Abroad

Three

The next time they had their literature class, Alex slid into the seat next to Henry. After their terrible turned fun night, he found himself thinking about Henry constantly. He'd really opened up to Alex after that discussion on the stairs, and Alex was there for it. Underneath his pretentious mask, Henry was really smart, funny, kind, and just lovely. Alex loved Pez, too, but he felt like he had a certain connection with Henry that night. So, in literature class, he wanted to see if that connection was still there when they were both sober. 

Henry smiled at him as Alex sat down next to him in the front row. "Joining me in the front row? How bold."

Alex rolled his eyes and got his materials out of his backpack. "Shut up. I'm only sitting here so I can copy your notes. I don't understand half of what the professor says."

"Well, in that case," Henry said, moving his notebook towards Alex a bit, "copy away."

When they weren't in class or getting food after, Alex made sure to text and Snapchat Henry throughout his day. Most of it was stupid stuff about the annoying things British people did, just to get a rise out of Henry. It was an easy friendship. Most of the time they kept things light-hearted and surface level, but, on occasion, they ended up having deeper conversations about things that had happened in their lives or questions they had about mortality and existence. Alex liked both, but he particularly liked it when he asked something that got Henry going on one of his rants. It was a wonderful sight: Henry with his eyes lit up and his mouth moving faster than Alex could ever keep up with. It didn't really matter what they talked about as long as Alex got to see that look on Henry's symmetrical face. 

As the days went on, he found himself talking and seeing Henry and Pez more than he did Nora. It was fine, of course, because they were both really happy now, but Alex did miss her sometimes. She was his dose of America amidst all of the British things that irked him. But it didn't get to him that much. Henry and Pez and their silly ideas kept him plenty busy. Since Henry and Pez lived together in an apartment (Alex refused to call it a flat and give into the culture) he spent a lot of time there. They did Star Wars movie marathons and watched Harry Potter together. The three of them would squish together on the small sofa and just lose themselves in the magic of film for a while before, inevitably, someone (usually Henry) got too tired and went to his room. Even though Alex was friends with Pez, he felt more like Henry's friend than Pez's so he usually left pretty soon after Henry retired for the evening. And, honestly, the movies weren't as fun without Henry's stupid commentary throughout them.

One night after a particularly hard day where Alex hadn't had the time to see Henry apart from class, Alex hit a rough patch. Earlier in the day, between classes, he had tried to send something stupid in his lacrosse team group chat but found that he had been removed from it. He had texted one of his friends on the team to ask why he wasn't in it anymore but the response didn't come until late that night once Alex had finally finished his homework and was allowing himself to watch some much-needed Netflix.

"Bc ur not here anymore" his friend had replied.

It hit Alex with a sudden clarity that, even when he went back home, things wouldn't be the same. His family would be glad to see him, of course, but the friends he had from the previous years were fading away while he was in London. It was, he supposed, his fault since he hadn't made much of an effort to keep in constant contact with them over the past few weeks, but he figured that things could go back to normal when he went home for second semester. Maybe he was stupid to believe that, to believe that his semester abroad was some sort of stupid bubble that existed apart from the rest of the world, but it hurt to come to terms with it. It was one thirty in the morning in London and Alex was curled up in a useless ball on his bed crying because there wasn't a single thing he could do about it.