In A Perfect World

Chapter Eight

I ran to the nearest trash can and threw up the entire contents of my stomach.

It's Liam. Holey fuck, it's Liam.

I bent over and heaved and heaved until there was nothing left to come back up. Eventually, all that remained was a numb feeling of shock and an intense feeling of illness. So I remained clutching the sides of some dirty trash can with pieces of my hair overhanging my face, dry-heaving like a disgusting early drinker.

I couldn't breathe, not with my lungs exploding inside of my chest over and over again.

My legs gave out from beneath me and I collapsed to the concrete pavement.

Liam was in a car crash. He can't remember me.

It was when I started shaking uncontrollably did I hear footsteps coming towards me. Not wanting to see whoevers face it belonged to, I closed my eyes and rolled into a foetal position. The cold concrete pressed uncomfortably into the side of my cheek but it helped dull the anxiety attack.

Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.

"Viviana?" Miles' voice came from above me like a loudspeaker. "What the fuck are you doing?"

Jayce must have been there because his voice came next. "You ran out of that place like you saw a ghost. And now you're, you know..."

I opened my eyes but everything was blurry from the hot tears. I blinked three times to clear them and then tilted my neck to see their faces. Bad idea. All that did was make my entire body shake like a tree in the storm and cause tidal waves to crash onto the apple of my cheek.

"Shit," Miles mumbled, rushing towards me with open arms. I winced away, forcing my body to create a distance between us, but Miles was having none of it. He grabbed me with my hands, somewhat gently, and pulled me towards my lap. My body, limp with shock and disgust and horror and everything terrible about this situation, let him.

Jayce crouched in front of me, his dark eyes going soft. "Viv, what's wrong?"

"I can't believe I didn't recognize him at the bar," I whispered, staring at a spot on the ground. He'd been right there. He pulled a guy off of me. We spoke. I touched his arm. And I didn't recognize him, not until I saw his face.

He'd been right in front of me all along.

"Liam?" Jayce questioned. "You know him?"

"I did," I whimpered sadly. Miles let out a sharp breathe of air and Jayce settled himself onto the ground in front of us.

"Fuck, you knew him before the accident?"

"We were best friends." My skin shivered at the words that came out of my mouth. "We were in love."

Miles swore again.

Jayce leaned in closer. "How long ago?"

"A few years ago. He lived on my street. On my seventeenth birthday my parents died in a car accident. My dad was drunk and my mom couldn't get out of the car. So I had to leave him because my little sister and I went into a foster home. Liam and I lost contact. But I...we...promised we'd find each other again when I turned eighteen and got out. But I never found him."

An unsettling silence built itself between us.

The news hadn't quite settled in but it was beginning to. As it did, I was finding it harder and harder to not scream and hit something - most likely Miles, considering he was closest to me. Yet there I lay in Miles' lap with his fingers stroking my hair and Jayce's face gazing right back at mine in astonishment. He was shocked at the likelihood of this happening - at the chances of me running into a person I'd lost a long time ago. So was I.