And Her Name Was Olivia

Four

Olivia's POV:

Everyone busts out laughing after the cheesy joke Crissy made. She wipes a tear from her eye and takes a sip from her glass. Her face grew pale when she looks over my shoulder.

"Oh my God, is that-" Crissy's eyes grow larger.

"What Crissy, what's wrong?" I ask, placing my hand on her arm.

"Jace. Jace Millard. Oh my God, he's coming this way!" I stand frozen in place, unable to turn around and look to see if she's serious. The tips of my fingers go numb and my vision blacks out for a good minute. I steady my breathing to keep myself from having an attack.

"What?" I ask cautiously, turning around and colliding with someone's chest. I look up to see the person's face- Jace. "Oh my god..." I say in almost a whisper.

"Hey Lilly." Jace says casually.

It must be the alcohol. It's fucking with me, I know it. This feels so out of touch, so unreal that I might faint in the next minute or so. Before I'm able to stop myself, I hug him tightly. I let out a sob when I hear his heartbeat.

"I thought you were in Missouri!" I say in between breaths. "I've missed you so much, I-" He pulls away and looks down at me, confused and hurt at the same time.

"I still live in Missouri," he explains. "I just came because my fiance..." I don't hear the last part of the sentence. All I hear is the echoing voice of the word 'fiance'. Fiance, fiancee, it's all I ever hear.

"You- Wait, what? You were- What?" I sound like an idiot. Jace rubs the back of his neck and sighs.

"Well, I just assumed since we stopped talking, I thought we-"

I cut him off by looking at my wrists, then at the ground.

"You thought we broke up?" I sound broken. Like a machine that hasn't been ran for awhile, and it's just now working again. "We- I thought you- I- What?" I can feel a few people staring at me, so I take a deep breath and swallow the lump in my throat. "No, we really didn't- I thought we were still- What?" Crissy and the others move away slowly as I try to breathe. It seems like the air is getting sucked out of me and I'm suffocating. Jace's stare isn't helping, either.

"Then what happened? One minute we're texting like crazy, and then the next-" He sighs and looks in my direction, but making no eye contact at all. "I don't get a response anymore." I fidget with my bracelet and look down. I can't stand us being like this, and it gives me anxiety just him standing here.

"I dunno." I say flatly. I don't know what to actually say at this point. I know he's mad at me and there's nothing I can do about it.

"You don't know." He finally says after a long silence. "You have no clue why we stopped talking, or why we didn't make our plans, or why you moved." All I can do is nod and sigh. I feel a lecture coming. This will not end well. "Why did you move in the first place? Who is here that's family? Do you really think that your 'friends' will help you out?" Jace sighs and grabs one of my arms to get my attention. I look up at him with tears rolling down my face. His face is bright red and I try to pull my arm away from him, but he tightens his grip. He lowers his voice.

"They have bills to pay. They have their own lives. They can't sit and babysit you here all the time while you collect your disability checks-"

I pull my arm away from him. "Will you stop your shit? You're the one who moved first!" I seethed at him, rubbing my arm. People start staring at us, so I drag Jace with me to the side of the house.

"I sat in Strong City for a year waiting for you to come home, when come to find out, you packed your shit and moved without telling me!" I start yelling at him. He stares at me blankly as I lash out on him. "You said we were going to St. Louis together. You said that once you graduated you would help me get into school. We were going to travel, and go to school, and get married, and eventually have kids. But no, you wanted a life without me. You wanted me to disappear..." I look at my hands and fumble with my ring. I take my ring off and hold it up to his face. His eyes grow wide and tries to take it from me.

"You see this ring? This is the promise ring you gave me on my nineteenth birthday. I still wear it, everyday." I try to keep my voice low, but my voice keeps cracking. Tears find their way back on my face and I wipe them away, trying to put my ring back on in the process. "I was still hoping that you would come back. That senior prom photo we took together is- well, was hung up in my livingroom." Jace crosses his arms and leans against the side of the house. I sigh and smooth out the creases in my dress again.

"Was?" he asks. He sounds so lost, almost dazey.

I pinch the bridge on my nose and say, "Pharaoh knocked it off the wall." He still looks a little confused.

"Who's Pharaoh?" I stare at him. How can he not remember Pharaoh? We got him while we were still living together. He was a rescue for Christ's sakes.

"The cat we had gotten. You don't remember him? You're the one who rescued him for the shelter." He shakes his head. I groan and smooth out my dress again. "He's orange with green stripes-" He sighs and puts his face in his hands.

"They're brown stripes, not green Olivia."

"See, you remember him!"

"And I told you to get rid of him." What part of he's a rescue cat I'm not going to give him up does he not understand? "You're allergic to cats and he was dying." I shoot a glare at him.

"Actually, he's not anymore. Unlike you, I actually take my animals to the vet every six months. He had a heart transplant, and he's doing very well thank you."

"I didn't say for you to have an attitude about it." I cross my arms at him. Jace rolls his eyes and walks off toward my group of friends and I follow close behind. Chrissy and Morgan stand awkwardly together as Steve, Joseph- and now Jace- talk about college life.

Jace turns toward Steve and asks, "So how's school?"

"It's okay," Steve pops a grape in his mouth and smiles. "I'm on vacation for a week or so. Law school is really hard." I scan the crowd of people. When you have anxiety, you can tell how many people are in the room, or in this case at your late ex-best friend's backyard. Seems about five or six less people than what there were about an hour ago. Across the yard, someone catches my eye; that guy from that night. I stare at him for a few more seconds before I realize who it is.

Harry Styles. Harry mother-fucking Styles. I ran into the actual Harry Styles back in December. I turn to Chrissy with the look of shock still plastered on my face. From the way she's looking back at me, the colour in my face has drained.

"Did I tell you what happened a few months ago?" I finally ask. She shakes her head at me.

"No, what happened?" I look over her shoulder and spot him again.

"Okay, so I was walking home from the store back in December, and I ran into One Direction!" Her eyes grow wide in excitement.

"What?" We both squeal like ten-year-olds for a few seconds before realizing we're at a funeral. "So wait, are they in town? What- Why didn't you call me or anything? What happened?" She's overly joyed about this. I ignore Jace's glare and continue the conversation.

"I didn't think they'd be here! Anyways, I was walking to my alley, I guess they were going from where I came, and I wasn't looking and-" She's stopped listening and is looking around the crowd of people. Way to go me for blubbering about something completely useless. If I could shut my mouth for five seconds everything would be fine-

"Oh my God it's them!" She points behind me. I turn around and see them standing just a few feet away from us. I keep my cool as I watch them carefully. Harry casually looks over in my direction and pauses as his eyes meet mine. We stare at each other until Liam nudges his shoulder, letting him know it was time to leave.

"What... was that all about?" Chrissy asks finally.

"He looked at me," I breathe out. I think I stopped breathing when he looked at me, and I didn't even notice. "He actually looked at me."