Inevitable

A New Arrangement

Henry was leaning on the back of his car. I walked over and stood in front of him. I could feel my resolve slip away now that he was here in person. All I could think about was kissing him. It had been too long since I touched him. He must have sensed what I was thinking because he stood up, took my face in his hands and kissed me softly. Without thinking about it, I wrapped my arms around his back and pulled him closer to me. I had no self-control when it came to him.
Surprisingly, he pulled away first. He took one of my hands and led me over to a bench to sit down. I knew we needed to talk about a lot but it felt so good just to be in his presence again. I wish we could have sat there all night just enjoying each other's company. But it could never be that simple.
I turned my body so that I was facing him and said "I wish you hadn't told Liam that I was crying. I'm embarrassed about that."

"I know. It wasn't my place to say anything. I just got so mad when I thought about him hurting you. Why were you even with him?"

"He's a friend. There's a lot of history there. And I told you he apologized. But I don't want to talk about him anymore. Why didn't you respond to my text earlier."

"Because I'm stubborn. I was pissed the other day when you cancelled our plans. I thought you were blowing me off. So I thought I would do the same thing to you. I know, real mature. But then your roommate Jane talked some sense into me."

"Jane said something to you? Jane never gets involved in other peoples drama. Are you sure it was her?"

"She was at our place today and I was being a dick and snapping at everyone. She told me that if I really cared about you, then I needed to go talk to you and figure shit out."

I was surprised that Jane would help Henry out. She was at dinner on Sunday night. She heard everything Jess and Melissa said. I would have to talk to her about it later.

"I'm sorry about lunch yesterday. There's some things I found out about that were upsetting and I needed to figure out what to do about it."

"Okay now you have me worried. This past weekend was amazing. I thought you felt the same way. What changed?"

"Apparently you know Jess' roommate Melissa. You two hooked up back in February and then you disappeared on her. She said you told her you cared about her a lot and then when you got what you wanted, you dropped her."

It came out in one long stream of thought. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to confront him about it so I just blurted it out all at once. He looked surprised and a little bit angry.

"I remember Melissa and we did hook up. But I never pretended it was anything more than that. I feel like this is Jess trying to come between us because she hates me. Please tell me you don't think I could treat someone like that."

"Speaking of Jess, she said that you tried to break up her and Nick when they started dating and it ended up with you punching Nick and giving him a black eye."

"You realize you're only getting one side of the story here. Jess has always been a total bitch to me and I told Nick that he could do better. Nick got pissed that I said that and came at me. I punched him to defend myself. This is such bullshit! You're listening to everyone else instead of finding out the truth. I have nothing to hide from you."

"I am trying to find out the truth. That's why I wanted to talk to you. Jess is my best friend. She is only trying to protect me. She has nothing but good intentions."

He rolled his eyes at me. There was no way I was getting in the middle of the two of them. But he needed to know where I stood with Jess. I would always be loyal to her.

"So what are you going to do? Are you just going to walk away from this?"

I felt tears threatening to spill over. I had to stop crying in front of Henry. He put an arm around me and pulled me in for hug. I didn't want to walk away. It didn't even feel like I had a choice.

"I'm scared you're going to hurt me," I whispered.

"I can't change what has happened in the past. But I promise I'm different now. You make me want to be better. Let me prove it to you."

"How?"

"I want to prove to you that I'm not playing you. What if we took all the physical stuff off the table until you trusted me again? No touching, no kissing, nothing. I just want to be in your life. I can wait for the rest of it."

I pulled out of his arms to see if he was being serious. We could barely keep our hands off of each other when we were together. Did he really think we could just stop? "What are you saying? You just want to be friends? How would that even work?"

"We would just spend time together. Really get to know each other. And until you trust me again, I'll keep my hands to myself. It'll be really hard but I want to do this right. I don't want there to be any doubt about how I feel about you."

I hated the thought of him not touching me. But he was right. I didn't completely trust him. We had moved pretty fast. Maybe it was a good thing to put the brakes on it.

"Okay. I guess we could try it. I'm not sure either one of us can do it but it's worth a shot."

He laughed at that. I wasn't sure what was going to happen with us but right now, in this moment, I was happy just being with him. It didn't matter what anyone else thought. Only that we made each other happy.

He placed a hand on my cheek and leaned in to kiss me softly. When he pulled away he whispered, "One last kiss...."