time for the truth

Holly was exhausted to the very core. But though her body was tired, her heart was joyful and the smile on her face couldn't be wiped away.

And similar was Henry's state.

All the previous thoughts from the very same morning about keeping about his distance was long forgotten and abandoned but still, he tried his very best to maintain his distance from Holly's lips at the very best possible.

Their smiles were something they felt inside their hearts, not just one on their faces after a long time for the both of them.

By the time they had reached the cab, it was around nine PM and they had no place to go but back to their old cab. Still chattering away about how awesome it was and telling each other lovely stories and bright memories, it felt almost easy to communicate for people who had barely anything in common. 

When they had gotten back, their clothes were still wet and Holly's hair was starting to dry and they quickly changed out of their clothes in the restroom to avoid catching a cold and Henry asked her if she was hungry and she had replied with that merry twitch of her lip, "Starving."

And that would be the one moment he would never forget as Holly Pierce had spend the next one hour collecting every sort of chips and energy drinks of every sort she could into her cart in the empty store. 

There weren't many varieties for them, nor was there another soul visible. It seemed like it had been cleared out or abandoned for some reason but neither could play detective. There was too much joy in the moment to ruin it with suspicions and investigations. 

Though Henry did want to but the happy smile on Holly's face as she screamed the lyrics to Heather while she sat in the shopping cart as it went catering down in the empty aisles of the small convenience store. 

And Henry could not let go of that opportunity. So placing his cell phone at recording from where it could capture all about to take place, he smiled and raced that cart she sat in, her feet dangling off it and her hands in the air as they both sang songs after songs until their vocal chords hurt. 

It was around three AM, the collection jar was bursting with so much cash that Henry had to stash it away in a secure corner that would take a little while to find. She was laying on the white plastic counter top, her knees bent on top and her white chucks squeaky clean. And he sat right by her head as they talked about everything and anything they could think about. 

And somehow the topic of people in their lives came out at around three AM. She lay her head on his lap and he didn't mind it one bit. In fact, he didn't even seem to realise that he was braiding her hair until she giggled and pointed that out. 

"Whose taught you to braid? Because you're really good at this!"

"I sure hope so or Isabella would hang me-" he chuckled. 

She looked up at him with an inquisitive look in her eye and he laughed, "No, no way! Isa's my bestfriend and just a friend."

"Hey, I didn't say anything at all," she mocked with a smile. 

"I know that look, you use that when you're mocking me!" he huffed and folded his arms as she sat away pretending to be mad at her instead. 

She raised her hand and stroke his cheek with her finger, "Don't be like that, I know you love you."

And he masked his real emotions with a huge smile, "Yeah, yeah, for sure-"

"So, you don't love me then?" she questioned and sat up, looking right at him. 

And if he was being honest, he didn't know for sure if he did or not. Maybe he did. Maybe he didn't, but he didn't want to face his feelings. Nothing ever came from facing them and the last time he had done that, he still had scars from that night. 

"Not that I don't," he replied honestly, "but I don't not love you either."

"Soooo, just indifference?" she asked as she ripped open a can of cold coffee. 

"Yup," he answered, popping the 'p'. 

She smiled wide as she handed him the can and took a gulp without even thinking about it, "Wow, you don't give any details about yourself, do you?"

"Nah, nothing much to say really," he told her as he ripped open another packet of crisps. 

"Not anyone special at all?" she crunched on them rather noisily. 

And then he took in a deep breath. It was time for the truth and this was it. If Holly Pierce had even tolerated him a bit before, he was almost sure that she'd hate him after this. 

"There was once," he began, the joyfulness out of his tone, "She was... she was just magical. That's one of the only ways to describe what Catherine meant to me. She was beautiful and so so kind and one of the best people anyone could've ever met."

"Gosh, she sounds amazing," Holly crept closer to his knee. 

"She really was. She is. And we- we were so in love and everything was perfect and things had never been any better than when I was with her. We had plans of getting married someday, we were engaged, she was even pregnant once," and he went completely quiet after that. 

Holly had to ask because her curiosity was only growing with every moment, "What happened?"

"I- I freaked out," he replied, "I told her that we needed to get rid of the kid. She had never cried so much in her whole life and it was scary. She was sick for weeks after, nearly died because of all she had been going through and her feelings."

He looked at her and she still looked unreadable as ever, "Why?"

"We were nineteen, neither of us had jobs; we were just freshmen in colleges, it was going to be insane, the expenses, the bills, it was impractical," he told her, really scared to look her in the eye. "And I was even more scared because my own father died at a really early age and I feared I would've been an awful father. We were just kids, it wouldn't have worked and-"

And his words were tumbling into one another and nothing made sense at all because he was panicking and rambling and Holly knew that he was scared. 

She touched his arm as she tried to calm him down but he kept panicking. 

It was only when she held his face in her hands and looked him in the eye and was talking in a tone louder than her usual tone, he was really looking at her. 

"Listen to me, Henry! It wasn't your fault. Parenting at any age is hard, especially more so if you're kids and still trying to raise children. Most people still aren't very supportive towards teen parents and I don't blame you one bit for it, Dijion," she told him, honest from her playing the same role as a teen parent for one movie that got scrapped a bit too early and was never really released. 

She smiled at him as she held his hand in between two of hers gently and rubbed the space between his thumb and his index finger soothingly drawing circles. 

And he was, to be honest, on the verge of tears. He could even feel the lump in his throat. All his life, he was told that he was the bad guy when all he ever wanted was for them both to be happy and make a logical choice, nothing more at all. 

But that had driven Catherine Fletcher to insanity. 

From there, the journey back home to her normal state was really difficult and not an easy one at all. She attended hours of therapy and met different people around support groups who had dealt with the something relatable. That incident what was what had wedged them apart. 

Catherine could not bear the thought of her losing her child. She sure did love Henry still and she honestly did not blame him, she was just bitter. And wanted her baby back. 

She had always been one to want children. She dreamt about it and the news of a child and she was completely over the moon for that. But she knew one thing. On one test to the doctors, she had gotten to know that her little kid would've been handicapped even if the little bean would have been real. 

And she would have taken care of her little kid any ways, but she knew that they weren't going to be easy. She knew giving the kid up was a logical choice. A good one, but for her heart died the day she had to abort the child. And she had buried her heart with her her child. 

Little to-have-been Lisa Dijion-Fletcher. 

That had been the first time she had ever seen Henry cry in his life. 

She had taken years of therapy after and went twice a week to those support groups. She had begun drinking, she had started taking drugs to reduce that pain she felt. For a while nothing had seemed to help. She pulled away from friends, she pulled away from Henry. 

One night, she had ended up in a hospital because of her new habits. 

She was lucky when she was given a second shot at life and then, she tried improving her own life. And all through the while, Henry had blamed himself for it all and pulled away because he thought that he was what was hurting her. 

The only reason he hadn't called it quits yet was because of his selfish need of her. He could not let her go. It would've killed him, he believed. 

And one day he had to. 

It had ended in an argument with Catherine. She had told him the truth about she had developed feelings for another woman he never heard about before. Sarah Winscot was her name. She was an assistant trainee in the hospital and added to the fact that she had personal experience with losing a child. 

The two of them bonded. And feeling developed. And things progressed. 

And Henry was left with no other choice but to let Catherine go. So, he did. 

He smiled at her, an honest smile without teeth but his eyes wheeling up with tears. His heart that was broken for so long was starting to mend and he could feel that piece by piece and he had never felt an emotion more in his life than when he had whispered to her. 

His voice cracking and raw, "Thank you, Holly."

"Thank you," he repeated. And he meant it. 

And she had smiled back.