Tender (A britpop era fiction)

Star-Shaped

Hello you lovely people!

Cheers again for all the reads and votes and special thanks to @Charlie__0012for the nice comment! 

Feel free to tell me your opinions, I really much appreciate it.

Having a closer look to our kid Noel last time it's Liams turn today. Enjoy!

...

"Liam grew more devilish the older he got. His teachers all asked me mam how she kept up with him but the truth is none of us did. We just let him loose around the time he was eleven or twelve. You just couldn't control him anymore. He would do whatever he wanted and that could be world peace or the whole of Oxford street on fire, depending on his mood or sometimes just depending on the way someone looked at him. Mam was the only person in the universe that could talk some sense into him at times.

He developed no interest besides football what so ever, he didn't arse about music. Would laugh about Noel and me listening to it. Whenever we walked the street and Liam would see someone carrying an instrument he would bully that kid 'til I'd give him a proper clip. But the next minute he would hug me tight like he was afraid to loose me every moment. As he got older he didn't do that on the streets of course but Liam could become me little baby brother again when we were at home. He's a massive softie and he's always been under that whole bullshit, I don't give a fuck and swagger meself through life fassade he has built.

Apparently, allegedly he was some sort of mobster in school who was in charge of everything. Could be complete nonsense, since it was his side of the story. And one day he stood around with his friends, smoking on the bus station, when a group of kids from another school turned up and one of them got out a hammer and bashed his head in with it. Must've been pretty nasty, blood everywhere and he had a proper hole in his head after it. Remember me mam screaming when the call came that Liams in the hospital." 

"Liam himself states that this was the moment everything changed for him. That this was the moment a part of him opened up for music and it was like entering another universe."

"He likes that story. And in fact, I'm not sure if it's the right way to describe it, but looking back I see why he tells it like that."

"What do you mean?" The interviewer looks up confused. "Do you think he's exaggerating?"

"Not exactly. It's..." I sigh. "It's weird talking about it, because my perception of it now is similar to his. But at the same time I know I didn't notice any difference when I came into the hospital room. Even when he asked me to bring a record player and a few records I thought this was because he was bored out of his mind just laying there all day. I didn't think he was actually interested to hear the music itself. So I took my record player there and set it up next to his bed. And gave him some of Noels and me vinyls."

"Do you remember which?"

"I do" I smile at the memory.

"Surely The Beatles?"

"Yeah. Revolver and Sergeant Peppers and Abbey Road and he would keep all of them, 'til I literally had to threaten his life so he would give them back to me, the little thief. But even when he asked me for more and more I didn't think any of it. I was just happy he recovered so quickly, 'cause the blow on his head was pretty bad and he needed a second surgery soon.

The thought that I could've lost him...I had pretty bad nightmares around that time." 

Isn't it fuckin' ironic I think to myself. That in the end I did indeed loose both of them.