@samharriscn
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SUMMIT LAKE
Summit Lake reminded her of the sort of life Vivienne had allowed herself to imagine - lush private yards, beautiful scenery that allowed you to momentarily forget the woes of the world. She imagined this would have been the sort of place she'd have moved to if she ever settled down, made a family- but now she made her way into this part of town to meet clients for commission work or private lessons. Almost everything she needed or wanted was downtown. Today she'd been doing a lesson for a child who was far more interested in their Xbox than color theory- she didn't want to say their mother was wasting their money. Maybe in time, the child would find an appreciation for art in the way Viv had. With her lesson done, Viv stopped into a local smoothie shop for her regular eight-dollar fruity drink that would make the headache worth it. Mid sip and already mentally preparing her take-out order, Viv's entire world came crashing into a bleary picture as a phantom of a man she once loved caught her attention, Samuel. Four years had gone since his unceremonious and unpredictable departure from her life; the callous way he'd left had broken Vivienne's heart. She mourned him and considered his death possible until another book came out, a book sitting on the shelf in her downtown home, a relic of a life she was supposed to have moved on from. Sam had haunted her out of her peripheral for years. Anytime she caught a glance of someone who resembled the man at all, the breath was knocked from her lungs, and a panic attack threatened to spike her heart rate- but those were just times her eyes had played tricks on her. Her heart wanting something so much that her brain had tricked her into seeing him. Vivienne was sure that's what was happening now, her head whipping around to look again. Her heart hammered painfully against her chest. It was still him. Vivienne's hands trembled, squeezing her smoothie until the contents began to pour over the edge, leaving her fingers sticky and cold.
"Samuel Harrison?" She shouted, four years of suppressed anger, sadness, and pain bubbling to the surface, and Viv's brows pinched together, tossing the forgotten drink in the bin. Viv closed the gap between them, studying his face, half expecting a stranger's face to take its place, to tell her she'd finally gone mad. It was him, and her chest ached with all the same fierceness as the day she'd realized he wasn't coming back. Vivienne had imagined this moment countless times over the last four years, thought of what she would say, how she'd tell him he'd fucked up. However, faced with him now, she found herself unable to look away, unsaid things begging for the right to be heard first dancing on the tip of her tongue. "Why?" She managed to form an angry whisper as she managed to force the word out.