My jaw slackened at his question, "Um... how did you know about him?" From what I remembered, I'd never mentioned Hunter to Liam.

"I'm an observant person. He must be your boyfriend," he pried, leaning in from across the table. His curious eyes watched mine, a small smirk spreading over his lips.

I frowned. I didn't know how I was once so happy to call Hunter my boyfriend, now I was just disappointed. Hunter was not a good person.

"My ex-boyfriend, actually," I corrected Liam. A flash of emotion danced across his eyes from my words. "And before you say anything, he was the dick, not me." I eyed him as he broke out into a light laugh.

"If it makes you feel any better, he sounds like one," Liam shrugged as he focused his attention back onto his laptop screen.

"You don't even know him," I rolled my eyes. It was clear Liam was just trying to help me to feel less crappy about the whole thing. There was also no way I'd listen to him about anything. I was better off myself.

I had pushed Hunter mostly to the back of my thoughts. The best way I could get back at him was to do what I wanted to do and to try my best.

"Don't you remember? That day at parking lot, I heard you two talking," he raised an eyebrow at me. His words jogged my memory and I vaguely remembered such a thing.

I remained silent as I pulled up our case study to read over again, but even though my eyes wandered over the words, my brain was not absorbing any of it.

Speaking of the devil, my phone buzzed. I picked it up, surprised to see a text message from Hunter. We hadn't spoken since that night when I broke up with him. The message consisted of Hunter apologizing and asking for a second chance.

I rolled my eyes, flipping my phone upside down on the table. There was no way I would forgive him, not after I'd realized how incredibly horrible he had been to me.

"You good?" Liam asked, brows furrowed and his eyes trained on me.

I nodded, "Yeah. Why do you care anyway?"

"As if. I need your head in the game for this assignment," he scoffed, diverting his gaze back to his laptop.

Right, of course he didn't actually care. He just needed me to focus, which I was doing the opposite of at the moment.

"Oh shit," I cursed as my laptop suddenly shut off. A black screen stared back at me, with my own distressed reflection on it. I tapped on the space bar repeatedly but got no reaction.

"What's wrong?" Liam called out from across the table when he noticed my panicked state.

"My laptop just shut off for no reason," I explained briefly.

"Do you need help?" he asked immediately, getting up from his seat. Concern was written in his eyes.

"No, I'm fine. I don't need your help," I snapped, frustrated. "I can handle this myself."

"Oh," Liam sat back down on his seat. I glanced up to see an undecipherable expression on Liam's face, which I ignored.

If I couldn't even figure out what was wrong with my laptop, there was no way I could be depend on myself in the future. I only wanted to depend on myself — not my dad or my family like it had been before.

I fished around in my backpack until my hands clasped around a wire — my laptop charger. My laptop was nearly fully charged so I knew it hadn't run out of battery, but a lot of times from experience, plugging it in helped.

I shoved the plug into the nearest wall, and connected it to my laptop. Like I'd expected, the screen began to load again. Within seconds, I was able to retrieve the document. I silently thanked auto-save for rescuing my ass.

A pinch of regret creeped up on me from the way I had snapped at Liam. But I needed to do it myself, to figure it out myself.

An awkward silence bathed over Liam and I and I shifted uncomfortably in my seat.

The picture of Liam and I from two hundred years ago popped up into my mind again. It was a good way to break the ice between us and Liam deserved to see it too. I was sure he also wanted to see how ridiculous he looked back then.

I sifted through the saved files on my laptop until I came across the picture I had found online.

"You should see this," I turned my laptop around to face Liam. He looked up at me and then at the laptop. His brows furrowed as he analyzed the photo of the two of us before he let out a small chortle.

"That's us isn't it?" he asked, rhetorically. "I looked damn good." He glanced up at me, smirking.

"No, you look like a nerd," I muffled my laughter. "Those pants were hideous."

"Hey!" he glowered at me. "They were limited edition, really expensive."

"Well, it was a waste," I continued to laugh, ignoring his sharp stare.

"If anyone could carry it, it would be me," he said in full confidence.

"Uh huh," I chortled and he shot me a glare.

The fashion two centuries ago was appalling. Even then, I still felt that women had it worse. I had worn layers upon layers of clothing just to achieve the body shape that was desired by society. Men just had to pull up a pair of stockings, a shirt, pants and maybe a coat.

"It was barely a dent in my bank account," he scoffed and I rolled my eyes. A solemn expression replaced his playful one. "What do you think this is?"

I shrugged, "To put it simply, I thought reincarnation. But I'm not really sure." I wasn't sure if I should be bold enough to just assume that it was just that.

"Yeah, I thought it too," Liam answered. "Then I realized, who cares what this is, we're here. That's what matters."

A smile spread over my lips, "Yeah, you're right."

"Please, when am I ever wrong?" he said with a cocky smile.

I opened my mouth, then shut it, "I won't answer that."

The smile disappeared from his face at that comment while I let out another laugh.

Without realizing, my eyes trailed over his face, from his ruffled hair to his buttoned nose. My cheeks betrayed me as they heated up. I knew I should be focusing on the assignment, but with Liam so close, my brain seemed to be in a mush. We sat in a comfortable silence for a short moment before Liam sighed.

"We had fun back then," he held a sad smile on his face. "Sneaking out of our houses to see each other at night."

I laughed, "It was all so exhilarating. I always scared I'd get caught. I would have been in so much trouble if Father saw."

"True, my parents would have just shrugged it off if I told them I was seeing my friends," Liam agreed, then his smile faded away slightly. "Everything was decided for us, it was nice in a way."

"For you, not for me," I retorted with a sigh. He gave me a questioning glance at that but I didn't elaborate.

My life was elegant two hundred years ago, but I wasn't free. I couldn't choose to do what I wanted to do, I just did what I was told. As a man, Liam had much more choice.

Liam and I also would have been married if everything had gone according to plan. He was everything that I had wanted, and still wanted.

He was responsible, kind and caring. He made my heart race, he made my cheeks fiery, he made the butterflies roam wild in my stomach. And then I realized what he really was like — neither kind nor caring. I just wished that things were different, that I was still bathing in the false perception of him.

"Let's just get back to work," I changed the subject, forcing a smile onto my face.

Liam's eyebrows knitted together in confusion, but he nodded. I turned my laptop back around and closed the image.

What was important now was to get this assignment done, so I could forget all about Liam. We could go back to be just classmates and nothing more. I didn't need to be involved with him any more than I needed to be.

I'd read the case over again just to come up empty of ideas. I peeked at Liam, to see that he was concentrated on his own laptop, his brows creased. I realized that for a couple days now, a question had been eating away at my mind, ever so subtly.

"Why do you care so much, about school?" I found myself asking. I was surprised at how blunt the question sounded.

The curiosity was real after all. Not many people truly cared about getting an education. Many just did it for the hell of it, and just so that they could get a job in the future.

He pursed his lips, "If I do well, I can prove to my parents that they can trust me with the company. Have an early retirement and relax. That's the least I can do for them."

"That makes sense," I said quietly.

"What about you?" he asked and I shrugged.

"I just do," I answered simply, even though it was not even close to the truth. He nodded, deciding not to pry.

"From now on, we should call a truce," Liam suggested with a proud smile.

"And why should we do that?" my eyebrow cocked up skeptically.

"Because, if we help each other instead of competing. We both might benefit, and get what we want," he explained.

Being against Liam hadn't really been working for me, especially since he still excelled in everything I sucked at. My lower lip jutted out as I pondered, "Yeah, sounds like a deal."

We turned our attention back to our respective laptops, trying to find other angles to this irritatingly difficult case. I was at a dead end, with no new ideas for this assignment. I hoped Liam would have found something.

I glanced up at him over the top of my laptop. He stared at his own screen intently, his long lashes casting shadows over his cheeks like a curtain. His brows were furrowed in concentration, with a small crease was visible on his forehead that I'd never noticed before. His messy hair fell over his head rebelliously.

My heart skipped a beat, blood rushing to my cheeks. It was so hard to keep thinking the way I wanted to and feel how I did with him, especially after what he did. I wanted to hate him, but the hatred was slowly dissipating, leaving just a bubbly feeling within my stomach.

And I hated to admit that it wasn't a bad feeling.

★★★

𝑇ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑘𝑠 𝑠𝑜 𝑚𝑢𝑐ℎ 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑑𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑝𝑡𝑒𝑟, 𝑝𝑙𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑒 𝑑𝑜 𝑣𝑜𝑡𝑒, 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑓𝑜𝑙𝑙𝑜𝑤 𝑖𝑓 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑒𝑛𝑗𝑜𝑦𝑒𝑑 𝑖𝑡! 𝐼𝑡 𝑖𝑠 𝑡𝑟𝑢𝑙𝑦 𝑎 𝑚𝑜𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛!

𝐷𝑜 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑘 𝑇ℎ𝑎𝑙𝑖𝑎 𝑖𝑠 𝑓𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝐿𝑖𝑎𝑚 𝑓𝑖𝑛𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑦?

~ 𝑆𝑤𝑒𝑒𝑡𝑛𝑒𝑠𝑠𝐼𝑛𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑆𝑎𝑙𝑡