The Search for Lily Myers ✓

25 | You Haven't Met the New Me Yet

Amelia's bank account thanked her immensely for the fact that Henry wasn't insistent upon them splurging on fancy dates all of the time. Instead, they spent several evenings over the next couple of weeks hanging out at each other's apartments and cooking dinner together, squeezing in a movie afterward if there was time. On the nights when one or both of them was utterly drained of energy after work and couldn't muster the willpower to drive anywhere else, they curled up on their respective beds or couches and talked over the phone instead.

This little routine that they fell into was peaceful, secure. It was a relief to not be worrying about boring her boyfriend if she was too exhausted to do much more than stare at her ceiling—the only thing she really needed to do was say her thoughts out loud to him instead of letting them burrow themselves only inside her head. Some nights, she'd simply lay there and silently listen to the oddly-soothing sound of him quietly typing on his keyboard while he finished up his school assignments.

But Amelia did feel as though it would be a bit of a shame not to do something fun for their first Halloween together. She hadn't come up with a costume, but after a little bit of poking around online for things to do around town, she discovered that there was a free screening of Beetlejuice in the park on Halloween night, which sounded like a much more pleasant date activity than staying home and handing out candy to small children (though she wasn't mean enough to forego it entirely—she'd just leave a bowl of it outside her door before she left and hope that the first round of trick-or-treaters didn't steal all of it).

She wondered aloud to him one night over Facetime if Liam might want to come with them, too. The better part of a month had somehow slipped by since the last time Amelia had seen him and she felt the strange compulsion to make sure that he wasn't getting too lonely even though he surely had plenty of other people he could hang out with. If she'd been in his shoes, she imagined she would feel isolated even in the middle of a crowd. Because wouldn't his friends feel like she did with Henry, completely worthless when it came to trying to wrap her head around everything he must have been feeling?

Henry agreed that inviting him sounded like a nice idea, though he reminded her not to be personally offended if he wasn't dying to be their third wheel.

Amelia nodded, gnawing on the inside of her lower lip. "If I were him, I guess I'd probably resent me."

"What for?"

"I just mean that he's already missing his girlfriend constantly, you know? And here we are, probably looking like we're rubbing our relationship in his face. Does that make us bad people?"

Henry thought on it for a moment. "I don't feel like we're rubbing it in, but I get what you're saying, yeah. I don't want to be that person who's constantly reminding him of what he's missing. But at the same time, I don't know that he ever stops thinking about it to begin with. Which sounds depressing as hell—and it is—but that's how life is going right now."

She suddenly wished that she was looking at him in person instead of through the phone screen. She wanted to lift her hand and brush it along the skin of his cheek, to try to wrap him up in her arms.

"Do you ever stop thinking about her?" she asked.

"Not really," he admitted, his voice smaller than it was a minute ago. "I think I'm almost scared to and I don't know if I could even if I wanted to. Everything reminds me of her. Even you, in a way. That probably sounds weird—I just wish she was around to meet you. You'd like each other."

Feeling herself tear up a little bit, Amelia almost turned away from him, but she forced herself not to.

"Someday," she murmured instead.