witchy woman | george harrison

7. | She's Not There

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George rang the next day. Then, the day after that. He was careful only to call once she was out of school.

Sloane had gotten so used to being comfortably alone that now she found it exhausting balancing her friends, her schoolwork, and now an interested boy.

She still couldn't shake the possibility that he was only talking to her to try and get something out of it; maybe, somehow, he could tell she was a virgin.

Maybe it was a game for him.

These thoughts kept her up at night. She tossed and turned; not even the cuddly company of a purring Mr. Darcy could ease her worried mind.

Above all were the strange happenings, the unexplainable. Boys suddenly drooling over her. How girls she'd never seen before suddenly appeared, wanting to be her friend. How she could play the guitar, never having learned.

Maybe how George, a cute boy in a band that left girls in a daze, suddenly liked talking to her.

She so badly wanted to talk to her grandmother about these things. But surely her nan would think she was having a mental break.

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Sloane's eyelids fluttered open. Her blankets felt waxy under her hands. Crinkly.

She sat up, blinking. Her room was gone.

Now she found herself lying in the middle of a park, dark trees surrounding her as early morning creeped in. The ground beneath her was littered with dead, brown leaves. A blue fog rolled over the cold, wet grass.

This was no dream. She was, quite literally, in the middle of the woods.

She soon realized that she was at Strawberry Fields, a public park quite a distance from her nan's house. Its wiry gates stood not too far away.

She was frozen to the bone. Her body shook violently as she rubbed her arms for warmth.

Without warning, hot, salty tears began streaming down her face. She looked around. There, placed on a fallen tree nearby, were three candles, still aflame. They dripped white wax down onto the bark and into the leaves below.

She sat there, paralyzed with shock, for what felt like an age. Only when the sun rose higher, brighter, did she find the courage to begin the journey home.

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After having called a few times, George was beginning to act less awkward with Sloane. Whenever she spoke, her voice low and muffled through the phone, he felt like he was floating on air.

He'd never felt this way about a girl, ever. And he was only just getting to know her.

As he messed with his hair in the mirror, disappointed by the un-Elvis-like result, he decided it'd be a good day to walk her home from school.

Maybe they could stop at a coffee shop. The two of them, sharing a booth: the thought made him feel warm all over.

My front row girl, he smiled.

He stuffed more money in his pocket than usual; his gig cash from playing school dances, church halls.

While George still felt strangely shy with Sloane whenever he and Paul popped over to the arts college, today he resolved to change things.