The Search for Lily Myers ✓

20 | There'll Be Happiness After You

Amelia felt a little bit like she was playing dress-up as she stood in her bra in front of the full-length mirror that hung from her closet door, going back and forth between holding two sweaters up to her chest—one pink and one brown—because she couldn't decide which one she wanted to wear for her date with Henry.

Her first date with Colton had been back in January and it was only now October, so it really shouldn't have felt like she'd lived for another whole lifetime since then, and yet her last first date seemed astoundingly far in the past. She could remember what she'd worn, a tiny black dress and heels. They'd gone out for drinks and dancing and he'd introduced her to so many of his friends that she'd lost count. She hadn't wanted to meet any of them right then, much less the whole crowd, and she remembered feeling exhausted when she tumbled into her bed at the end of the night—or rather, early in the morning. She'd told herself that the fatigue was just from the dancing and not that her social battery was completely drained or that she wanted to cry a little bit because he hadn't wanted to spend their first date only with her.

It had taken a couple of months for her to even build up the courage to request that they do something that she enjoyed for one of their date nights instead of listening to the same shitty DJ again. When he hadn't put up any fight and amicably went along with it, she took it as a confirmation that he must really like her instead of questioning if they were even a good match if they did none of the same activities for fun.

She'd turned herself into a completely different person around him, scared that the real Amelia was too boring, and in a sense, she still felt like the failure to get over that insecurity was a personal shortcoming on her part. But he'd also hardly done anything to assure her that she was allowed to exist as she was.

She made the arbitrary decision that her outfit should have a pop of color and went with the pink top, tossing the brown one onto the floor instead of hanging it up like a responsible adult. She evaluated her reflection in the mirror. The jeans and sweater look was definitely an understated one, but Henry hadn't told her what they were doing tonight. When she tried asking him what sort of clothes would be appropriate for what they were doing, he told her that whatever she felt good in would work, which was nice and all but not actually helpful. Her current plan was just to spruce her outfit up by adding some jewelry, but she truly didn't need to be worrying about it as much as she was. He was picking her up, so worst case scenario she could always just change if he got there and was much more overdressed than she was.

Her heart pattered in her chest when the doorbell rang (right on time—she was getting the sense that Henry was rather punctual). She was nervous in the best sort of way, so she took a couple of intentional breaths to steady herself as she hurried over to answer it. And when she pulled the door open, she was relieved to see that he was dressed as casually as she was, wearing jeans and a black shirt layered under a suede jacket.

His lips broke into an unbridled smile when he saw her, and the fact that his natural reaction to her was to look at her like that made her flush in the cheeks.

"You look amazing," he told her so earnestly that she wanted laugh giddily like a child.

"You're not too bad-looking yourself."

"You ready to go?"

Amelia nodded. "Yeah, let's do this. Except I still don't know what this is."

When she reached for his hand on the way out the door, his fingers spread apart without hesitation, creating space for her to slide hers in between. She liked this slightly familiar, slightly foreign sensation, the way they fit nicely together like two halves of a whole. After the months of miscommunication, the months of constantly second-guessing herself and questioning her worth, another person's touch went a long way. The simple pleasure of someone wanting to hold her hand, that gentle gesture of emotion, was something she really needed right now.