The Girl In The Dirty Shirt Liam Version

Chapter 140

When I landed back in London I had been gone less than twenty four hours. I had told mom at the earliest I'd be home in a couple of days.

I crawled into bed and passed out, too tired to even care about what had happened over the course of the day.

**

I woke up the next morning to the ringing phone. I ignored it turning over to lie on my back and stare at the ceiling.

I had been hoping that all of this was a nightmare, but no such luck, and I didn't know what to do about it yet.

Part of me wanted to pack up my and the baby's stuff and just torch the rest of the house with all of Liam's shit and our memories in it; part of me wanted to burn this fucking house to the ground, forget about it and run, start fresh.

The other part of me, the part that time and time again got the shit beat out of her by her piece of shit boyfriend because she didn't have a god damn brain; that part of me wanted to hear Liam out, wanted to tell him it didn't matter, that I love him and forgive him because nobody is perfect...

That part of me was the one that said it was fine what the tabloids said because they needed to make money, because they had families to support.

The naive part of me that still thought I was the only woman in Liam's life; that if he loved me he couldn't possibly cheat on me because we had a daughter.

That's not how things were at all and I knew it, I wasn't stupid, maybe Liam loved me still, but neither one of us was faithful to the other, that's just how things worked in the industry and I learned that the hard way; if your husband goes on tour you better expect to be cheated on and that doesn't make me any better, I had adapted the 'if you can't beat 'em join 'em' philosophy and quite frankly, I didn't care how it made Liam feel.

People ask me all the fucking time, if I'm so miserable, why don't I leave, why don't I get out of the industry?

Those same people are the ones who know I already did leave, twice, and both times, either because Liam came and got me or I came back on my own power, I came back.

I came back because as toxic as Liam and I may be for each other, the fact of the matter is, I can't live without him; and now whether I like it or not, he's a part of my life forever no matter what happens between us because I refuse to let Adeline grow up without a father.

I made myself breakfast and checked the answering machine, it had been Maggie that called; she was just curious as to how I was doing, apparently Liam had said we didn't leave things well....she knew what was going on, but she had enough class not to bring it up unless I mentioned it first.

I didn't bother calling her back right away, I cleaned up my breakfast dishes and started some laundry before I finally picked up the phone and called the hotel she was staying at.

The phone rang twice before she picked up.

"Hello?" She sounded completely drained

"Hi Mags"

"Lyla, hi!"

"How's Japan?"

"No different than the last time we were here, airport, hotel, venue, hotel..."

"How is everyone?"

"How's Liam you mean?"

I sighed there was no getting around it with her, she knew me too well.

"He's fine, typical Liam, you know"

So he was drunk.

"He's asking about you..."