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Eliza Dooley, being influential and awesome, knows the following three very important things:
- The power of a well-timed subtweet
- How to apply lip liner in the back of a Lyft
- Dawn is the best selfie light
And, of course, though it doesn’t make the list, she also knows all about wanting: about what it feels like to stand at the edge of the world and look in on all the possibilities and discover over and over that she isn’t—she isn’t—enough.
It had been easy, before, when she thought it was just her looks: all that took was practice. She’d perfected her contour, established her angles, bought the best falsies (the holy trinity: lash, breast, butt), replaced her wardrobe, and gotten the approval of thousands.
But it hadn’t been just her looks, had it? After the entire married-with-vom situation, she’d realized she could do better. Be better. Achieve better, so that she could finally, like, connect to people.
And for a while it had been almost nice.
But even when she's trying—even when she is growing as a person all over the place—it turns out she still isn’t enough. Because she loves Henry Higgs and he does not—would not—could not love her back.
So there is a fourth thing Eliza Dooley knows, something she’ll never admit out loud because it feels small and shameful and terrible:
- Sometimes a girl has to take what she can get, even if it’s not what she wants.
::
After the whole thing with being semi-evicted, Eliza puts on her big-girl panties and does everything she can to make things go back to the way they were. It’s almost too easy, which might bother her if she were willing to let herself self-actualize again, but. That way lay, like, the feels that would not be named.
So she just…doesn’t. She does what she’s good at: looking good and making sure everyone knows it. She doesn’t let herself linger over the new space in her life: the space she had started to carve out for something deeper, truer, harder. Something other than a 17-step Korean skin care regime that promised microscopic pores and the insane Louboutins that literally made her ass look like it would never quit.
And another thing she’s good at is doing Freddy. He’s hot, which is important, and down to clown, which is—apparently—not an assumption she can make anymore. And taking whatever he offers is…
It’s what she gets. So.
So she makes it work, like before. She fucking slays. She grams the awesome and skips the hard and lifts a glass to being strong af.
It only hurts when she stops so she never, ever stops.
::
Four weeks after Henry breaks his arm, Eliza begins to compile a list of things that can’t matter. Things like:
- He looks like someone killed the cat he doesn’t have sometimes when she talks.
- He literally flinched the one time she reached out to adjust his collar (because it was totally tucked under, okay).
- He lets Larry schedule lunch meetings with him now, instead of eating with her—which is. Whatever.
- His shoulders make her cray. And horny. And cray horny.
- He smells like lemons and mint and something faint and familiar and she kind of hates it?
- He doesn’t say anything when she tells him about the latest with Freddy, but his face—
- His face.
- He didn’t have braces as a kid but he did have a retainer for like two years.
- He smiles at her sometimes, like he understands something about her that she’s forgotten.
She literally digs out an old planner from the bottom drawer of her desk and scrawls the list across May 2012 because she knows a phone can be hacked and the things on the list are—
Well, no one else can know. Not a single other person in the whole entire world. Not even Charmonique, regardless of how much other dirt she might have on Eliza. Because Eliza knows what she gets and it isn’t anything on the list.
And the list keeps growing.
After a staff meeting, she adds “He doesn’t like Tic Tacs because ‘sugar free’ is a technicality somehow???” and then has a horrifying amount delivered to the office via Prime 2-hour delivery. Then she starts hiding them in his office, just to see him make that frowny face when he finds them.
After bringing his daily salad along with her wrap one Tuesday when she visits him for lunch, she writes “His hands are so fucking majestic and distracting wtf," and rips the pages right out of the planner and rolls them into the lining of her purse (where she used to stash her flask before Henry confiscated it) and it feels like she’s carrying around a bomb.
After he convinces her to watch some ridiculous black and white movie from before either of them was born, she finds herself adding “He makes it stupid easy to try new things," and does her best not to dissolve into tears in his very basic bathroom. He literally has two bottles in his entire shower. Ridiculous.
And after he leaves her apartment one afternoon when she’s fighting with Bryn over a misplaced catalog, she adds “I love him so much it hurts," to the bottom of the increasingly monumental list and then tears it into one million tiny little pieces and lights them on fire in a trash can she puts into the bathtub (fire safety, people: it saves lives).
It doesn’t prevent the fire alarm from going off, though, and she ends up owing Bryn and co. another apology when she meets them in the lobby.
This is all Henry’s fault, obviously.
::
Charmonique has taken to wearing this peeved squinty face whenever Eliza attempts to drag their too-freaking-early morning conversations onto anything related to Henry or Freddy. It feels an awful lot like trying to explain to a bartender why opening a tab this weekend will go totally different then it did last weekend. #partylife
“Huh,” is what Char says when Eliza pauses for breath one morning when she’s attempting to explain why she doesn’t want to do a couples day at the spa with Freddy. “You sure?”
“Am I s—? Of course I am. I’m the Eliza Dooley. I know my spas.”
“I don’t think anyone in this lobby is questioning your knowledge of spas. I’m questioning the obviously nonsensical reason you’re using to justify why you don’t want to spend time with the man you’re currently dating.”
“I am not—” Eliza starts, and then pauses, and then bites her lip so hard she can feel the gloss finish smear. “It’s not like that.”
“Then what is it like?”
“I don’t—it’s not—”
Char’s expression goes flat. “Girl, I have been listening to you for literal months now. First you thought you were in love with Higgs, and now you think you’re in love with Freddy. Which is it?”
Eliza feels nauseous and terrible and scared because there it is: what she wants, and what she gets, and if she speaks now—if she names it—then it’s basically jinxing it. And she isn’t ready to—to let go. To stop. To admit that she’s struggling and hurting and absolutely bone-deep freaked that she won’t ever get to— ...anyways.
So she pulls out her phone and waves it in Char’s direction even as she turns to run. “Sorry, sorry: gotta take this; it’s important—big things trending in the world—gotta go—bye!”
To distract herself, she tweets a vaguely shady comment about J. Law’s haircut and hashtags it #mockingj which ends up trending for the rest of the morning.
::
Henry texts, kind of.
It’s more like he dictates messages and adheres to some kind of internal set of rules that make absolutely no sense to anyone who doesn’t remember the 70s.
She’s working on it. But it’s not like she’s a miracle worker and also she’s got a lot of other feelings on her plate, too, which makes the whole thing kind of a process.
Like, she can’t just message him every little thought that pops into her head because far too many of them are about him and his stupid face and what she thinks his tie would feel like wrapped around her fist and oh, yeah, how she’s still mad in love with him or whatever.
So she only texts him the things that will convince him that she is an absolute disaster of a human being who definitely needs his help in all things forever and always amen.
Things like: i owe like $300 on a bar tab from june apparently. ps i finally know where my amex wenttttttt
Things like: how many calories is too many calories in a day? i am hangry afrn and this burrito place has a delivery minimum
Things like: did u no u can order a chzbrgr covered entirely in gold foil? #goldlife
When he responds, it’s like receiving a miniature postcard written by the tiny old man from Up, all crank and care and manners.
And he occasionally even uses emojis, which is somehow the best thing in the world and the worst because it’s yet another piece of him that makes the want in her chest twang like a plucked string as she stares down at his stupid little replies: Eliza, a cheeseburger (or any food for that matter) covered in gold foil is nothing more than a novelty meant to evoke a false sensation of wealth. It’s fleeting. 💸 There are better things to spend your money on. Rent, for example, or planning for your future.
She replies with a photo of the cheeseburger in question and at least eight wet splash emojis because what else can she say that doesn’t—that won’t—
Because what she can’t say is: it’s impossible to plan for a future without you in it. Or everything is fleeting when you’re not around. Or why can’t you love me back? even a little?
::
Freddy mentions going to a concert together in November. Which is 8 months away.
Eliza shrugs and then laughs and then unexpectedly finds herself biting back a sob.
She cancels dinner and spends the weekend in her apartment, drinking an old bottle of Two GIngers she found under the sink as she studies the empty spots in her closet created by moving more and more of her clothing over to Freddy’s.
And as much as it absolutely sucks—growing pains are a bitch—she knows that this isn’t fair. To Freddy. Ugh.
Because she doesn’t love him and won’t ever love him or want him in the way he seems to want her.
Which is just: a lot.
She ends up inviting Bryn over (with explicit instructions to bring booze) in order to talk through this whole revelation. Bryn arrives with sweet tea vodka and lemonade and Eliza proceeds to emotionally vom all over the place, ending with an angry, “So it’s the right thing to do, to dump him again, because it’s better for him, right?”
Bryn rolls her eyes. “The only reason you called me is because you needed more alcohol and I live in the building. Why don’t you ask your little mentor man about all this?”
Eliza gasps and clutches the bottle of vodka a little bit closer. “The hell, Bryn. Have you not been listening? I can’t tell Henry any of this. He can never know. Ever. For srs.”
“I don’t understand you,” Bryn says. “Isn’t he your friend?”
“Sometimes you don’t get what you want,” Eliza says through lips that feel numb.
“OMG,” Bryn says at a volume that is inappropriate for how drunk Eliza is aiming to be. “Oh my god. Eliza, do you love Henry?”
“Um,” Eliza says.
Bryn is on her feet now, hands clasped together like she’s just seen a puppy or something equally adorbs. “You’re in love with Henry Higgs. Is that why you’re breaking up with Freddy?”
“Not this time.” Eliza takes another drink directly from the bottle. If Bryn is going to make her talk about this, Bryn is not getting her booze back. That’s the law, according to the rules, or something.
“Not this—? Whaaaaat?” Bryn shrieks. “Are you telling me you previously broke up with Freddy because you love Higgs?”
Eliza wishes she had her phone at hand, but she’d left it in the kitchenette when she’d answered Bryn’s knock. Mistake. “Can we not talk about this right now? It’s kind of killing my buzz, or whatever.”
Bryn seems to be working through something in her head, and the expression reminds her a little bit of Henry when he’s thinking about a new potential ad campaign. It makes something in her gut clench. “Wait, no. Wait. If you broke up with Freddy the first time because you have—had? continue to have?—feelings for Henry, why did you ever get back together with him? Does Henry know how you feel? Or did he—oh my God, Eliza: did you tell him? The first time?”
The vodka is not helping. Probably nothing could help, at this point. “I don’t have to answer that. Don’t I have rights or something?”
“I’m your friend, Eliza. I’m trying to help you, not arrest you.”
Eliza looks up from her consideration of the last two inches of amber liquid left in her bottle. “Are we—friends?” she asks, and there’s a tremble in her voice that is hella annoying.
“Sometimes I think we are,” Bryn answers bluntly. “And sometimes I want to push you down the elevator shaft. But you’ve changed the last few months and I think we could be. Probably.”
“Oh,” Eliza says. This feels like an important moment in her personal development path, but it’s overshadowed by the clot of tears in the back of her throat and the knowledge that if she cries, her eyes will be puffy and red for at least four hours. “That’s—nice, I guess.”
“Henry Higgs, though? Really?” Bryn asks after a moment. “I never would have pegged him as your type.”
“I knoooow,” Eliza half-wails, throwing her head back. She kind of misses the way her longer hair would have completely punctuated the gesture in a flare of red, but. Whatevs. Growth. “It’s the bow ties.”
“Or his whole, y’know, general vibe.”
“I am fully aware. But, like, consider: his shoulders, though. And the way his face gets all bunched up when he smiles? And, like, the man can smolder.”
“Smolder?” Bryn repeats. “Um, it sounds like there’s a story there.”
Eliza tips her head and waits until Bryn looks at her. She nods, once.
“OMG. Spill,” Brynn says, shifting into the empty spot next to Eliza on the floor. “Tell me everything.”
So she does. She goes through it all, starting with “Most Butt”; about the #flingfail #bathtubbreakdown; about Henry touching her and looking at her too clearly, too closely; about staring at the word “salmon” on a menu and realizing that she was having the warm-and-fuzzies for Henry Higgs; about putting it all out there and him rejecting her out of hand; about standing on a karaoke stage in front of all her colleagues—people she was starting to know because Henry had told her it was important—and realizing that no matter what she did, what she tried…
Henry didn’t want her.
“Except Freddy does. Did. Still does, I guess.”
“But you don’t love him,” Bryn summarizes. She’s holding a mostly-empty glass of her own, balancing her chin on her other hand as she watches Eliza closely.
“I think I love the fact that he wants me,” Eliza says. She pauses, considering. “Is that deep? That feels deep.”
“It’s not really,” Bryn offers helpfully. “But that doesn’t make it any less true.”
“And it’s not fair to Freddy to keep stringing him along,” Eliza says, except her voice does the thing at the end that makes it a question.
“It’s not,” Bryn agrees. She pauses, considers the nest of leggings on the rug she has tucked her feet under. “I think it’s really important you realize how—mature it is, to end a relationship because you recognize why it might hurt someone else. And not just because you’re in love with another man.”
The bottle is empty; Eliza feels empty, too. #metaphor, or something.
“I’m way mature,” she answers, tone dry. “Which is why I’m totes sloppy drunk at 3PM on a Sunday going through the behind-the-scenes deets of my messy love life.”
Bryn leans over and nudges her shoulder. “With your friend,” she says.
“With my friend,” Eliza echoes.
And for some reason, that helps.
::
She ends things with Freddy and then spends the next two weeks curating a gram grid of Single Girl Shenanigans (#freedom #getit) with two major goals: (A) Reestablish her online presence and persona and (B) Make it clear to anyone who may be following her that Eliza Dooley pines after no man.
Even the one she’s in love with.
She does brunch with Bryn and mani/pedis with Char; she goes clubbing on a Wednesday (and deals with Henry’s judgemental eyebrows for most of Thursday); she thirst tweets at 5 of 6 of the original Avengers cast; she deletes any trace of Freddy from her feed. The worst part of it is realizing how many of those pictures had been posted with the intention of proving something to someone else. It makes the whole thing feel way gross.
Eugh, empathy is haaaaard.
::
She doesn’t go out of her way to mention her breakup to Henry directly. She wants to—because that’s what friends do, according to her actual-facts irl friends—but she also doesn’t want him to think that she still—
Self-preservation is a skill, okay, and if winged eyeliner taught her anything it’s that with enough time, any skill can be owned.
So she just doesn’t say anything. He occasionally references her socials, so he can find out there. Or Char or Saperstein can fill him in. Or he can ask.
Until then, she makes herself pop into his office with alarming frequency (his words) and she announces the latest thing she did that is Bad News (Char’s words) and she sometimes brings him lunch for the positive reinforcement (Bryn’s words).
And she doesn’t mention dating, love, feels, feelings, or cats, either. Instead, they talk about work and budgeting and “societal norms” and saying thank you. Which leads to an epic blowout over, of all things—
“No, Eliza: ‘No prob’ is not an appropriate response when someone thanks you for something. The appropriate response is ‘You’re welcome’ with a smile.”
“First: haven’t you learned anything about telling a woman to smile? Because if you haven’t, you’re right that there is a lesson that needs to be learned here but it isn’t mine. And second, everyone says ‘No prob’. I’m sorry you’re so old and rigid about these sorts of things.”
“I was not—am not—suggesting that you need to smile more. It is simply an extension of polite interaction with someone when they have thanked you for completing a task for them.”
“Whateverrrr,” Eliza says with an eye roll, intentionally lifting up her phone to block out Henry’s stupid smug cute face.
“And furthermore, the use of ‘You’re welcome’ in response to a thank you is another extension of polite interaction with someone. ‘No prob’ is rude.”
“Is it, though?” she asks after a moment, glancing up from her quick google search. “Cause, like, ‘No prob’ actually indicates that the task completed wasn’t a problem? And that the person who’s thanking them doesn’t need to worry about it? While ‘You’re welcome’ seems to indicate an—” She glances at her screen again. “—an acknowledgement that the task was kind of a bummer. So maybe ‘no prob’ is actually a more thoughtful way of talking to people, y’know?”
When she glances up, Henry’s Intense Look is waiting for her. She’s only seen it a handful of times—when she’d pushed him into “casual contact”; when he’d discovered the reviews she’d left for Julia; when she’d yelled at him outside that bookstore—but it still makes something hot and sweet leap in her blood.
“That’s—not a bad point,” he manages, and it looks like it pains him to say it. She wants to pump her fist in victory but keeps herself from doing so by sheer force of will. “Could we perhaps compromise? That is to say: instead of replying ‘No prob’, could I instead recommend something slightly less slang-based, such as ‘It was not a problem’?”
“Are you going to get on my case if I use a contraction or two instead?” she asks.
“Of course n—wait, what do you mean ‘or two’? There is only one appropriate contraction in that sentence, Eliza. I don’t believe you could logically adjust any other—”
“Henry. You’re too easy. Come on.” She swings to her feet and runs her palms down her skirt to make sure it’s hanging correctly. If it makes Henry look like he’s choking on something, well. Bonus points.
“Oh, and P.S.?” she says over her shoulder as she struts to the door. “You should smile more. And not just ‘cause it’s polite.”
He looks like he’s torn between frowning at her and laughing and she considers that a win. So she winks and leaves and immediately goes to bother Charmonique about the best place to get a massage in a three block radius because girl, the tension is killing her.
::
In May, she hears through the grapevine (Charmonique, obvs) that Henry Higgs was seen shepherding an attractive brunette woman into the cafe downstairs one afternoon. He bought her a hot chocolate. They sat together in the window seat for almost 45 minutes.
For slightly longer than she will ever admit, Eliza considers her options and measures the pros and cons of each of them as if they’ll solve any of the mess of feelings absolutely writhing inside her. She thinks about finding an attractive hottie to take a selfie with, sans shirt. She thinks about going out clubbing. She thinks about eating her way through a tub of cherry garcia ice cream. She thinks about retreating to her bathtub and texting her friends. She thinks about calling Freddy.
Because it hurts.
(And because he’s such a ridiculous old man, she can’t even virtually stalk him to determine if he’s actually moving on with another safe but boring woman or if it’s just his accountant or something. Super annoying.)
She starts a new list, on her phone, in her notes app, titled “Reasons to Get Over Him ASAP”.
- HE DOES NOT WANT YOU.
- He likes kale more than he likes french fries.
- He actively measures his blood pressure on the regular.
- HE DOES NOT WANT YOU.
- He listens to Bon Jovi unironically.
- HE DOES NOT WANT YOU.
She stares at 'HE DOES NOT WANT YOU' for ten minutes and then gets her purse and drags Bryn to a bar on the corner where they drink Cosmos until midnight and argue about book to film adaptations. (Bryn is not as impressed as she should be when Eliza defends movies as “live-action sparknotes”. In punishment she has to buy the next round.)
It's not a bad night—she gains twelve new followers after tweeting about wet Ryan Gosling—except for the vortex of sadness she feels whenever she thinks about Henry.
::
Charmonique is waiting for her one Tuesday a few weeks later, hand balanced on her hip as she waits for Eliza to make it from the elevators to her desk.
“I have news,” she says without any other greeting.
“Good morning to you, too,” Eliza says, taking a sip from her coffee and trying to look uninterested even though the prospect of fresh goss is like catnip. She hadn’t seen anything on her morning sweep of her socials, so this is either hot off the press or totally analog.
“Don’t even with me, Miss Dooley. I happen to know there’s a handprint on the skylight in the breakroom that’s a perfect match for you: janitorial is offering a $100 reward for information on how it got there.”
Eliza pauses, considering. “How…did it get there?”
“Christmas, 2012. You spiked the eggnog; Larry spiked the eggnog; you forgot you spiked the eggnog and spiked it again.”
“Oh, right. That was a rockin’ bash, though, wasn’t it?”
Charmonique raises one perfectly threaded eyebrow and waits. “Was it?”
Eliza takes another pointed sip of her coffee. “Anyways, you wanted to tell me something?”
Char’s smile is dangerous. “I did. I saw something yesterday that I thought might interest you.”
“Is it bangs? Because the answer is always no.”
“Girl, who do you take me for? No, it wasn’t bangs.”
“Was it—is it Henry?” Eliza whispers, looking dramatically over her shoulder like he’s going to be looming somewhere behind her when the reality is that he’s probably been in his office for the last two hours since he’s—ugh, disgusting—a “morning person”. Gag.
“Yes,” Char says, and then glances down at her flawless manicure. She waits an absolutely unnecessary three beats before continuing. “He and your ex had words over the toaster oven.”
“But Henry always has a kale salad from Greenie’s on Mondays?”
“He wasn’t using the toaster oven, Dooley. And the fact that you know that is extremely tragic.”
Eliza makes as rude a gesture as she can without spilling any of her latte. “Not the point! What happened?”
Charmonique looks both ways, confirming the coast is clear, before she leans in. “Apparently, your boy Higgs caught Freddy hitting on one of the HR interns in the copy room. And by ‘hitting on,’ he seemed to mean something else. Which leaves me to wonder why I assumed that boy was so vanilla.”
“Char. Focus. Kink bingo can happen later. Why did Henry care what Freddy was getting up to with the intern?”
“Apparently he did not know that you and Freddy had broken up. So he decided to defend your honor over a frozen chimichanga in the breakroom at one in the afternoon. Which did not go well when Freddy accused Henry of being the reason you dumped him, both times, and that he’d—and I’m quoting him—’ruined you’. Then Henry said you could do better than Freddy, and Freddy said that ruled Henry out, and then there were a bunch of other things focusing on their fragile masculinity.”
“...wow, um,” Eliza says. “Was—is Henry okay?”
Char rolls her eyes, but it’s fond. “He’s working from home today. To 'focus'. Saperstein’s orders.”
Her breakfast coffee suddenly feels like a rock in her stomach. She needs to be—not here. “Oh. Right.”
“Don’t you dare, Dooley,” Char hisses when she realizes that Eliza has taken two tottering steps backwards, away from her desk. “You know there’s an all-sales team meeting at ten, and your numbers are due by the end of day. And if you show up at Henry’s door when he knows you have work to do, he’ll be furious. And not in a sexy, fun way, either.”
Eliza takes one last look at the elevators and thinks about rushing over to Henry’s house to find him and tell him—what, exactly? That she was still in love with him? That Freddy was a fool? That would go great. And he would be absolutely pissed if she blew off work to go and bother him about a fight he had with her ex.
So she straightens her shoulders and flips out her hair. “Yeah, you’re right. Okay. I just have to make it until, like, three, and then I can bail. Solid plan. You’re the best, Charmonique. Thanks.”
Char retakes her seat and half-turns away. “If you get caught leaving at three, I want no part of this—until you have a daughter, and then I expect to see Charmonique Junior on the regs.”
“Um, Eliza Junior will be happy to visit any time.”
Char snorts, pulling up her calendar. “I deserve awards for dealing with this nonsense.”
::
The rest of the day goes…fine.
Maybe she’s distracted during the all-sales team meeting, or maybe she’s attempting to figure out what she’s going to say to Henry when she sees him next. And—as the Director of Sales says, or has said, or something—any good sales pitch should be the perfect mix of pre-prepared and instinctual.
Usually, Eliza’s instincts are enough to close the deal. She knows enough about the human condition or whatever to get people thinking what she needs them to be thinking so that she’s able to convince them they’re thinking the same thing: buy.
It works on the job; it works on instagram.
But it hadn’t worked on Henry Higgs, so she’s going to revisit her approach. Or at least—apologize. Because even if she’s still in way deep, he deserves better than the things Freddy had said to him. Especially when those things were said over a gross toaster oven.
She sneaks into Henry’s empty office over lunch and perches herself on the edge of his desk so she can take a (sad, not sexy) pouting selfie to send to him.
quiet w/o u here. hope ur doing ok??
It takes him twenty minutes to reply, but it somehow manages to still gut her the moment she opens it.
I miss you, too.
::
It’s almost five by the time she makes it to Henry’s. She’d thought about stopping at home, about curating an outfit that would better capture the aesthetic she was trying to appeal to, but. Be true to your bad self, or whatever.
He looks surprised when he answers the doorbell to find her standing on his stoop.
“I didn’t know you knew I had a front door,” he greets her. He sounds tired. “Since you so often appear at random windows of my home.”
“Henry,” Eliza says. The urge to catch him by the ears and kiss him until there’s no air left in the world for words or rejections or hurts spins through her until she’s dizzy. “Hey. Hi. How are you?”
“Hello to you, too, Eliza. What are you doing here?”
Eliza rocks up on her toes, prepared to push past him into his living room but she realizes if she does that, if she goes inside, she’ll be trapped if he—when he— “I heard what happened yesterday.”
Henry’s face goes blank. “Oh. I see. I suppose I should apologize for interfering in your personal matters—”
“What? Why? Actually—don’t answer that. That’s not why I’m here. Or, it is why I’m here, but it’s also. Not. So.” She takes a breath. “I just wanted to let you know that I’m sorry for not telling you that Freddy and I were done. I should have, since you’re my—friend.”
He shifts in the doorway, looking strangely uncertain. “Yes. A friend.”
“And also,” Eliza makes herself continue. She wants, desperately, to look away—to study the door jamb, or the toes of her foxy heels, or her phone—but she can’t, because this is Henry and eye contact is important and he’s important, more than any of those other things. And his eyes are deep and dark and beautiful. “You didn’t ruin me.”
“What?”
“I heard that Freddy said you ruined me, and that’s wrong. And I needed you to know. Because you didn’t ruin me: you made me better. And that’s all I came here to say, and now that I’ve said it, I’ll just get out of your hair. So, like, bye?”
“Eliza, wait—” he calls before she can do more than turn on her heels. “That’s actually—it’s not true. What you said. About me making you better. Because you have always been—amazing. You just had to let the world see it. Like I see it.”
The rush of tears is new, but Eliza is great at keeping those at bay through the power of kegels and pressure points. So she only sniffles a little bit. “I am totes rad,” she says, and she sounds fine. Mostly.
“Totes,” Henry agrees, and his voice is low and rough and lovely. “Eliza, I—”
“I’ll never rule you out,” Eliza says to the night sky. It’s mostly whisper and wanting, but she knows Henry can hear her. She can feel him behind her, watching, waiting.
“I love you,” he answers. He’s stepped outside, close enough that she can feel the warmth of him at her back. “I was a fool, and afraid, and I never should have let you think I didn’t, because I do. I do.”
“Can you—can you say it again?”
“I love you. Please, please tell me I’m not too late.”
He’s waiting for her when she turns, hands already lifting to catch her, to pull her closer. It’s a good thing because she’s suddenly feeling weak at the knees, because the way he is looking at her is—so similar to how he always looks at her, filled with wonder, but just slightly…more.
She kisses him—kisses him so fiercely he has to stumble back a step before he can steady her. The flex of his hand on her hip is like gasoline on an open flame; she’s going to combust under the heat of him.
Somehow, she’s surprised by the fact that he kisses like a machine (in the best possible way): progressively and intentionally taking her apart like it’s his only assigned task. When he licks into her mouth, she has to catch herself on his shoulders to stay upright; when he nips her bottom lip, she nearly moans at the sensation.
The worst part—the best part?—is that his hands don’t move from where he’d caught her: one on her hip (hot, heavy), and one on her jaw (gentle, guiding) and it’s like a fucking masterclass of kissing. And from a man who wears bow ties regularly! #mindblown
After he’s completely reduced her to the bare essentials (swollen lips; heavy limbs; the mind-melting taste of him; an aching throb between her thighs), he eases away. If she’s panting it’s only because she’s so…tired. Horny. Tired of being horny.
“I’d—I’d really like to invite you in,” he says in that gravel-lined voice of his, which is not helping matters in the slightest. “But I want to do this right. I want—all of it, Eliza. Everything.”
It takes a moment for his words to sink into her lust-addled (someone’s words; she’ll remember eventually) brain. “If you think sending me away right now is doing this ‘right’, I’m going to scream.”
He’s scowling. She loves him. “I don’t want you to think I want anything less than—”
“Can we go for pancakes in the morning?” she asks. She’s managed to get three of his shirt buttons undone while he’s distracted.
“I don’t—what do pancakes have to do with the initiation of our relationship?”
“If I come inside tonight,” she clarifies, starting on the fourth button. He swallows, hard, when he realizes what she’s doing. “Will you take me for pancakes in the morning, even though you have everything you need to make them here?”
“...this is about going outside? Together?” he asks. The line is still caught between his eyebrows, but his hands haven’t dropped. The fifth button falls. #elizaiscoming #tonight
“Yes.”
“Of course I’d take you for pancakes, if you want pancakes for breakfast. Alternatively, I know a fantastic brunch spot that does locally sourced omelettes—” She’s gotten all the buttons on his shirt undone and has discovered he is wearing an undershirt. He’s ridiculous. She loves him.
Eliza is sure she is smiling in the way she used to before she got braces and was called train tracks for two years. Her followers have never seen this smile, but now Henry has and that means something. It kind of means everything.
“Henry. Invite me in.”
“Are you sure?” he asks again.
“I’m so sure.”
“Eliza Dooley, would you like to come inside?”
“Henry Higgs. Was that a sex joke, or…?”
His smile is the best thing she’s ever seen. “Come inside and find out.”
::
There’s another thing Eliza Dooley discovers later that evening: sometimes, it works out.
The next morning she takes a selfie, wrapped up in Henry's discarded shirt with him peering over her shoulder, looking super annoyed and super adorable. There's soft dawn light everywhere and his arms are absolutely delicious and she's smiling like a loon with crazy sex hair and she can't help but need to capture the moment. Because she wants to. Because she can.
She doesn't even post it, just sets it as her phone background.
Later, they go for pancakes.