Let's All Make Believe - Oasis

Chapter 41

I carried Nathan with me, ready to demand answers. I needed to know. He couldn't go keeping things from me like his wife being here. I was so ready to confront her after everything she'd done. She seriously needed to be knocked down a peg or two.

"Who've you got in here? What're you doing?" I swung the door open so I could catch them, very ready to kick off.

"Just Ste." Liam pointed out. "And I told ya you weren't to come in here."

It was just them just as it had been the whole time. They weren't doing anything. There was no Patsy. I didn't know what to do. I had all this negative energy and there was no one to blow it out at. I couldn't even tell him what was on my mind without him thinking paranoia.

They were sat at the table. Ste had a chopped up banana he was stacking rather than eating. One we'd just bought at the supermarket. He wasn't interested in them then but it was different at home with Liam.

"Why not? Why are you hiding your kitchen from me?"

"Cos ya don't need to be in here. Go and relax."

"I don't need to relax, I need you to stop being so suspicious. We thought you were hiding something, didn't we?"

"Who did ya think I had in here?"

"Patsy." I tried to say it so quietly that he wouldn't hear and I'd get out of admitting it.

He shook his head. "She won't come up here. She don't like this place."

"Oh."

"She's not coming, she won't say it but she don't like it up here. She won't come even if I wanted her to so stop thinking about her."

"That's not so easy when..."

"She certainly won't fucking like that." He looked at the wall by the side of the poster display. He'd added to it, made a new one with a completely different focus.

This was family photos of me and the kids. Some of me pregnant the first time but mostly from when Ste was young and a few from the now times. There weren't many but it was a good cluster of photos. We were side by side with everything music, film and football he felt important.

"Wow." I was taken aback by the sight of it. "No, she wouldn't like that."

"I couldn't get hold of many yet. I only started when you went out. I wanted it finished when you saw it but it'll never be finished cos we've all got to grow."

"I love it." I told him, ignoring his rambling.

"Someone's gonna have to take up photography."

"I'm not... I like just living the experience too much. I forget to snap it." I stumbled, trying to get out of it.

"Well you've got a reason to now."

"I've got to take pictures for your wall?!"

"Yours and mine and the kids."

"Do you have a camera?"

"I'll get you one." he insisted. "Does the Scouser have any pictures?"

"Probably... His mum took pictures at Christmas, I think."

"Call him."

"Later, he'll be at work. Get Ste to eat that banana or bin it." I took off to my room with Nathan.

I needed to calm down and relax like Liam had told me to. I laid down, laying him on me.

"What am I doing?" I asked him. "I wanted to fight her with you in my arms. How could I think she was here?" I questioned myself. I thought I had made so much progress but she was bringing the paranoia out in me. She couldn't set me back anymore and from so far away.