Abroad

Eight

It was midnight and Henry knew that he should have been fast asleep by now but he couldn't bring himself to close his eyes. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw Alex's face behind his lids. Alex sending him that soft smile as he left leaving Henry grasping at air and the shattered pieces of their friendship. God, even when Henry was actively trying not to mess things up, he still managed it. He'd thought...well, what did he think, exactly? That throwing George's name into nearly every conversation would help him get over Alex? That mentioning his boyfriend all of the time was some stupid game to get Alex to admit to being jealous? No, it couldn't be that. Henry might have been stupidly, helplessly, irreversibly in love with Alex, but that meant that he would never hurt him intentionally. He wouldn't push Alex into admitting something to Henry that he wasn't admitting even to himself. Well, if there was even anything for him to admit. Henry still had no idea if Alex was bi or gay or what, but Pez's voice always whispered it in the back of his mind whenever Alex sent him that patented Reserved For Henry smile. Or when he took his hand that day they went ice skating.

Henry groaned and rolled onto his side, opening his phone. He brought up his text messages with Alex and let the cursor blink at him as he tried to figure out what he could possibly say to fix all of this. There were no words strong enough in the whole of the English language to express the sheer magnitude of pain he felt when Alex walked away from him. There were no words deep enough to tell Alex how much he loved him and wanted him in his life. And though Alex said he wasn't making Henry choose between him and George, it certainly felt like it. He returned to his messages home screen and tapped on George's contact instead. If he told George what happened, would he have anything useful to say? Their relationship didn't really include Alex in passing. How could it when every word out of Henry's mouth about him was sure to give away that he was in love with Alex and not his own fucking boyfriend? It was okay when they hung out together because at least Henry could cling to George's arm to remind himself of who he was actually dating, but talking about Alex with George seemed like it would cross some kind of line. 

George was a great guy. He was ridiculously smart, incredibly attractive, and never had a negative thing to say about anyone. If Henry wanted to, he could write pages upon pages about George's eyes and personality and every other little thing about him down to his obsession with Harry Potter and why he liked or disliked each character. He could write sonnets about George, but it didn't matter. No amount of writing or thinking about him would change the fact that he was still in deep, painful love with Alex. It was the kind of love that consumed him. It was a raging fire that burned even through the wettest, coldest of nights. Flames that could withstand the test of time, it seemed. It had been months of loving Alex at first from a distance and then so close up that Henry felt like he nearly had it in his grasp. That day that they had gone ice skating, when Alex had put his hand on Henry's jaw and forced him to look at Alex...he felt a flicker of hope. That's all it was––the smallest flicker of hope. It burned through his stomach when he looked deeply into Alex's eyes. When he realized that, if he just moved his head just so, he could kiss him. 

But then Alex had said that Henry was his friend. He poured water over that flicker of hope and it quickly withered away again. That was when Henry decided to stop holding out on that hope. He started to force his brain full of George. He tried to see him whenever he could and he texted him when he couldn't. He thought, if he kept himself busy enough with George, that Alex would be pushed from his mind. That his thoughts of Alex would be written over and covered with George, instead.

There was a pounding at the door. A loud, obnoxious pounding. Henry groaned, rolled out of bed, and made his way to the door in nothing but his white tee shirt and navy blue joggers. When he opened it, he saw that it was Alex standing there. He was soaking through and panting like he'd sprinted all the way here. Henry felt his jaw clench at the sight of him in the hallway.