For a moment, time stood still.

This couldn't be happening; it was just a bad dream. This was impossible; it had to be impossible because she had blocked him on everything.

And yet Amelia and Henry both watched as another message popped up on the screen.

@colton_maine wants to send you a message:

Amelia, I'm serious. I know you're here, I see your car.

She was too stunned to do anything aside from stare as Henry took in a small breath and looked up from the phone to meet her eyes. His were as hard as glass, tempered by the heat of the fire burning through him.

"Whatever happens, swear to me you'll stay in here, okay?"

A second passed before it finally struck her that he was planning to go out there and confront Colton. He started saying something else, but she didn't hear it. Her ears had started to ring; she was shaking her head–

"Amelia–"

She shoved her chair back and fled from the table as if it too were in flames, thinking only of putting her body between him and the door so that he couldn't pass through it. She pressed her back against the cold wood, her chest rapidly rising and falling.

"Amelia–" Henry struggled not to raise his voice and frighten her, but panic flashed across his features as he rushed over to her—he thought she was going to run. "Don't go out th–"

"I'm not!" she snapped. "And you're not going to, either. I'm not letting you get hurt. I won't—I can't."

Her eyes were already flooded with hot tears, fueled by fear and fury, but she worried that if she dared to lift a hand and brush them astray then Henry might use it to pull her away from the door.

He repeated her name again, his features drawn with distress, but when he stepped forward, it wasn't to grab at the doorknob but to firmly press his lips against her forehead and hold her close to him for a moment.

"I'm not going to get hurt," he exhaled, his breath trembling against her skin. "But I can't stand here and let him keep doing this to you."

Amelia shook her head stubbornly, sticky moisture trailing down her cheeks. "And what do you plan on doing if it goes badly—call the police? He is the police, remember?"

Had it really been just yesterday morning that Liam was warning her not to give Colton any more of her time? Had he somehow, serendipitously known that she was going to need that advice sooner rather than later? And had she really still been naive enough to think that she wasn't at risk of falling straight into the same trap again?

"We're not giving him what he wants," she insisted, attempting to shove down the feeling in the back of her mind and in the pit of her stomach that he might come banging on the door if she continued to ignore him.

A stinging, acidic sensation rose into her throat, but she matched his steely gaze with her own. This was her fury, her fight. Henry might have felt a spark of anger, something new stirring and simmering inside of him and waiting to ignite, but that flame was nothing when held up to hers. Amelia had long been blazing, the pain incinerating her from the inside out.

She raised her chin. "Are you going to try to stop me?"

He wavered, his hand falling from where it had come to a rest in her hair. "I...no," he finally swallowed, but she could see the strain in his eyes as he did. "I'm not going to force you to move. It's your choice."

She should have sighed with relief, and yet all she could feel as she looked at him was dread. Now that he'd said forthright that this was in her hands, she suddenly wasn't all that sure if she wanted it to be. Henry was the wise one, the smart one—not her. What if she was wrong, what if...

Was there any chance at all, even the slightest, that Colton could have come here because he heard something about Lily's case? Was she wholeheartedly willing to risk that there wasn't?

I'm going to regret this, she thought. But there was no winning, no choice she could make here that she wasn't going to chastise herself for after the fact. She always got stuck in this game of second-guessing; it was her chronic affliction.

"You have two minutes before I'm going out there for you."

Henry had looked so ready to jump into action a minute before, but now he seemed to be experiencing too much whiplash from her rapid change of heart. "Are you sure?"

"Of course I'm not sure!" Amelia burst—was it not obvious? "So if you're going out there, you better do it right this second before I change my mind again."

That was apparently the jolt that Henry needed—after a swift kiss of reassurance was placed on her lips, she was stepping further away from the door and he was slipping out of it.

And all was quiet. The apartment was eerily still, ordinary, while inside of her she felt like her heart was being torn in two.

She could hear the blood pounding through her head as she darted back over to the table to grab her phone and set a two-minute timer on it. Her instinct was then to get as far from the door as possible, to lock herself in her bedroom, but she was even more scared for Henry right now than she was for herself. So she returned to the door instead, pressing an ear against it and straining to hear anything at all.

And all was quiet.

She couldn't help but wonder. What would Colton be saying if she was the one out there right now instead of Henry? Or doing? They had broken up two months ago. Why was he even here now? Was he here to beg her for forgiveness? Gloat about how great his life was going without her? Do whatever he needed to do to make sure she kept her mouth shut about him?

Liam was right—it was better for her not to see him, not to know.

She glanced down at her phone. One minute gone.

Deep breaths.

Henry can defend himself.

But what is Colton willing to do that Henry isn't?

Shut up. Please for the love of God shut up.

Thirty seconds left.

I should be able to hear him coming back. Something's wrong. Something's wrong something's wrong somethings wrong–

The voice on the other side of the door nearly made her jump out of her own skin.

"It's me," Henry was saying. "I'm okay."

Nervously, paranoid that he was being coerced somehow, Amelia cracked the door open just a smidge.

A sigh of relief escaped from her lungs when his blue eyes were the only ones peering back at her. She pulled the door wide enough for him to slip back inside, after which he locked the deadbolt behind him. All the while, she was studying him for any signs of an altercation. She didn't see any.

And now that the adrenaline was slowly starting to seep out of her veins, Amelia felt like all of the energy had been drained out of her as well. Dizzy. Unsteady, swaying like a reed in the wind.

She practically collapsed into Henry's arms, burying her face against his shoulder. Struggling to keep herself grounded, to keep herself together at all, she strained to focus on the sensory experience of him—the smell of cologne on the soft fabric of his sweater, the way his hands held her not too tight. The memory of how silly he'd looked in those Mickey Mouse ears, the way he kissed her in the car afterward and told her that he'd never felt that way in his life. You're safe, he was telling her, and she only halfway heard it; You're safe.

"What happened?" she choked out.

He slowly let out a breath, uncertain. "Will hearing it help you or make things worse?"

"I need to know." A non-answer.

"Okay," he said quietly, not protesting any further. He'd agreed to let this happen on her terms, and he knew that meant not withholding anything from her even if he didn't think she needed to hear it.

"I didn't give him the chance to say all that much, really. He was clearly pissed off that some guy came out of your apartment instead of you, but I tried to put him in his place."

"And how do you put someone like that in his place?"

"He seems to think that he's some sort of god with that badge of his," Henry conceded, gingerly rubbing her back with the palm of his hand. "But he's not as powerful as he thinks he is."

As his words sank in, Amelia's throat constricted to what felt like the width of a pinhole. Of course that's what he would think she needed to hear: that not all was as futile as it seemed, that the big bad wolf was just a sad guy in a costume trying to make himself look bigger than he was.

But she found herself pulling away from him, shaking her head fervently. "Don't—don't say that to me," she stammered, floundering over her own words, choking on her own tongue. Her mouth was dry, useless. "He ruined me, is that not scary enough for you?"

Henry's eyes widened with mortification at his apparent misstep. "I didn't mean–"

"I know what you meant."

She had started trying to walk away towards the couch, but her vision was all at once blurring again with more tears than she seemed capable of blinking away. She sank down onto the floor, tucking her knees up to her chest; she barely processed that Henry had rushed over to her side.

"I know–" she attempted to say again, but her breath kept spluttering out like a dying flame. "I know that–"

With unsteady fingers, he brushed the front strands of her hair away from her sticky cheeks. But when he moved to put his arm around her, her body involuntarily stiffened up.

"I don't think I want to be touched like that right now," she swallowed, causing him to recoil, but she grabbed his hand to hold in her own. "I haven't told you everything—everything that he tried to do to me. I haven't told you what finally made me leave."

She and Henry both knew pain. She didn't doubt that he'd been dealt a far worse hand than she had. But his greatest source of hurt, the loss of his sister, was a pain that no one else had been at a fault for. A pain that he'd experienced with his family, who'd rallied behind him as he fought not to let it eat him alive.

And then there was Amelia. Amelia who had made bad decisions and suffered the consequences, Amelia who'd become broken and bruised behind closed doors. Amelia who kept her horrible secret under wraps, who couldn't bear to tell another soul the full story besides her poor therapist who she could barely bring herself to see more than once a month because that would mean admitting that she didn't have her shit together.

Henry seemed lost, searching in the dark for answers but scared of what he was inevitably going to find. But Amelia was going to tell him as well as she could because she needed him to understand. An invisible barrier had risen between them and when she tried to look at him through it, all she saw was someone who might as well have been a universe away.

"It was just a Friday night," she said hoarsely. "Like tonight. And I just—I wanted to watch a movie before we went to sleep. That was it. I wasn't...I didn't do anything."

She momentarily paused in frustration, gripping his hand so hard that her fingers began to feel numb. It was like she could still see Colton hovering over her if she blinked, like she could taste him.

Her voice was a shell of its normal self. "He got...on top of me. And I, um...I barely managed to get away."

Hot rivulets continued to stream down her cheeks and she angrily swiped them away, staring down at her own legs. She was so damn tired of this, of crying and breaking and building herself back up only for the cycle to start all over again no matter how much Henry tried to help her out of it.

"So, no, he's definitely not a god," she said much more curtly, wielding her voice like a knife because the only other option besides being strong was to shatter. She wasn't going to keep doing that forever—she couldn't. "But he's the closest thing I've ever known to the devil."

Henry was being so quiet that he very well could have vanished into thin air, but when she steeled herself to turn her chin back towards him, she saw that his cheeks were streaked with silent tears, too.

"You don't have to look at me like I'm a pitiful puppy," she mumbled.

He looked at her in disbelief, the words falling off his lips in a jumbled, messy ball of emotion. "You're not pitiful, Amelia—you're the strongest person I know."

She sniffled. "I think that person's actually you."

Amelia wasn't sure if she was the one who moved toward him or if he came to her or if it was simply inevitable that they were going to wind back up in each other's arms, but all of a sudden he wasn't distant anymore—she was holding him again, holding him close, and he was holding her, and it was like the oxygen reentered her lungs. She sighed against his shoulder, refusing to let go this time.

His breath trembled out of him. "I'm so–"

"Shhh," she whispered back, fingertips stroking the soft hair at the nape of his neck. "I know you were trying to help, Henry."

"I don't know how I ended up being the one who needs reassuring here."

Now that the fire was dying down again, a small laugh was free to pop out of her like a puff of smoke. From this somewhat awkward, less-than-ideal position of trying to hug each other on the floor, it came naturally for her to shift into his lap instead, his body moving in tandem with hers to hold her steady. She could look at his face from here, see the twin lines where tears had left their mark on each of his cheeks. She moved to kiss one and then the other, drawing a soft sigh out of his lips.

"Henry?" she whispered. "...Does it make you feel relieved that I hate him?"

His eyebrows drew together in concern, or perhaps sympathy. "I don't want you to have to hate anybody. I want you to be happy—that's all I've ever wanted for you."

"I—yeah, of course," she shook her head. "God, I don't know what I'm even saying anymore, I'm sorry. It's just that feeling anything about him at all is so exhausting. It's not like I've ever had to force myself to feel any way about you. I don't know how to do what you were saying earlier about not trying to make yourself feel certain emotions over others."

He looked at her reassuringly and lifted one hand to her cheek so that she could rest her weary self against it. "I think that'll come more naturally in time. Grief...it's really hard at first. It's not this thing you just know how to deal with instantaneously. You don't need to be so frustrated with yourself for feeling everything at all once."

"It's just so exhausting."

"I know it is," he murmured. "I know. But let's try to focus on right now, okay?"

She nodded.

"Okay," he nodded back softly, encouraging her. "Good. What do you need at the immediate moment? Anything you need from me, I'll do it."

What did she need?

Did she need him to hold her there forever? It was what she wanted, sure. But she was also her own person—her own living, breathing, being—outside of him, and it was nothing more than sheer luck that had prevented the events of the night unfolding on a different evening when she was here alone and didn't have him there to guide through it. What would that Amelia be doing right now?

Normally, when she was upset, she'd go to her bedroom. It was her safe space, where she could feel anything she was feeling without anyone else there to spectate and criticize.

"I think I should maybe just try to rest," she said quietly. "I can usually calm down better when I'm in my room. Being this close to the front door is kinda freaking me out."

Henry didn't question her, didn't tell her that it was a stupid idea, but simply unwrapped his arms so she could get up.

"Would it help you if I stayed out here? Between you and outside?"

She nearly told him that he didn't have to do that, but he'd be able to see right through her. Part of any meaningful relationship, of having each other's backs, was being willing to inconvenience yourself for the other person's sake. If she wasn't willing to set aside her own worries of being a nuisance, if she didn't listen to him telling her outright that he wanted to do whatever it was that she needed, did she really trust him at all?

"That would help."

The corners of his mouth pulled up for just a fraction of a second, like it made him happy that she was letting him do it for her.

In her bedroom, Amelia refused to plunge herself into total darkness, turning on the bedside lamp before switching off the overhead light. Even the smallest of shadows lurking in the corners was enough to put her on edge right now.

She crawled under her blankets and drew her knees up towards her chest; there was something about making herself as tiny as possible that made her feel more secure. She tried to close her eyes, then opened them again. She stared at the wall. And stared.

Her body was exhausted, yet sleep wasn't coming to her. Perhaps if she continued looking blankly at the wall or the ceiling her thoughts would eventually fall to the wayside. She tried to imagine that she was somewhere warm and happy—maybe on the beach. Maybe Henry was there, laying next to her and watching the clouds float across the sky. There was sand between her toes; she could hear the soft roar of the waves rhythmically crashing against the shore. But no matter how hard she tried to envision that life, Colton's face and Colton's voice and Colton's anger kept interrupting.

How would tonight have gone differently if she had been brave enough to go out there and face him herself? Would she have found some sort of closure there, some finality that had eluded her before now? But it'd been horrible to see him at the police station, so horrible that she felt like she was losing control of her own body and mind.

She had no sense of how much time was passing as she lay there like that, but eventually, a slight noise from the doorway startled her. She'd thought Henry would have already fallen asleep.

"Your light was still on," he explained quietly. "I wanted to check on you."

She patted the spot next to her on the bed, inviting him to come and sit with her. His eyes grew more melancholic as he came closer and observed that she clearly wasn't having any luck resting at all.

His voice was soft, featherlight. "Is there anything else you want to talk about?"

"Will you just hold me for a minute?"

When he nodded, she shifted herself in front of him so that she could lean back against his chest. Amelia cocooned herself between his arms and the rest of his body, felt the soft pressure of his head resting against hers. After a moment, she realized that he'd started to ever-so-softly hum something in her ear, and she actually started to smile once she recognized the tune as You Are My Sunshine. She reached for his hand.

"Is this alright?" he asked her.

"Yeah," she whispered, holding onto him. "It is."

"I'm not going to force you to tell me one good thing about your day," he said, and even in her terrible mood she almost laughed. "But I'll tell you one good thing about mine."

"What could that be?"

"I got to be here with you when you needed it. And you were with me when I needed you, too. I think that's a good thing."

And she agreed.

With her pointer finger, she delicately traced along the lines of the tattoos on his arm, those swirls of black against the canvas of his skin, and she found herself lingering on Sarah's pattern. It was so beautiful, and yet the thought of Lily's memory someday being relegated to another tattoo on his arm was unbearable to her.

"I guess," she admitted, "That even though I know I made the right call back there, I can't stop myself from thinking every time I see him that his job makes him the closest link we have to figuring out where she is. That if I just tried harder I somehow could find a way to get through him to the right people."

"Amelia."

He sounded more troubled than exasperated, and she supposed that was fair considering all of what she'd told him tonight. She must have sounded nothing less than psychopathic, so why couldn't she let the idea go?

"Please just look at me," he pleaded.

The urgency in his voice made her heart jump. It was somehow right then and there, nestled together in her bed at what she thought was the end of a thread of emotionally taxing conversations, that Henry sounded more heartbroken than he had all night.

"I know I'm being ridiculous," she sighed, turning herself around to face him. "You don't have to tell me that."

He was shaking his head, frustrated beyond belief. "That's not what this is about. You know I already think you're brilliant—why would it matter to me if you sound ridiculous? What matters to me is the fact that you've always seemed to think that I would be perfectly happy to just gamble your life away for Lily's–"

"I never said that!" she cried. "You just—you love her so much and I–"

"And I love you, Amelia!"

Henry's breaths had gone uneven, but he said it with determination carved into every line of his face, refusing to do it without looking her in the eye. "I love you and the thought of losing you is unbearable so stop telling me that I should just throw you aside."

"That's–" Amelia spluttered before she even had time to breathe, much less think. "That's the first time you've said that."

His lips curved into a bittersweet glimpse of a smile. "No, it's not. Just the first time when you could hear me."

She thought of all the times he could have possibly told her without her hearing; all of the times when she had been half asleep on the phone when they talked late at night or had dozed off on his shoulder while they were watching a movie after work. How, on that night they fought, he'd sat outside her door for what felt like an eternity murmuring gentle things to her while she cried and didn't try to make out his words.

She didn't realize that her cheeks were still wet until he leaned in closer to her, tenderly swiping her tears away with his thumb. Instinctively, she moved in to rest her forehead against his, her breath hitching in her throat and going even more unsteady than his.

And yet, when their two messy halves came together, they sounded almost beautiful.

"I love you, Amelia Rose," Henry whispered again. "Even if you don't love me, too. I love you and I'll say it as many times as I have to for you to believe me."

Finally, finally, she got it out. "I do—I love you."

Amelia knew that she was bad with words, that she was indecisive. But she wasn't indecisive about this. She was the one who closed the last fraction of space between them, feverishly winding her fingers into his hair as she drew his mouth against her own. And Henry—he wasn't responding how she expected him to. He seemed almost hesitant to touch her, to deepen the kiss like she wanted him to.

She was aware that she sounded frustrated and that it was maybe petty of her, but sue her for wanting a good makeout sesh right after he'd said he loved her. "Henry–"

"I know," he breathed. "I want this so badly, Amelia, I just don't want to hurt you."

It dawned on her only then that he was still thinking about how she'd reacted when he tried to touch her waist earlier in the living room, how it made her uncomfortable right then because she was still thinking so much about what Colton had done to her.

But this—Colton couldn't touch this. This moment belonged only to Henry and Amelia, Henry and Amelia who loved each other too much to give up when it got challenging. They loved each other and there was nothing they could do to change that, that could make them want to change that.

"Henry Caruso," she murmured, her voice velvet, and solved his predicament by placing his hands exactly where she wanted them. "I want you to kiss me."

And so he did just that, and they whispered those three little words to each other between each and every one. Tonight might have been her first time realizing it, but it somehow already felt totally familiar. Totally right.

Amelia wasn't surprised by it at all. Now that she was here, she knew deep down that a piece of her had fallen for him the day they met.

END OF PART II