Loving you is a losing game (ONC 2024)

Chapter 8- Liam

Trigger warnings- Rejection and swearing.

It takes everything I have left to lift the microphone to my mouth to say the outcome. Even when I do finally build up the strength, I can't speak. I open my mouth again and again but no words come out. Imogen isn't willing to try again. Was I really that bad as her boyfriend? Maybe my dad's right, and I am nothing but a failure. I can't even win back a girl who for eight months has been my whole reason for living.

"S-She said no." Finally I found the ability to say those three words.

I jump down from the table and put the microphone down on my chair, then I race out of the cafeteria before everyone gets the chance to make fun of me or laugh at me.

My phone suddenly starts ringing and I run into the nearest toilets to tell my dad to fuck off. I just need a few days to work out my thoughts and find a reason to stay at this school. Without Imogen, my life feels incomplete. Without Imogen....I don't even know what my life is.

- Dad, please, I don't want to talk right now.

No. You listen to me, Liam. I don't care what's going on with you and your girlfriend, but she is gone! Learn to accept it and be a man! She deserved better than you anyway.

- Dad, I just need some time. Please just leave me alone.

I need your help with this project. Without this crucial part, the whole project could...

- Are you even listening to yourself?

What do you mean? Of course I can hear myself.

- No, listen to what you're saying. What you're asking right now.

Liam I have absolutely no idea what you're going on about. Oh well, if it's coming from you, it isn't that important anyway.

- Dad, listen to me! For once in your life! I can't do this anymore! Ever since I could hold a pen, you had me doing stuff for you, claiming I was helping the business, but all I've been doing for sixteen years is helping your ego grow bigger and bigger. I can't do it anymore. I know that you don't think I deserved Imogen, and you made me feel the same way. I was grateful for every second I spent with her. She meant everything to me, and now she's gone. I don't care what you think of me. If you want to call me a disappointment, or a failure, fine. I am both of those things, and every other insult you've ever said to me, but I am in love. I need time to figure out what I want to do with my life without her in it.

Come home to us.

- W-What?

Come home. You can work for me. Properly. You were only staying at that school to be with her. She's been holding you back. Come back home. In a few years, the family business will be yours and you'll have something to stick in her face!

- Dad, I don't know what I want, but I don't want to give up. I want Imogen more than anything on the planet. I would do anything to get her back. You know, any other kid would ask their parents for advice in this situation, but I wouldn't listen to a single piece of the crap that comes out of your mouth if you paid me to listen to you.

Liam, I'm sorry.

- No, dad. We've been through this before. The last time you said you were sorry to me, you and mum broke up. I can't let you hurt me like that again. I'll call you when I'm ready, not before. So don't email me, call me, text me, or try to contact me any other way. Even through Emily. Can you do that?

*Silence*

- Wow, you can't even give me that. Wow dad. Wow.

End of call.

Ok, maybe I shouldn't have said those things to my dad. Who else can I turn to? Imogen's gone and definitely won't listen to me. My mum is probably too busy for me and would just palm me off to my dad. I have no one.

Just then, there's a knock at the door, and it's someone I thought would never speak to me again.

"Liam? It's Imogen, please, I need to talk to you. Meet in my dorm room in ten minutes. If you're not ready to speak to me I get it." She pushes something under the door. It's her card. This time, the green side is facing me.

She speaks again. "If you're not ready, but you want to talk to me later, push that under my door with the green side showing. If you don't want to speak to me again, show the red side, and I promise I'll leave you alone. I hope I'll see you soon, but if not, I don't hate you. I never will."

I pick up the card as I hear her walk away. The red side tells me everything I need to know about us. It screams that we're over. We're done. Even if I go to her room and we talk, what will happen? I'm not sure if we can play off that this never happened. I'm not sure if I can pretend I didn't embarrass myself in front of the whole school for her.

Even if we can go back to how we were, I'll never be able to get my dad to agree to me ever marrying her. I was lying to myself. I think I have been ever since I asked her out. I've told myself I was worthy of dating her, a lie. I've told myself she would never leave me, a lie. The worst thing is that I told myself that I would be able to convince my parents that we were a perfect match and that we were meant to be together, and now I'm pretty sure that's a lie too.

For eight months, I've been telling myself so many lies that I'm struggling to see what's true anymore. So I should start with that. I loved Imogen. No, I love her, that hasn't changed. I want her to be my girlfriend. That's still true as well. We will spend our whole lives together. That's the one that's the hardest to work out, because I'm not sure if that one is true or if it even can be true. After all, I feel like I'm being so cold, pushing everyone away from me. Even her, I don't want to push her away, but isn't that what I'm doing by hiding?

It's time for me to face the music. And that means talking to Imogen and figuring out if our love is true once and for all.