For Now and Always (Liam Payne)

Chapter 8

Eva tried to hide the disappointment on her face and failed. "I still have a week and a half left. Let's make the most of that time and not think about that, okay, Love?" Liam pleaded. Then he reached into the pocket of his jeans, grabbed his phone and told her to smile.

"What?" Eva cried. "No! Don't!" She laughed and tried to cover her face, chest and fight off Liam all the same time. He clicked away, pushing her arms off of her face, tickling her rib cage, anything to make her smile.

"Got it!" Liam declared, falling next to her on the bed. He showed her the picture as he made it into the home screen of his phone. In the picture, her head was back, laughing, one arm up toward the camera, the other across her chest, covering her bra.  Her hair flowed out behind her and she looked....happy. Eva couldn't believe that. She hadn't looked happy in a long time.

"You won't even notice I'm gone! I'll text you every day. I'll call you to say goodnight. We can..." Liam began.

"No" Eva interrupted.  "I don't have an international data plan. If you call or text, it will cost me a fortune. "

"What? How do you talk to your parents? Your friends back home?"

"Email? Plus, I don't have any friends back home. I don't miss my parents or anything, Liam. We aren't close." Eva stated.

"I don't understand? You aren't close with your parents? Who is paying your rent? For your classes?"

"It's such a long story, Liam. I don't want to talk about it." Eva said.

"I want to hear it. It's important to me because it's about you.  Do you trust me or not?"

Eva covered her face with her hands. "Don't make me. Please."

"I want to know."

With a sigh, Eva began her story. She told Liam about growing up as the misfit in her family: Her brother with his full ride scholarship, her sister, a genius, who was being recruited by colleges even though she was only a sophomore.  Then there was her. Bookish. Okay Grades. Quiet. She escaped by spending as much time with her grandparents as she could. Every day, if she could manage.  Then just before her senior year, her grandfather had a stroke. Her grandmother took care of him as best she could and Eva helped her. One day, in the late fall, her grandmother had a massive heart attack and died, right in front of her. Her grandfather followed a month later, refusing to eat at the nursing home were her mother had placed him. Nobody was surprised when it turned out that her grandparents had left her everything they had.

Then, the final straw, the reason she had to leave town. She had never had very many friends. Just a few girls that she ate lunch with and sat by in class, so she surprised when a popular boy asked her out.  Those girls encouraged her to say yes, so she did. He took her on 3 dates, took her virginity and asked her to the winter formal. Then he told the entire school that it was all a joke. A bet.  A dare.  She sat at her bedroom window and watched the girl across the street have her picture taken in front of the limo that would take her to the formal, Eva's dress hanging, unused in her closet.

She never went back to school. She had enough credits to graduate in January. Her next step was to use her grandparent's money to get out if this tiny town with its long memory. Paris, London, Toronto, LA, San Francisco, Rome, Vancouver. She applied to every foreign college that accepted American students. In the end, she got into a school in LA, Toronto and here, in London. She put all three on her wall and threw a dart. London.  She had paid a year's tuition, the rent on the flat for a year, a plane ticket and for a student visa good for 4 years. She had enough money left to pay tuition for one more year, but that was it. Not enough for rent for the next year. The money she was using for food, phone bill and odds and ends came from her summer job at the local library. She had applied to work at the university library. She couldn't get a "normal" job because she had a student visa, not a work visa. She has eight months to see if she could manage here without help.  

Liam listened to all of this without saying a word. When she finished, she covered her eyes with her hands, ashamed to look at him. A full minute went by like this. As Eva was about to get up and leave, figuring that Liam didn't want her anymore, he finally spoke. "What's his name?"

Eva uncovered her eyes and turned to look at him. "What?" she said.

"His name. What is his name?"

"Jeff. Jeff Anderson. Why does that matter?" she asked.

"I need to know his name if I am going to kill him, don't I?"

Despite herself, Eva laughed. Lying there, on Liam's bed, she laughed. He looked down at her, smiling. Leaning down, he kissed her, letting her know that it was okay. He didn't care. She felt has if a huge weight had been lifted off her shoulders. He knew she was a loser, damaged goods, and he didn't care.

"Get up!" He declared. "I'm famished and you've promised me food!"  He swung his legs off the bed, leaned down and grabbed her shirt. Throwing it at her, he laughed and then pulled her up off the bed.