Chapter Text
Georgia had always been a bitch, and she would admit to anybody in the world she was a bitch. It was just who she was. She had no shame in fighting with everybody who did so much as look at her one second too long. And she was self centred, which she didn’t find much a reason to take as an insult. She had always known she was pretty - gorgeous if she was really feeling herself.
She won every argument she ever had and was proud of it. Sure, she didn’t have many people she could call “friends”, but to her, the only friend she had ever needed was herself. The only person in the world who can truly understand and respect you is yourself.
But when she moved in with her Aunt Ellis and left behind her parents after she finished school, she realised she had to start from scratch. She was taking a childcare course in college, but not many people in her course really wanted to be friends with her. Most people would be heartbroken by this and try to fix themselves to seem more approachable to others. Not Georgia, she took it in her stride.
It looked, from the outside, like Georgia had one GCSE to her name and nothing else. But despite all odds, Georgia had done pretty well in school and left with seven GCSE’s and a basically perfect record except for two suspensions for fighting. It had been the only reason her aunt had agreed to give her the spare room. So, to prevent herself from being shipped straight back to her parents house, Georgia was in every lesson in college with a notebook and a pen and driven purely by spite.
Then along came Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh.
Georgia met him at a house party in the Falls, and had been smitten by the lads bedroom talents. Smitten maybe wasn’t the word to describe it, but that’s the word Georgia liked to use when thinking about it. Was she looking for something serious? Not at all. But she wasn’t about to let this gorgeous excuse for a man escape her grasp, so she continued to see him - when her aunt wasn’t home, of course.
Liam Óg came with a cigarette behind his ear and a mischievous glint in his eyes as standard. And he also had an insane ability to take little to nothing of what Georgia said to heart. She could sit and scream all the insults in the world at him, and he would just blink back at her like a puppy waiting to be told they’re going on a walk. She liked that about him.
To her words, Georgia never let Liam Óg even breathe over the line she had drawn that separated him from her personal life. She kept him at arms reach, and quickly picked up that if she turned away, he would still be there when she turned back around. Maybe she used it to her advantage, making him buy her alcohol and vapes since he was a year older than her at the time, but what else was she supposed to do with him? - except fuck him, of course.
So as the years passed, Georgia and Liam Óg lived by a strict policy. As long as Liam Óg didn’t even think about that imaginary line, he had almost full rein of Georgia in bed - and full access to her fridge, which was usually stocked full of food from Marks and Spencer’s that he had never even laid his eyes on.
Georgia had a fond memory of the first time Liam Óg didn’t leave immediately after. She had brought him downstairs to get him a drink and he had opened her fridge, only to start asking what her aunt worked as and how she afforded all that “expensive food”. That gave Georgia a vague idea of Liam Óg’s upbringing, and to say she felt zero empathy for him would be a lie. So from then on, she would disappear downstairs and come back with something for him to eat, and - unexplainably - keep note of what he liked.
It was consistent, their “relationship”.
Well, it was. Until Liam Óg turned around one night and told Georgia he was a rapper.
Had she thought he was lying? One hundred percent. But after a little convincing from him, she had decided to go to one of his bands appearances in a pub. She had enjoyed it - up until Liam Óg had basically asked her to scream “brits out”. That had pissed her off. Pissed her off enough to turn around and snog the guy beside her while Liam Óg was still in front of her. And after they argued outside and she had stormed off, she figured she would never speak to Liam Óg again.
But a week later, when her aunt had came home looking like a building had been taken off her shoulders and admitted she had beaten Liam Óg with a baton so hard he had been taken to hospital for a broken nose and a fractured cheek bone, Georgia decided - again - she wasn’t going to get Liam Óg out of her grasp.
Everything was back to normal. “Normal” with a bit of change. Georgia signed herself up for Irish lessons in the community centre in the Falls, and didn’t tell Liam Óg until JJ had told him Georgia was in his class. She had assumed Liam Óg would laugh at her, maybe even call her a “pick me”. But when he had found out and Georgia had confirmed this fact, he had simply asked her how she was - in Irish.
Did their relationship dramatically change? No. But it changed, so slowly Georgia almost didn’t notice. Liam Óg began coming over more, and instead of almost breaking her bed, they would sit on it and he would help her go over her homework and her pronunciation.
Sometimes, at random, Georgia would leave college and find Liam Óg standing outside waiting for her with two Redbulls in hand with the excuse that he was “passing by”, when he actually had no reason whatsoever to be anywhere near her college. But instead of pointing this out and arguing with him, Georgia would just take the Redbull and almost enjoy his company back home.
He had went shopping with her once. Georgia had mentioned needing new clothes, and Liam Óg offered to go with her since her aunt was working. It became clear this was a one time event when Liam Óg started to sweat in the middle of Primark while Georgia was looking for new pyjamas. But even then, with Liam Óg following her around Belfast carrying her shopping bags, she never noticed the shift in their dynamic.
It didn’t become clear to her until one night when she had just gotten off the phone to her mother, who had spent the whole thirty minute phone call verbally assaulting Georgia and tearing her confidence down to the ground, and she had nobody to turn to since her aunt was working a night shift. She didn’t really know why she called Liam Óg while actively sobbing her eyes out, or why he had appeared at her door in twenty minutes with a bar of chocolate and an open ear, but she didn’t question it. And Liam Óg sat quietly while Georgia cried into his chest, and through sobs, told him everything about her parents and why she was trying so hard to please her aunt so she didn’t have to go back.
When Georgia woke up alone in the morning, tucked into bed with new pyjamas on and an unopened bar of chocolate beside her with ‘hope u r okay’ written on it with a marker, she had to sit there for an hour and think about everything that had happened in the last few weeks. When she had finally dragged herself from her bed to her desk and stared at herself in the mirror for a few minutes, the most horrible, disgusting, and pathetic thing happened.
Georgia realised she was in love.
With Liam Óg Ó hAnnadih.
And there was fuck all she could do about it.