supersonic | liam gallagher / damon albarn

twenty

Walking back into work the following day was a strange feeling. Although on a normal day, I was greeted with a chorus of half-hearted 'hellos' and 'good mornings', this morning, it was silent.

Not the type of silence where everyone is so busy they haven't noticed you walk past, but the type where nobody knows quite what to say or where to look.

I sat down at my desk and logged onto my computer, pulling out my notebook and scanning down my todo list to see what I had to work on that day.

"Morning, Brit."

I looked up and saw Michael stood over me, he placed a cup of tea down on my desk and I smiled, thanking him.

"Morning."

He lingered by me for a second longer than he needed to, hesitating to walk off or not.

"Listen," he said, breaking a silence, "How are you?"

My eyes darted around the rest of the office, seeing everyone's eyes in our direction. Clearly, all of them read the tabloids and gossip magazines and were waiting for the latest update.

"I'm fine." I replied simply.

Michael knew I wasn't one to talk, and most definitely not about anything any of the other people in the room were interested in anyway.

He just smiled nervously, nodding before walking away and sitting back in his chair, everyone else turning their attention back to their work.

I had expected the press to have been a lot worse about what happened in the last few days. Only, the only thing that seemed to be reported was an image of Damon and his ex being intimate, killing any last piece of hope I had that this whole thing was a joke.

After everything that had happened with Damon and what he'd done, I still looked at him and my heart would flutter inside my rib cage. He had a hold over me, and I hated it.

He'd taken my life and turned it upside down in the beginning, incredibly managing to restore my faith in men, only to tear down his own work. But still, I craved him.

Though he wasn't mine to crave.

It wasn't until I was in the car driving back up to Manchester with Ryan when I had made peace with my decision. My heart was screaming out at me to give Damon another chance, to let him prove to me that he wasn't like Liam, that he was going to be different and treat me the way I deserved, but I'd been hurt too many times to want to give anybody the chance to hurt me again, so my head told me no.

I felt sick the whole journey home, wanting Ryan to turn the car around and take me back to London to tell Damon we could try again. Ryan knew how I was feeling, my silence and my fidgeting telling him I wasn't comfortable with anything.

"Can I give you my opinion? Just, you know, from a mans perspective." Ryan said, glancing at me as he held the wheel.

I nodded.

"You were right to leave him. I've done some bad things, treated ex girlfriends wrong, I'm not proud. But I was always lucky enough to have attention from women, never needed to go back to my ex. And the only reason I'd ever go back near an ex is if I wasn't over her. And someone like Damon, with a girl like you all to himself would have no reason to look elsewhere. But an ex...it's different. Do you see what I'm saying?"

I realised my brother was right. I didn't want to believe him, but he was right.

And so, Damon had become just another piece of my unfinished puzzle. I was back in Manchester, working my dead-end office job with other people that hated their lives, while my brother was living his dream, and I was just a passerby in his house.

The day seemed to pass by in a flash. I had been so zoned out the whole day, I wasn't sure whether I'd done no work or done too much, but I was glad it was over.

Heading out of the office, I walked in the direction of the tram stop, stuffing my hands into the pockets of my jacket as the cold evening air settled into my skin.

The sky was dark and the streets were busy, headlights illuminating the roads as far as the eye could see. I hated winter months, dull and gloomy when I left the house for work in the morning, and exactly the same when I came home.

"Britney?" I looked up from the floor, my eyes looking ahead of me now instead of at the silver tramlines in the ground, "I thought it was you."

"Hey Tony." I said with a smile.

I had known for Tony just a fraction less than I'd known Liam and Noel. Being Oasis' drummer, we'd spent a lot of time together over the years. Though we weren't particularly close, I'd always enjoyed his company and found him relaxing to be around. He always kept himself to himself, which is how I wished my life still was.

"Sorry I didn't been to bother you, just thought I'd say hi." He sent me a shy smile.

"No don't be daft, how're you?"

"I'm good yeah, I'm good. Well, I've been better, actually."

Tony was a shy man, never one to over share his troubles or out stay his welcome somewhere, so the fact he'd actually answered no to me asking if he was okay bothered me.

"Are you in a rush Tony? We can go grab a pint if you like? I could use a chat, it's been a long day."

"Really?"

"Of course."

Tony and I headed round the corner to an old pub not far away from the tram stop. Walking inside, it was pretty much empty apart from three men playing darts and an older gentleman in the corner reading a paper, circling betting odds.

The two of us took a seat at the bar and got ourselves a beer. Truth be told, I needed one. I felt like I'd not said a word all day, and although I was very much an introvert and enjoyed my own company, I wanted some social interaction.

We spoke for a little while, about work and other things. He asked about Ryan and how his football was going, and I asked if he enjoyed the awards show the other evening. It didn't take long for him to open up about his problems to me, though.

It turned out Tony and his wife were separating, and he wasn't taking it well. They had married young, a foolish thing to do some might say, and now, still young, the cracks had started to show.

It was heartbreaking to listen to Tony talk about his wife. I could tell he'd told nobody about this and had been dying to just get things off his chest, the way he had to pause every now and again to hold down the lump in his throat made his raw emotions no secret.

He described the way he felt when they first met, how he knew she was the one for him. He looked so happy when he reminisced on their memories, but the pain that flashed across his eyes when he spoke about their fights made it all to clear that he was falling apart without her.

"It's so hard, you know?" He said, taking a long swig of the ale, "She was the one. And since she left I've not been able to thing about anything else. It makes me sick to imagine her with another man, and even worse, me with another woman."

Tony paused, inhaling deeply and holding it in his chest before exhaling and squeezing his eyes shut for a few seconds, his fists clenched and his knuckles white.

"How am I meant to move on? I'm terrified now, so scared to be in love again because they could just walk out at any minute. But I love her. I will always love her, how am I meant to not compare every other girl I meet to her? Because nobody will compare. She's broken my heart, basically shoved a knife in my chest, but still, nobody would ever even come close to her. What am I meant to do?"

I couldn't give Tony an answer, but that was because I was still trying to figure it out myself.