Live Forever // A Liam Gallagher Fanfiction

Chapter Two

THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL IS ALWAYS DARK CIRCLES. I don't plan to look like I'm already halfway through my form, knee-deep in exams and homework and textbooks, but what choice do I have? I had to stay up until two a.m. listening to the blaring music and incoherent conversations of drunk teenagers. I'm already irritable and I have to put up with being stubbornly American in a stubbornly British school.

Scratch that. Mancunian.

"God bless America," Grant James teases as I saunter to form room for attendance. He makes a grab at my American flag T-shirt but I flip him off.

"Fuck off," I tell him. He gives me a rotten smirk and goes off to meet with one of his burnouts in the school yard. For a kid with loads of pounds he sure knows how to throw the whole lot of them down the drain.

Oh, look at that. I'm already fed up with this form and the day hasn't even started.

Well, I was fed up with secondary school before primary ended.

Inside form room I find my girlfriends--two brunettes and cheeky redhead--with a lot to say to each other. I never minded not having to open my mouth. Figure something dumb comes out of it half the time, so why say anything?
"You still obsessed with that Noel Gallagher?" one of the brunettes, Sophia, asks.

"As much as I love Hobknobs," another brunette, Ava, replies, looking down at her nails to hide the smile on her lips.

"Figures," Sophia says, looking over at me. "What about you, Amie?" she asks, using the nickname her dad told her. Apparently the Brits in WWII used to call their English-speaking counterparts "Amies."

I shrug. "Dunno. Suppose I'll say Liam Gallagher because he showed up at my flat last night."

"Oh?" Sophia says, turning towards me.

"Yeah. Shagging some girl. Totally shit--"

"'ey," a throaty voice comes from my periphery. "Who d'you think you're talking about?"

Of course Liam Gallagher is in my form room.

It's those clear blue eyes, sometimes an iridescent green, framed under thick eyebrows that draws the girls in. Along, of course, with that decided set to his mouth that gives him the freedom to use cuss words liberally and model bad behaviour.

"You," I respond colly. "Got a problem with that?"

"Real pain in the arse, you are. Shame that you're my neighbour, or else I wouldn't have to put up--"

"Molly Andrews," the form teacher calls from the front of the dingy room. She looks young enough to be at one of the house parties last night, but not cool enough to be at one of the blowouts. Her mousy brown hair is half combed and greasy, parted down the middle like a boring librarian.

I look back at Liam, who has sidled back to his gaggle of burnouts with shite music taste. He glares over at me and I break off the stare. What a fucking nut.

I'm holding three textbooks and have a list for five notebooks when I leave school. Hopefully I can catch a lift to the store.

I've made it past the tree-shaded streets where my school is and closer to the neighbourhood ones where my house is. It's quiet, and quite a long walk. Why the hell don't I have a car?

Looks like someone's got a lift, I notice as I have to step onto the sidewalk to avoid the rambunctious lot of Liam's friends.

I flip them off clumsily but I doubt they even care. They're too interested in their shite rock music and swerving to avoid puddles. You would have thought everyone should be wearing their Wellies for the way they were making it out to be.

Jesus, I think as I step off the sidewalk and back onto the street. The lot in England can drive you to a pub without a lorry attached to ya.

I can't believe I fucking forgot the international code. How thick do I have to be? I called him three days ago.

As I scramble through the slips of paper next to the landline telephone, I notice more telephone numbers on paper than I remember. Names like Marcy and Olivia appear in my dad's scrawl with their last names in different colours, like he learned them later. God knows what it is with him. He's always looking for different jobs; those girls are probably headhunters. Besides, there's just as many guy's names and numbers on these slips of papers.

Finally I find the international code for the United States.

+44.

It was probably the first thing I wrote down when we moved from Chicago to Manchester about seven years ago. We've kept it all these years.

My brother, adamant about an American education, decided to head back to the States for university. He found a school in Illinois, where we started, and then migrated to Washington state after school.

"So, word is you've got a bird. Is that true?" I tease, opening and closing cabinents, searching for teabags. The only good thing about England.

"Yeah. Girlfriend," he chuckles. "Sometimes I think you're a native. Is that true?"

"Shut up," I say. Fucking siblings. Always know how to push your buttons.

"Well, how's your school year going? Aren't you a few weeks in?"
"We just started today," I say, holding the tea kettle under the tap and filling it. "Last night there were those end-of-summer parties. Remember those?"
"Yeah..." he says, trailing off. And before I can catch him in a memory, he's signing off. It's the beginning of his day in Seattle, around six o'clock, and it's only polite to end the call.

I set the phone back in its hold and glance down at the slips of paper again. Something brown catches my eye in the stack, and I pull it out from the mess.

A bar napkin.

Harmless.