The Search for Lily Myers ✓

29 | Wondering

"Based on the size of that cup of coffee, I'm going to guess that you're either very sleepy or in a mood."

Amelia nodded her agreement as she slouched into her chair in Nat's home office, her coffee tumbler making a quiet thudding sound as she set it down on a coaster.

"I'm afraid I might be turning into an overly paranoid girlfriend."

"What makes you say that?"

"The weekend was...interesting, to say the least."

"Oh," Nat frowned. "Did you not have a fun Halloween?"

"Most of it was fun. We went to watch Beetlejuice in the park; Liam brought his dog," she explained, then paused for a second and added, "Does that make you feel weird, by the way? That I'm sometimes hanging out with your ex-boyfriend?"

"It doesn't bother me that you're hanging out with that ex-boyfriend, no. Maybe I'd feel differently if it were someone else," Natasha shrugged. "But with him...we were never really on bad terms, you know? We just didn't fit in each other's lives anymore. And I somehow doubt he's trash-talking about me to you."

"I always seem to be the one to accidentally bring you up in conversation," Amelia admitted. "But he only ever says nice things about you when I do. I think...I think the nostalgia of remembering whatever it was you two had going on might be a little comforting to him right now, I guess. He said you helped him through some hard stuff. In a way, you might be doing it again."

"I was always wishing that I could do more," Nat sighed. "But he was extremely reserved back then. I don't think it was completely intentional—he just always seemed to have a hard time putting what was bothering him into words. Something had rattled his confidence pretty badly right around the time when I met him."

"Huh." Amelia didn't intend to sound so ineloquent, but she couldn't help but recall what she'd noticed about him at the park, that he seemed like someone who had already been dragged through the mud quite a bit even before any of this Lily stuff happened.

"And he never told you what it was?"

She shook her head.

They probably could have sat there and speculated about him for a long time if they wanted to, but Amelia realized she'd gotten quite sidetracked.

"Anyway—the movie. That part was great, but right after the fact, Henry got another one of those damn letters from Lily. We were both kinda freaking out and...I might have done one of the most idiotic things of my life."

Natasha raised her eyebrows but didn't speak, prodding Amelia on.

"I might have..." she grimaced. "...Please don't judge me for this."

"I'm not going to judge you."

"I might have...asked...Colton...for help."

"You asked Colton-"

"I know, I know," Amelia stopped her. "I was out of my mind for even considering it. And it was terrible and didn't do anything besides make me upset, of course. But then Henry wanted to see me right after all of that happened and I wasn't smart enough to tell him that I needed to decompress first."

"Did you tell him where you'd gone?"

"Yeah, I did. He was more confused than mad, but it definitely made things tense. The real problem was that I hadn't actually told him just how bad it was with Colton. I think he knew that he was controlling, but not about..." she swallowed. "Anything else."

Nat's expression softened. "So you went to Henry's place?"

"We went to his place," Amelia echoed. "And it all pretty much went to shit. He went into the kitchen to get us some water and...please don't judge him for this either."