The Way We Learned to Love ✓

prologue - liam

september 2020 : present day

"You're staring."

"You say that like it's surprising."

He couldn't help it. Lily was adorable when she was trying to focus. Her eyebrows got all scrunched together and her lips pouty as she read and re-read the words in the textbook that was opened up on the table in front of her. He was sitting next to her. She kept brushing waves of her glossy black hair behind her ear as it fell in her face, but Liam knew that she didn't like to wear it pulled back even when it was getting in her way. He was tempted to reach over and tuck it back for her, but that would definitely be distracting.

Her eyes flitted up from the pages. "It's not." She held back a satisfied smirk. "But I must say, the heart eyes make it pretty hard to focus."

"I'm very sorry."

"I'm sure you are. That's obviously why you look so regretful."

Her eyes fell back down to her book before they could tease each other more. She clicked the unlock button on the side of her phone to check the time.

7:04

Wednesday, September 2nd

A frown made its way onto her lips and she closed the cover of the book.

"I know it's early to be leaving, but I need to go actually do this homework," she said with a small sigh.

Something was off with her. Those lovely chocolate eyes, usually so warm and so present, were suddenly dim. Distant. The frown lingered and when her hair fell in her face again, she didn't brush it away.

He eventually reached over and carefully moved it behind her ear so that he could look at her. "Everything okay?"

The corners of her pink lips curved up into a smile and she took his hand in hers, finally looking back at him. "Yeah, just a long day."

He didn't want to push her too much. He trusted her to talk when she wanted to. She was a week-and-a-half into her senior year of college and he knew firsthand how stressful that was. It still felt bizarre for him to not be in school this year, but he had graduated and had the job and diploma to prove it.

"You know you can tell me anything that's bothering you, right?" he asked softly. "Even if it's just school stuff? I get it."

"Of course."

He should have questioned why her voice wavered when she said that, but he didn't. 

Instead, he simply walked her out to her car, and his nerves melted away when she stood on her tiptoes and kissed him. He let himself get lost like he always did in the familiarity of her lips, the taste of her strawberry chapstick, and the sweet perfume that somehow smelled exactly like sunshine on a summer day.

"I love you, Liam," she promised, her nose brushing against his.

"I love you, too, Lils."

If someone had told him what tomorrow would bring, he would have said infinitely more. He would have stopped her from leaving instead of just watching her get in her car and pull away.

He would have begged her to stay if he could have known that this was the last time he would see her or hear her voice or kiss her or hold her in his arms for three months. He would have gone to the ends of the earth just to be with her. Anything was better than the torment of believing she was dead.

But of course, Liam knew none of this. He was naive.

So as he walked back inside, he decided that he would just ask her tomorrow about whatever had been bothering her.

____________________ 

*sad violins* we all know where this is going 

I know this prologue was super short, but I hope you enjoyed it anyway!  writing in 3rd person has been so weird for me after doing the first book, but it took all of 5 seconds of me trying to write Liam to realize that 1st person wasn't happening for this one lol

important notes:

- the story obviously doesn't continue forward from here since this is where the first book started. we'll be going back in time to before Lily and Liam meet and working our way back up to this point over the course of the book 

- make sure you pay attention to the dates at the start of each chapter! the plot will always move forward chronologically, but Lily and Liam's chapters start in different years before their timelines eventually meet up (there's lots of important stuff to cover beforehand!)

- so the book will be divided into 2 parts, before and after they meet, but that's not to say there won't be any romance in part one... *side eye emoji*

and lastly, I hope you enjoyed your brief stay in the fictional version of 2020 without covid :/ 

see you on halloween with chapter one! it's um...*very different* from this prologue.