History, huh?

Five

June found him there in the doorframe to the room. She wrapped her arms around Henry's shaking figure and pulled him against her chest, stroking his hair tenderly while he squeezed his eyes shut and tried to focus on his breathing. It took a few moments of her gentle touch for him to stop crying, but when he was done, he felt no better. Crying about Alex's state wasn't going to help. But the only tool that Henry could wield with any precision was a pen and writing Alex okay on a piece of paper or a napkin wasn't going to make him wake up anytime soon. Henry felt completely useless, even when June led him over to the seat by Alex's head and put his hand on top of Alex's like it would do something. 

"I––I'm not strong enough for myself, let alone the two of us," Henry told her. 

She sighed and pulled up a chair next to him. "You don't need to be strong," she said, "you just need to be here. Knowing that you're here...it'll help him. You are his whole world, Henry. You know that, right?"

Alex had told him as much countless times, but the words never really stuck in his mind. It seemed, to him, like a moment of fleeting happiness. That Alex was so wrapped up in the kisses or the cuddles that things just sort of poured out of him without much thought. He knew, or he wanted to believe, anyway, that June was right. That he was Alex's world. Because Alex had always been at the center of Henry's universe, even before they started dating. 

"I––I just love him so much. And I know he loves me, but I just...what will I do? If he's...if he's gone?"

June shook her head. "He's not gone. He's not going to leave you. Look, I've known Alex forever, and I know that this is bullshit he won't stand for. He's in there, somewhere, fighting and clawing his way back out again. Fighting to come back to you, Henry. Every fight he's ever made since you two started dating, it's all been for you." She reached into her purse and grabbed a folded piece of paper and handed it to Henry.

He raised an eyebrow and took it but didn't open it. "What's this?"

"I'm not really sure," she sighed, "but he left it for you. He gave it to me to give to you in case...in case something like this happened. I haven't read it. He wouldn't let me touch it, just told me that I would know when to give it to you."

With shaky fingers, Henry unfolded the paper and saw Alex's handwriting on the page in front of him. June placed a kiss on his forehead and left the room so Henry could have time alone to read and process whatever sat in his hands. 

H,

I thought about leaving you some sort of encrypted flash drive with a video of this, but I know you prefer to have these things written down, so I'm going to try. 

I've written, like, fifteen of these at this point, but they're not what I want them to be. I thought about having June look over this for me, just to make sure my thoughts are coming out of the pen right, but I decided against it. If this ever needs to be given to you, I want you to be the only one (or the first one because if you want to share it with someone else I won't really be around to stop you) who reads what I'm about to say.

When I think about everything––that missed chance at Rio, our forged friendship, the kiss at the White House, and everything after––I can't help but think about what an absolute idiot I've been.  You'd probably say it's because I'm American, but I think it's something else. I may not have been born a prince, but I was born as something else. A storm, I think. A tornado. I'm so headstrong, stubborn, and fast-minded that I never stop to look at the things around me and really appreciate them. You changed that about me. You quieted the storm inside of me, or maybe you were the eye of it. With you, I always stopped to appreciate things because, for the longest time, I didn't know how long I would have the chance to see that place your mouth goes, the way you jut your chin out to be tough, or any of the other remarkable and beautiful things I've always loved about you. 

Obviously, if you're receiving this, I haven't done the thing I've wanted to do since we came out with the truth. God, even the thought of leaving you without having done that one thing makes my blood boil. And, fuck, H, I want you to know that I'm fighting. I know that sounds stupid considering the state I'm probably in as you read this, but I say that I'm fighting with certainty because there is no world or situation in which I would get myself hurt and not claw my way back to you. If I do die, I need you to know that it was because I couldn't fight anymore. Because I lost. I would never give up on you or the future we've planned with each other because there's honestly no life I could live without you in it. 

That one thing. I know you're thinking about it. I know that you're reading this and you're making that face that you do when you're confused but you want to understand. I've been wrestling with it: telling you what I want, here, in the safety of this paper. I feel like I know you, but I also feel like there's this whole undercurrent of you that I've yet to experience and maybe never even will experience, so I honestly don't know if telling you will make things better or worse for you. I know you (and everyone else) think that I don't think about things before I say or do them sometimes, and you're (generally, admittedly) right about that. But when it comes to you, I can't stop thinking. And I want to get this right. I want to do right by you.

The thing is: I love you. I know that you know that, but I want you to really get it. The depth (or lack thereof. The endlessness) of my love for you. When my mom asked if this was forever, I knew the answer without having to think about it. Yes. I mean it, Henry. For fucking ever. And I don't know what that means now with the way that I am when you read this, but I want forever with you. It's all I've wanted for so long now that I forgot what it was like to wake up in the morning and not have my first thought be about you. To have my first action to be to either think about or actually kiss you in the morning. And I want this, all that we've been doing, to be a forever kind of thing. Something tangible and real.

When I've thought about this in the past, I've been affronted by this fear that maybe it's not what you want. That a life with me would ruin everything you've built for yourself with the foundation and the youth shelters. So, I want you to just think about it, okay? I know you like thinking, especially when things are rough, so I want to give you something to think about, sweetheart.

Think about me. Actually, scratch that. Don't. Think about us. And this isn't a proposal (as if I would pass up the chance to do the proposal of the fucking century the right way) but I want you to think about if this with me, if being with me forever, is something that you want. And if you'd care to put a label on it at some point. Or a ring, I guess, in this case. 

So, think of me, baby, because I'll be thinking of you.

Forever yours,

A

P.S: Beethoven to his "Immortal Beloved"

Even in bed my ideas yearn towards you, my Immortal Beloved, here and there joyfully, then again sadly, awaiting from Fate, whether it will listen to us. I can only live, either altogether with you or not at all. Yes, I have determined to wander about for so long far away, until I can fly into your arms and call myself quite at home with you, can send my soul enveloped by yours into the realm of spirits — yes, I regret, it must be.