THREE

 

MARGARET

 

Three months later…

I couldn’t wait until the first week of September because I was anxious for my senior year of high school to start but also because that was also when Liam was due back into town since he left with his family to spend their summer in the UK with relatives.

As hard as he had tried and due to circumstances I didn’t quite understand, we didn’t speak every single day like he promised he would. I understood completely that it was his time to spend with relatives and that we would spend a lot of time together once he was back, but it didn’t change the fact that I missed him a lot. There was so much to tell him.

I was also excited because not only did I have my best friend back, I had a job that I loved and I had spent the summer texting with Roger, the college guy I started dating.  Just saying that to myself seemed so surreal but I was officially dating a college guy.

I could have never imagined a year ago that the first guy I starting dating regularly would be a college man but apparently life didn’t have it in for me like I thought it did. Although I still didn’t quite know what it was that Roger saw in me, I wasn’t going to ruin things with my insecurities by questioning his intentions. He was interested in me and has been a perfect gentleman thus far and so I was going to trust that this was a good thing. I couldn’t wait for the day where Roger asked me to be his girlfriend and then I would be able to say my first official boyfriend was also a college guy.

Not only that but my parents were starting to give into the idea of Liam and I either going to Europe or joining the Peace Corps for a couple of years after graduation. I know they didn’t like Roger but rather than tell me that and know that I would probably ignore them anyway, they probably figured if I went off to Europe with Liam or joined the Peace Corps that I would stop dating Roger but that wasn’t going to be the case.

Roger was important to me and was going to be a permanent fixture in my life (I hoped) and I didn’t know how to tell them or Liam that I was having doubts about leaving the country after graduation.

I thought everything was doing to be great on the first day of school but that’s not really what happened. When Liam didn’t contact me when he got into town and the first time I actually saw him was on the first day of school, I was pissed. When Liam came back, everything was different about him and everything started to change between us.

When he came back on the first day of school, everything I have ever knew about him was different. I was standing at my locker grabbing only the things that I would need for my first period, Liam walked into the hallway looking different than he did when he first left.

He no longer had his braces, he either had lasik surgery or was wearing contact lenses and he wasn’t wearing his dorky t-shirts anymore. He was wearing a short sleeved button down shirt, khaki colored chino slacks and sockless loafers without any socks. This was not like the Liam I remembered, this was a guy that totally cared about his appearance and the way he looked.

“Hey, Mags,” Liam said startling me out of my thoughts.

“Oh, hey Liam, how are you?” I glanced his way before continuing to pack up my backpack with the textbooks I needed. I wasn’t going to acknowledge his makeover, which by the way he was supposed to have me do for him and not do it for himself.

“I haven’t seen you in a bit,” he teased.

“Yeah, I know. I’ve just…been busy, you know how it is.” I explained.

“Right, you’ve got yourself a job and everything. I heard you have a boyfriend now.”

“Yeah, Roger’s not my boyfriend yet but I imagine he will be soon. The job and Roger keep me pretty busy.”

“Well, if you’re not busy, do you want to see a film at the cinema after school on Friday? I’ve got my license now.”

“Oh wow, great.” I gave a fake smile. There goes another thing that he accomplished this summer.

It was our long-standing Friday night ritual but it hadn’t been all summer, “I heard Brooke invited you to that party at Jake’s house.” I asked.

Brooke Miller was the co-captain of the varsity cheerleaders and she was number three on our most hated list that we came up with the first month he and I met.

“That’s tomorrow night but I’m not going unless you wanted to go with me.”

“I wasn’t invited.”

“That’s why you’re coming as my guest.” Liam shut his locker door and zipped up his backpack.

“No, thank you. Some of us still remember who’s on our shit list.”

“Mags, she’s not so bad once you get to know her.”

“That’s really funny coming from you seeing as she just started talking to you like this week?” I frowned before I slammed my locker shut and started heading to class.

“Mags…” Liam sighed as he followed me. “You know that’s rubbish. It’s not like that when you get to know her.”

“Sure, it’s not.” I walked faster.

“Mags…come on,” he whined.

I didn’t turn around and just kept walking, “Go to class, Liam.”

When Liam came back, everything was different between us. Liam also said that he was keeping up the way he looked only because his grandmother spent so much money on new clothes for him and his brother, Oliver, he felt obligated to wear it because that’s what proper men wore and he didn’t want to disappoint her.

When people started noticing Liam technically for the first time especially the girls, all it did was ruin everything we had planned. It was even at the point where the football players stopped picking on him, but I was still the object of their immature jokes. All it did was cause arguments between us.

We’ve never argued before, but he couldn’t understand that this phase he was in made everything so much worse than it already was and we weren’t talking as much as we used to.

Things didn’t improve much after that and although Liam and I made up eventually and were getting along again, things still weren’t quite the same. His popularity only increased as time went on and although he kept insisting he was still the same guy and made every effort to be there for me, he was still different. The fact that he kept trying to convince me he was still the same guy, only made it crystal clear he actually wasn’t but I guess I could forgive him for now because I’d rather have him in my life rather than not at all.

“What are you doing later?” I asked him a few weeks later. We were walking down the street, going nowhere in particular nor did we have a plan in mind.

“Nothing really, I was thinking about going to watch a film at the cinema. Did you want to come?” he asked.

“Do you want to go shopping instead?” I asked with an evil grin. Liam still had a lot of gift cards left that his grandmother gave him over the summer and although I was still upset about the fact that he went and got a makeover without me, I figured I could probably get Liam back to the way he used to be if I had more of a say when it came to his clothes.

“Are you asking me to follow you around the department store? No thanks, I don’t want to spend two hours watching you look at every single garment in the place.”

“I didn’t mean shopping for me, I was referring to you!” I said.

“Me? I already have new clothes.”

“Yeah but some of them make you look pretentious. Still got those gift cards left?”

“Yes, what are you getting at?”

“Well the clothes you bought are nice and all but they aren’t who you are. I figured why not get expert advice from the one person who knows you the best. Me.” I grinned.

“Mags, I don’t want another makeover. I’m fine with what I picked out. You know I only did all of this to make Nan happy and all of this was hard to figure out.”

“That is why you are going with me. Come on, I promise you it will be fun and I’ll explain everything I know about men’s fashion to you so it doesn’t seem like such a chore when you try to figure out what to wear every day.”

“I don’t know, Mags.”

“Don’t you want to feel comfortable because I know you aren’t in those clothes? Don’t you want to wake up every day and love what you are wearing? Picking out a style for yourself isn’t just about buying clothes, although that’s the fun and easy part. It’s about knowing who you are and what you like and don’t like.”

“I have enough clothes and besides, I like how I’m dressing. I didn’t at first but I love it now. You see how everyone responds to it at school and I don’t get picked on anymore.”

“Liam, you’re one of the greatest people I know and you are my best friend. There is nothing wrong with me wanting you to discover what the best version of you is. There is nothing wrong with anything you’ve picked out but with some minor touches, you’ll see a tremendous difference.”

“I don’t know Mags, it just sounds like a lot of work.” he sighed.

“Don’t worry! Like I said, I will help you through every single step.”