallow hard, ignoring the blatant stinging in my eyes.
“Memories of you aren’t enough for me. I want to know you now. All these things that you’ve learned about yourself, I want to know them, too. And I won’t judge you. I won’t resent you. All of it, it’s a part of you, just like my work is a part of me.
“I wish I could change how things ended.” He pauses. “No. I wish things never had ended. I’ll never forgive myself for not trying harder to get back to you, but I can’t fix that. I can’t change the past, so let me say this now: whatever you choose to do, whoever you choose to be, I will always want you.” He takes both of my hands in his, and I step forward. “I cannot escape you, Amelie, and I don’t want to.”
If I couldn’t feel his skin on mine, I would fully convince myself that I’m hallucinating right now.
What am I even supposed to say? My mind feels like it’s been wiped blank. His words always manage to catch me off guard, and this is no exception, but it does feel much more important.
Just take a breath. Think for a moment.
“We can’t do this again.”
Okay, no. That wasn’t the plan.
“We can,” Henry replies, not at all deterred by my obvious blubbering. I think it’s actually making him enjoy this more. “You know we can.”
Can. Not could.
I exhale sharply. “You don’t know that for sure.”
“I do.” He nods and squeezes my hands. “You’ve been on my mind for four years, Amelie. It’s only worsened with the time I’ve spent around you lately. You haven’t left my thoughts. Not once. I don’t think you ever will.”
I stay silent for a beat, unsure of what to say. I have so many options, and not a single one of them actually comes out of my mouth. Instead, I decide on saying, “I’m not what you think. Not anymore.”
He doesn’t look away. “Yes, you are.”
“I already said I won’t change for you.”
“And I said that I’d never ask you to.”
I exhale, mildly exasperated. “You shouldn’t have to compromise yourself for me.”
“I’m not compromising anything,” he says solemnly. “I want you. Just you. I’ve tried to make that clear, though I must not have done a good enough job.”
I keep my mouth shut, because I think I’ve finally run out of arguments.
“I’ve done all that I can,” he says, voice lowered. “If you want me to walk away, I will. But you have to tell me.”
“I don’t want that,” I whisper. “I don’t want that at all.”
His eyes flick back and forth between mine. “No?”
“No.” I shake my head. “I don’t want you to walk away.”
“Then what do you want?”
“You.”
I don’t know where I find the word, but I know it’s true.
I do want him. I’ve wanted him for much longer than I care to admit.
Henry takes a deep breath and steps forward, enough to close the gap between us. He slides his hands around to the back of my neck and lowers his face to mine, making my breath catch.
“You have me, Amelie,” he murmurs against my lips. “You always will.”
I close my eyes. Shift closer to him. Before I can breathe, before I can say a word, he’s kissing me.
And I don’t know how I’ll live without this again.
His fingers dig into the nape of my neck, and he kisses me roughly, desperately, like he’s worried I’ll disappear. Like he needs me to breathe. I take handfuls of his shirt, trying to move closer to him, even though that’s not really possible at this point. I’m flush against him, enough to feel the rise and fall of his ragged breathing, enough to know that it matches my own.
It’s overwhelming that this is real. That he’s holding me, kissing me like I’m his. I’m worried I’m going to get addicted to this, to him, only to have it taken away from me again.
But that doesn’t stop me from reveling in this. From dragging my fingers through his hair, over his shoulders and arms. I rest my palm under his collarbone, right over his hammering heart, and I can’t help but grin at the fact that I still affect him the way he affects me. We’re both in this. We both feel this .
This isn’t going away, I tell myself, exhaling as he trails his hands down my sides. Not if we don’t let it.
Henry breaks away from me for a second. Mumbles something I don’t catch, something that must not be important. His mouth is back on mine again, and this time, it’s slow. Gentle. His hands are tight around my waist, holding me where I am, and his fingers slip just underneath the hem of my shirt. I shiver at the warmth. At his hot hands pressing against my icy skin.
“You’re freezing,” he whispers into the air between us.
I tangle my fingers through his hair. His eyes close for a second, and I smile at him even though he doesn’t see me. “I missed you,” I breathe. “I didn’t realize just how much.”
He grins before pulling me into his arms. I close my eyes and relax against him, burying my face in his sweater. “We should go,” he says, the words muffled by my hair.
I nod, trying to suppress a shiver that’s actually from the cold. My toes lost feeling quite a while ago, and my fingers aren’t far behind. “Yeah. We probably should.”
He releases me and takes my hand again, walking back the way we came. He doesn’t let go until we’re back to his car and he opens my door. I slide into the passenger seat and instantly curl into a ball, my knees pressed to my chin. As soon as Henry starts the car, I turn the seat warmers on full heat.
“Well,” Henry starts, rubbing his palms together. “I’d call it a successful outing.”
I cover my mouth and laugh. “I’d say so.”
He grins and pulls away from the edge of the road. I don’t bother to turn on music for once—I sort of like this silence. The sound of my breathing, the tapping of his fingers against the wheel, it’s intimate. Peaceful.
But I ruin it with my questions, of course. That’s just how I am.
“What were you going to say back at your apartment?” I ask, toying with my shoelaces. “When you kept saying it was nothing.”
“Right before we left, you mean?”
“Yes.”
Henry hums as he makes a turn. “You worry so much about people hating you that you don’t realize they love you.”
I gape at him. “What?”
“You seem to assume people will hate you for your work. Earlier, with Lizzy, that’s what you said. But that isn’t the case.”
“How do you figure?”
“You’re a good person,” he says simply. “You’re kind, and selfless, despite what you say. You love people, and you show them. I mean—you’re already helping me with something that I dragged you into, even though you shouldn’t. You shouldn’t want to help me, but you do .”
“That’s because you deserve something good,” I say softly. “And to you, that’s your work. I want to get that back for you.”
He shakes his head. “You’re my something good, Ames.”
I flush and turn away, staring at the lights out my window. Henry laughs, and a few seconds later, his hand finds mine again. The things he says…half the time, I don’t know how to respond.
This is one of those times, so I don’t speak again. But I do kiss him thoroughly before going to my apartment.