The Search for Lily Myers ✓

11 | Shadow

Henry and Amelia were nearly silent as they walked back to the parking lot where they'd left their cars. He gave her Liam's address just in case she lost track of him while trying to follow him over there, but aside from that, he seemed to be giving her a bit of space to herself. Her cheeks were still sticky with tears, after all, and the compulsion to cry hadn't entirely dissipated.

Back at their cars, he lingered by her door and tentatively asked if she needed him to grab her tissues or water or anything from CVS while they were right there. Although she found this to be very kind of him, she was much too embarrassed by everything that had already occurred to ask that he do anything else for her. She ended up quickly darting inside to grab the melatonin that she had gone there for in the first place but had promptly abandoned when she ran after him.

A fine drizzle began to patter onto her windshield a couple of minutes after they'd started driving, the glow of passing headlights and stoplights refracting off of the water droplets into a neon haze. She strained slightly to keep track of which vehicle ahead of hers was Henry's; it didn't help that it was black. Her maps app was reciting instructions to her, but knowing where he actually was blanketed her with an extra sense of security.

Fortunately, it wasn't all that long of a drive to Liam's, and once she'd pulled into a parking space next to Henry, she grabbed the small umbrella that she always kept shoved under the passenger seat. It wasn't raining quite hard enough right now to really warrant an umbrella just for the short walk to the door, but there was no telling if it'd be downpouring when it was time to leave.

She had forgotten about Henry's mention of Lily and Liam having a dog until he answered the door and she was immediately being accosted by a giant, slobbery, cream-colored ball of fluff. She was delighted by it.

"Who's a good boy?" she cooed instinctively, scratching behind the retriever's ears. "Or girl."

"This is Moosey," Liam told her just as the dog got up on its hind legs to lick her cheek, tail wagging frantically. He tried to shoo him off of her with mild success. "Sorry—I think he's probably excited to see a new person since Lily..."

Liam's voice drifted off when Moosey got down and was no longer blocking him from being able to see Amelia's face. She'd glanced at her reflection in the car mirror just a minute ago, so she knew that she still very much looked like she'd been crying.

"Do you want something to drink?" he asked.

She nodded meekly. "A drink would be nice, yeah."

Amelia and Henry pulled their wet shoes off by the door and then went to sit in the living room. Even though there was a perfectly good couch, she found herself wanting to be on the floor rug with the dog instead, so she carefully sat down near the edge of it and crossed her legs. Moosey wasn't reluctant to lay down at her side and keep sniffing her, his nose tickling her foot.

"All I have is red," Liam said from the kitchen. "That okay?"

"That's great, thanks."

As he pulled out a glass for Amelia, he glanced at Henry to silently offer him one too, but he shook his head. The nearly-empty matching glass that was already sitting on the counter made her think that Liam had already been drinking himself, but there wasn't much other clutter to be seen aside from that. The dishwasher was running, suggesting that he might have shoved a bunch of stuff in it to tidy up shortly before they arrived.

As her eyes drifted around what she could see of the apartment, it was impossible not to linger on a framed picture of Lily and Liam that hung on the wall. They looked so happy, so young, and it hit her all over again that they really were just kids. Sure, they might have only been a couple of years younger than she and Henry were, but Amelia herself barely felt like an adult most days. Lily was still in college, Liam only a few months out of it.