Affair at Crackerbox Palace 🖤 A Dhani Harrison Fanfiction

chapter 1: goodbye, george

(Dhani's POV)

September, 1996

"Ugh, that's it, I'm leaving!"

I scoffed, peeling myself from the couch in my dad's study. I was so beyond sick of the meaningless, empty questions Dad and everyone else were asking me. Their infuriating voices echoed throughout my head, berating me with their 'When are you going to become something?,' 'You've got to do something with your life...'  and 'You're an adult now, man up.'  I could see Dad shake his head just as I was about to turn the knob of the door to leave.

"Dhani, we didn't spend 18 years raising you in private schools, giving you tutors, prestigious music lessons, sports lessons, and putting you in all the best clubs and camps only for you to become some... some lousy bum guitarist! Shit! Use your bloody brain for once, will you? You will go to university and you are going to further the prestigious learning experience we are so generously providing for you. And you'll put yourself to use, damnit! That's that!" Dad proclaimed.

"That's rich coming from you," I spat. The famous George Harrison, I thought, rolling my eyes. Doesn't he realize how hypocritical he is? 

He was really getting worked up now, making his way across the study to where I stood by the door. "You brat! After all we've done for you, this is how you treat me?" Dad slapped me across the face.

I shoved him back across the room, the skinny old geezer. "Fuck you," I hissed. 

As I left the study for real this time, I could hear him cackling, muttering "You're just like your old man."

I ran to the bathroom, slamming the door shut behind me and locking it. The tears began to well up in my eyes. Why has it got to be like this? I just want to go out, have my own place, make my own meaning... I don't want to go to some fancy university. I was so alone, looking at my reflection in the bathroom mirror, the tears streaming down my tanned cheekbones. And I wish I didn't look just like him...

My entire life I've lived in the shadow of my dad, George Harrison. Of course, as everybody knows, he rose to fame with the Beatles when he was just 20 years old, and now that I'm 18, the anticipation that people have for me to be a success only grows larger, the weight of it heavier, and all the more impossible to bear. What happened to Dad was purely luck and nothing else. People think that if I don't do something big with my life I'm just a worthless piece of shit, but it's not fair! I'm my own person.

"Dhani, come out of the bathroom," Dad said to me through the locked door.

"No!" I cried. Why was he trying to mend things now? It was far too late for reconciliation. He'd been a total bastard to me for the past year or so, ever since Mom left him for cheating on her.

"Dhani, I'm sorry."

"It's not enough, not this time Dad." I wiped the last of my tears out of my eyes and decided to get serious. "This is it," I said, and with that, I blasted open the bathroom door and ran out of the house to the driveway, where a wide assortment of Dad's expensive cars waited for me.

"Please Dhani, wait! Th-there's something I have to tell you!" I could hear Dad yelling after me as I stepped into the family's vintage Corvette convertible, turning on the car.

I vroomed off, leaving skid marks in the driveway from where I had spun the car around to leave. As I drove down the road, "She's Leaving Home" by the Beatles started blaring from the radio. Ugh. Immediately, I turned that shit off. No more of Dad, no more of the lame music he made a million years ago with the Beatles. I wanted no part of it. It was time for me to become the successful, independent adult everyone wanted me to be -- on my own.