“Do what?” he asks with a smirk that says he knows exactly what he’s doing.
“You know.” I gesture between us, feeling an overwhelming heat rise in my chest. “Be all you.”
Henry stands up and my heart goes still. Thankfully, when he moves to the front of the table, he maintains his distance and leans against the ledge with his arms crossed. “What, you mean a decent human being?”
My heart stutters in my chest, and I bite my lip, fighting the urge to say something stupid. “It’s not that,” I admit, my voice sinking. “It’s just I don’t know how to handle this. You.”
Something glimmers in his eyes that makes me realize he understands my vague statement. He watches me, his stare unwavering. The silence stretches between us, comfortable in a way I don’t expect.
I feel it again—the warmth. It stirs something inside of me I’m not ready to acknowledge. Something I’m not sure I can trust.
Henry breaks the silence first. “Are you okay?”
I clear my throat and stand a little straighter, snapping myself back to the gravity of what this relationship is. “I’mfine,” I answer, the words coming out sharper than I intended. “You don’t have to stay.”
Henry arches an eyebrow, a subtle smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “You keep saying that,” he says gently. “But you don’t really mean it, do you?”
I start to resent how easily he sees through me. His words slip under my guard and settle in places I’m not ready to deal with.
“I do mean it,” I reply, but I can feel my eyes betraying me as they flicker away.
For a moment, Henry is silent and I’m grateful for it. There’s nothing more he can say, nothing that would make this easier.
“What were you going to say before you took that phone call?”
My body collapses into itself. I was hoping he’d forget. “I can’t remember.” God, I’m pathetic.
“Don’t lie to me, Emma,” Henry pleads. The shift in his tone slices across my walls. I pull my arms to my body, raising my shield.
“It doesn’t matter now,” I whisper, lowering my head. “It was stupid.” I feel like a child muttering my half-assed answer.
I push my legs across the room, needing to distract myself with movement. Needing to avoid his heated gaze. Still, I can feel his eyes linger on me, and I fight the urge to turn around and tell him everything.
“Were you jealous earlier?”
The question makes my hands freeze and causes my body to stand up straight. He caught me off guard. I wasn’t prepared to see Henry’s assertive side tonight.
The sound of my pulse raging inside my body takes over my senses. I feel lightheaded but resist the urge to sit down. Instead, I keep my face neutral and slowly breathe in and out.I feel exposed, and my first instinct is to retreat inside of myself.
“Why would you think that?”
Henry doesn’t hesitate before stepping closer, somehow knowing that his mere presence is enough to break me down. His movements are slow and measured, like he’s approaching an animal in the wild.
His eyes stay trained on mine, with each deliberate step pulling us closer. His steps come to a halt before he gets too close. “I know when something is bothering you,” Henry says with a firm confidence that pulls at the knot inside me. “You can’t sit still, and your eyes try to focus on anything but me. You’re good at pretending you’re okay, but only for the people who don’t really know or understand you.”
My heart pounds and my knees buckle, causing my body to sway back and forth. His eyes follow the motion, perfectly in tune with my body without even knowing it. Gravity pulls on my tightened lips, and an unmistakable frown grows from the pain of being seen.
“You’re reading too much into it,” my voice cracks. If I was trying to convince Henry he didn’t just read me like a book, I was doing a terrible job.
His head tilts to one side as his shoulders relax. Instead of being thrown off by my comments, he studies me more closely. My defense mechanisms weren’t working on him, and my resolve was starting to crumble.
“I don’t think so,” he challenges.
“Yes,” I respond. I can’t think of anything else to say. I feel trapped between reality and the truth. My hands curl into tight fists at my sides.
Henry leans into the tension and keeps pressing forward. Desperate for the truth. “Why won’t you look me in the eye then?”
Part of me wants to hate him for noticing. For caring. Forlooking closer when I constantly begged him to look away. But I can’t. Hating him would be too easy.
