The Way We Learned to Love ✓

17 - lily

august 2014-november 2015 : 4 years and 10 months ago

sophomore year

Lily's sophomore year was hard.

It wasn't that she didn't have any good days. Those came more and more frequently as time went on. But the bad days didn't seem to get any easier and always made her question how she was possibly going to get through, no matter how many of them she survived.

Those were the days she missed seeing Henry every day the most. Having him at school with her would have made everything so much easier. She wanted to sit with him at lunch and not have to talk if she wasn't feeling up to it. Instead, she sat with girls she met in class and tried to always put on a smile, even on the bad days.

She hadn't really made friends before now; she had gotten so distracted just hanging out with Henry. The exception was Olivia, her sort-of-friend from English class last year. Lily thankfully had biology with her this year, so she got Olivia to introduce her to some of her other friends and attempted to make herself fit in.

None of the other girls were the problem. They were all great. But Lily was a lot shyer than she used to be. She felt like she was hiding so much and lying about who she was, but she wasn't ready to tell anyone about what was going on with her just yet when even she barely knew.

Meanwhile, Henry was doing well in college. She did her best to see him once a week or so if they could make it work, but she didn't have her driver's license yet and he was so freaking busy all the time. On top of the insane amount of homework, there were also apparently a billion and one events to go to on campus every single week, so he wasn't always around when she was free. She herself had significantly less spare time than she did last year thanks to the after-school tutoring sessions she had twice a week to compensate for the fact that she was missing classes for her therapy appointments.

She wouldn't admit it to anyone, but Lily had been afraid that Henry wasn't going to have any time for her once he got to college and made a bunch of friends who were cooler than her. He seemed really happy, so she was sure he was meeting people, but he didn't talk about his social life much. It was a bit off-putting - not because she was concerned for him, but because it left her in the dark about what that side of his life was like. Was he still keeping to himself like he did in high school or was he putting himself out there more? What was he like when he wasn't around her?

She didn't have the answers to these questions. All she knew was that at least around her, he hadn't changed much.

He still came to hang out with her even when she was being incredibly boring, as was the case on a Saturday in September. It was late afternoon, but it could have been the morning or the middle of the night for all Lily knew - she was totally dead to the world, sound asleep in her bed. Until she wasn't. She slowly began to come to her senses, but she was so cozy bundled up under all of her blankets that she didn't want to open her eyes. She should just go back to sleep...

But as she regained more of her awareness, Lily realized that the mattress was dipping slightly next to her, like someone was sitting there. Something - someone - was rubbing her arm, gently nudging her awake...

Her eyes flew open. She wasn't entirely surprised to see Henry next to her, but he wasn't supposed to get here until...was it already 4:00? There was no way she had just slept for four hours.

"Crap," she mumbled. Stupid depression nap. "I'm sorry. I...lost track of the time."

"That's okay."

She didn't sit up, still lacking the energy to move. But Henry laid down to get to her eye level, making sure to stay on the other end of the bed and keep a generous amount of space between them so that she wouldn't get claustrophobic. A seed of guilt nudged itself into her heart. They were supposed to be hanging out and she didn't have it in her to do anything.