If I Fell│John Lennon/Beatles FanFiction

Chapter 86 - 26.June.1967

Chapter 86

Caution: This chapter mentions the potentially triggering topic of suicide. 

June 26, 1967 

The morning sun peeked through the small window of my temporary bedroom, the curtain hardly doing its job at keeping the rays out. Soon Maggie would be up...not that it would be the first time. She hadn't slept well, to say the least, and had been up multiple times throughout the night. It took rocking her for hours on end to finally get her back down. Her emerging molars were going to be the death of me.

But it didn't really matter anyway, because even if Maggie had slept like a rock, it wouldn't have changed the fact that I'd barely slept. My body refused to find rest even though I was beyond knackered. And despite hours of trying to avoid my pills, I gave in and took a sleeping pill and a yellow pill, but still only found fitful rest for what had to have been less than an hour. It didn't matter what I tried or what pills I took...nothing was enough to calm me down after that note.

So instead of sleeping, my mind reeled with worry all night long, with images of what might come next.

I'd spent hours thinking about who could be after me, going back through the list of who might know the truth about my father. The list wasn't long—there were only a handful of people I could think of, each one less likely than the next. I was fairly certain it wasn't Catherine coming after me, or bloody Paul for that matter. And there were even fewer people who knew where I was staying and that I'd sought advice from Catherine about the entire messy situation.

But I wasn't sure I even knew the person sending the notes. There was a chance that they knew me, but I knew nothing about them. Perhaps they'd been stalking me, following me, and I hadn't been safe for months...maybe longer. And the thought that Maggie wasn't safe with me brought tears to my eyes.

I pressed my head to my pillow and blew out a breath. My head still ached as much as it had when I climbed into bed the night before. With my hand pressed to my temple, I crept out of my room and made my way to the loo. But the door was locked, and light shone through the cracks. So I stood waiting, my back pressed against the wall and my arms crossed over my chest. Some moments later, the door swung open.

David, Catherine's brother, stood in front of me with a hand clutching the doorhandle. His legs were long and thin, and his pajamas were wrinkled. A very typical scowl formed on his face when he saw me as he rubbed his dark eyes and shook his dark locks.

I offered a quiet, "Mornin'," but he didn't respond. He just grumbled and glared at me before pushing past me and making his way back to the couch.

The bloke sure did seem to know how to hold a grudge—he still hadn't forgiven me for showing up unannounced to ask Catherine if Maggie and I could stay a while. She'd insisted that we take David's room and that he'd take the ruddy couch. He hadn't spoken more than a handful of words to me since I arrived, though I was sure it wasn't only me he was utterly cheesed off with...his job search, according to Catherine, hadn't been easy on him either.

With quick feet, I hurried into the loo and grabbed the pain relievers, desperate to get the aching in my head under control. And it wasn't just my head that ached. My entire body was fatigued, and everything seemed off...like I was half asleep, walking around with my head underwater.

Each minute of the morning dragged on at a torturous pace, but once Maggie was up, she was a welcome distraction. When I was with her, my mind was at least thinking of something other than the ominous note, though it was hard to keep up with her when I was feeling so ropey...she moved nonstop when she was awake.