The Coldest Summer✓

Sixty-one

Is it a coincidence? I try hard to recall the details of the accident from my dreams and memories, and it feels like there is something I'm missing here. My eyes focus on Liam—his hair, his bright blue eyes, and that frown between his eyebrows wherever he doesn't understand something—and something hits me straight in the heart at the feeling his features evoke.

"Shut up, Curly." His young voice was gentle but menacing, and I poked a tongue at him.

Blue eyes glared back at me, a deep frown between a pair of pretty bush eyebrows. Without a word, his attention returned to the illustrated storybook he was busy reading, as if he was a grown up.

"I just want to see," I murmured in a low voice, my head hung low as tears burned in my eyes.

Why was he so stingy? I lifted my eyes up angrily at him.

And in response I found him smiling.

"Okay, come here but do not make any noise," he said, and I giggled at the way he talked.

It was different.

He frowned again. "Why are you laughing?"

"You talk very strangely," I replied.

"Strange?" His frown deepened.

"Yes. It's pretty." I smiled sheepishly and his own smile returned.

"Oh God," I gasp in shock as Liam's fingers snap me from daydreaming. "It was you, right?" I utter in a crunchy voice.

"Me . . . what?" Liam stares dubiously at me, his head winced back cautiously.

Or maybe I'm just imagining things. Could Liam be that boy? And what about Mrs. Eleanor? The woman in the car died before my eyes. But the boy lived and it can possibly be this man standing here, can it? I think I'm going loco now.

"Kira?" Liam calls, a frown on his face that takes me back to that boy.

God, they look so much alike now.

"I'm going to tell you something, but please don't think that I'm crazy, okay?" I say while standing up, my voice so desperate.

Confusion bathes Liam's face as he nods wistfully. "Okay, tell me. But I'd rather you sit down first, because you've already given me a reason enough to worry," he says in a serious tone of voice, drawing me toward the bed. "Let's sit."

I do as he says, and he sits right beside me.

I suck in a deep breath, pulling in my courage, before muttering, "I had dreams of you even before we met."

"Oh." Liam chuckles. My heart is beating too rapidly for me to join his sass, so I hold my breath and wait for his amusement to pass. "You're serious?" He suddenly frowns again.

 I nod my head affirmatively. "Very serious, Liam."

"You dreamed about me? How?" he asks, intrigued.

"Well . . . " I run my fingers through my curls, sighing. How do I explain this to him now? I sigh again and start, "For almost a year I kept having this dream about a shirtless man in a very large field in the countryside. He'd always appear when I'm standing in the middle of that grassland, and he'd hug me from behind, and whisper some words."

More intrigued, Liam's eyes widen.

I stifle a laugh and continue, "But whenever I tried to turn around to look at his face, I'd end up awake, and the dream would repeat itself in similar design, over and over again." I face him this time, and the look in his eyes suggests that I'm either crazy or a fantasy writer.