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.

Well, I can be both at this rate.

"And what makes you think it was me? You said you couldn't see his face, right?" Liam asks, his eyes so impassive that nothing is let on.

"I did see it in the end, when I finally met you in Montana," I say matter-of-factly, rubbing my palms at the memory.

"What?" Liam gasps softly, probably perturbed at the whole idea . . . or at my mental capacity.

"The first night I spent in your house, I had another dream, and I was able to see his face. It was you, Liam. I could feel it every time you were close to me, and most especially when I got to feel your touch around my body when you first kissed me. It felt exactly the same." I lick my lips and laugh nervously. "Yes, I know you think it doesn't make sense, but to me it does. And after that night, I never dreamed of it again. It was over, as if I was led there to meet you, and when I did, it was all gone," I say breathlessly, my eyes filled with tears that are totally uncalled for.

I can't quite fathom the look on Liam's face, but he exhales audibly as if he's been holding his breath.

He muffles a laugh. "I don't know what to say, Kira. It's unbelievable," he mutters, standing up while grazing his chin with his thumb.

"That's not all," I enunciate, and he looks at me wide-eyed. "About my nightmares, the ones that make me scream in my sleep . . . " I pause, uncertain on what words to employ so that I give him the exact point. "Maybe I should ask you this question first," I say suggestively, catching a deep breath.

"What question?" He sounds wary.

"Have you ever been in an accident when you were a child? A car accident to be more precise," I finally ask, and for a change Liam looks very taken aback—shocked even.

Did he? My eyes narrow, keenly gauging his shocked reaction.

"How do you know about that, Kira?" he asks briskly, his jaw tighter than usual. "Only my mother knows of the accident, so how come—"

"So you have been into an accident?" I ask desperately, my breath hitched. "When? I mean, where? Was it on the way to San Francisco, by any chance? Were you with your mother?"

"Fuck!" Liam gets up abruptly, a garbled and pained look in his eyes. I gulp in horror, my heart pulsating so hard that it almost reaps off. "Did you—" He pauses and breathes soundly, hovering with a hand on his waist, and another in his air.

I follow his sight, quite determined to get all the answers. "Did your car break down on the way? Did you meet a couple and their little girl who helped you with the car but they said it would take a while to fix it and so . . ." Tears roll down my cheeks and the memory becomes too intense to bear. "And so you they offered you and your mother to ride with them?"

"How the hell do you know all that, Kira?" Liam booms, anger lacing his voice.

My skin shudders. "Liam . . . " I also get up to reach for him.

"How do you know that information, Kira?" he asks flatly, his voice low and defeated now, his eyes filled with tears that break my heart. "Was it Mother? Is she the one who told you about it?"

"No. No one told me, Liam." Sniffing, I wipe the wetness off my face.

Liam seizes my body in his hands, clutching my arms tightly so that it hurts, but I don't care about the physical pain. I hardly feel it. What hurts me is the pale look on his face, the tears darkening his usually beautiful blue eyes, his gaze so tense as he puts me under his serious scrutiny.

What is he thinking of? I can't help but wonder as his eyebrows knit together, as though he's seeing me for the first time, a shady apprehension reflected in his glowing irises. I still in his brace, listening to his violent breath, his chest thumping on and off.

"Who are you?" he then asks in a low, confused voice, and my mouth fails to open. "Tell me, Kira. Who are you?"

I think I've reopened his old wounds.

"Exactly what you think I am, Liam," I hardly breathe, but my voice is audible enough for him to grasp my words.

His grip goes loose around my shoulders. He releases me slowly, his face unreadable. Instead of feeling relieved as I'm rid of his tight hold, I feel bereft. My body skin feels cold, because I think he is both the man in my dreams and the boy in my nightmares. He's the one.

I stare at him but I don't know what to make out of his gaze. Is he amnesic or something? He was older than me so he ought to remember best. Ignoring his weird question, I stroll toward the drawers of my dresser and start rummaging through them in a hurry.

I know Liam has too many questions, and so do I. We are going to fix this. Unceremoniously I pull out a photo album containing my family pictures, one of the few things I salvaged before they sold everything in our apartment. But before I could even get up to reach him, I feel his hands twirling me around.

"You . . . you are that little girl in the car, aren't you?" he asks me, and I feel tears welling up in my eyes.

Has he finally remembered me?

"Um, yeah," I whisper.

"You're the curly girl, Kira, aren't you?" Now he allows the tears to fall from his eyes, and I slowly reach for his face.

He grabs my two hands so that I don't touch him, and uses my palms to cover his face momentarily. We cry together and I want nothing but to hold him so tightly.

"I am the curly girl, Liam. I am the girl you saved from that explosion, and I'm sure you're that rude boy, right?" I cry out the words and he eyes me with bewilderment. "Here, I have a picture." Out of his hold, I grab a photo that my parents and I took just two days before the accident in Napa Valley. "Do you remember them?" I ask.

Liam takes a hold of it, stares at it, and then shakes his head.

"I don't have a clear memory, Kira," he says. I feel completely thrown off. "All I remember vividly is the trip, the adventure, the car breaking down and that we had to use another car, but from then . . ." A sigh replaces his voice.

"You don't remember anything about the accident, do you?" I ask him. "Not even a bit?"

"I vaguely recall that there was a family with us, and the fact that I was with a girl when the explosion happened," he replies. "I get nightmares every now and then about that day, and that's how I started changing my sleeping habits."

"What kind of nightmares?" I ask in quite a whisper, gulping.

"My mother's face, the silhouette of a little girl with thick hair, and the . . . the explosion. I tried hard to recall the face of the girl, you, but it never unfolded." He huffs a small laugh, which for a change makes me join in. "I hated dreaming of it, but I'd strangely be anticipating it as well, just so I could see the face of that girl. It looks like she was close to me the whole time."

"Oh God." I laugh again.

We stare at each other for a while without saying a word. I'm not sure if our meeting was predetermined as fate suggests, but I'm so glad that the rude boy is Liam and not someone else. But I'm not sure if he's happy that I'm the curly girl or not. I may be nothing but part of the pain he's been trying so hard to forget through the years.

"There's something I still don't understand," I say with a pause. Liam gazes at me tentatively. "If your mother is still alive, then why do I remember that she died with my parents in the explosion?"

Liam doesn't jump into answers, but when he does, he simply says, "Eleanor is not my real mother."

Utter shock soars through me. "She's not your real mother?"

"No," he breathes while shaking his head slightly. I can't believe it. "Eleanor is naturally my aunt. She and my biological mother are twin sisters."

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A/N: Surprise or not? Hehe, thank you for reaching here. Only a few chapters left to close this book.