Chapter Text
“I am sorry, Henry,” Julia said in her precise way, “but I cannot see you anymore on a romantic-social level.”
What? But I thought…
“You see, there are several problems with our relationship that I cannot resolve, and you are apparently unready to face. One: You seem uncomfortable with my extensive knowledge of the male reproduc…” Julia kept talking, but Henry didn’t hear a word of it after that. His mind was too busy going in circles, wondering what he had done wrong.
Henry didn’t hear a word of it, until he heard Eliza’s name, and he put up one hand to stop Julia. “Let me get this straight. This is about Eliza? What did she do this time? Because I thought you said you didn’t have a problem with our friendship, that you had cohorts of male friends…” But he couldn’t go on, because Julia was looking at him with something very like patient exasperation, almost pity.
“You have unresolved issues with and feelings for Eliza, according to all evidence, including the fact that you jumped to the conclusion that she had done something wrong,” Julia said in the gentlest tone he had ever heard from her. “And that is not the only reason I am dissolving our romantic relationship; your complex relationship with your ginger giraffe is only the largest of them. Literally.”
But Henry did not hear her, because he was packing up the few meager possessions he had left at her place, a toothbrush and a razor, really. Look at how little of me she has really let into her life, he thought bitterly.
It was just that it was so out of the blue, he thought as he arrived at work early the next morning. No matter what she says, Eliza must have done something, because Julia is entirely too rational to just… just dump me with no warning otherwise.
So when Eliza bounced in twenty minutes late, cheerfully throwing him a Good morning, Henry! How are yooouu? he was already primed for a fight.
“Why would you care?” He nearly snarled it at her, but she didn’t seem to notice his tone. She just did that stupid pouty face at him, the one she thought was sexy, and patted him on the cheek. He jerked his head away.
“Aww, did Henry get out of the wrong side of bed this morning?” God, that stupid baby-talk voice! “What happened, did you not get lucky with your Julia-Wulia last night?”
“Shut up, Eliza!” Well, that got her attention, he thought. “No, really, why would you care that she broke up with me, with no warning? Right, you wouldn’t care, would you? Of all the stupid, shallow—“
Shit, she looked like he had hit her, all shocked and even paler than usual. He watched her swallow hard and gather what dignity she could around her. “I’m sorry, Henry. I know you liked her a lot.” She reached out as though to take his hand but he couldn’t help himself, the guilt at hurting her overridden by anger at himself and at Julia and at the whole world.
He pulled away.
“How would you know?” he asked her tiredly. “It’s not like you’ve ever had a lasting relationship in your life.”
She swallowed hard again. “I thought I had one with you,” she whispered, and fled.