When Beatle Met Lennon // h.s

Chapter Eleven - Where Is He Tonight?

Eleven – Where Is He Tonight?

“Kat, you awake?”

“Yeah.”

“Let’s do Dad.”

“Okay, I’ll start. He’s in Rome –”

“He’s always in Rome lately –”

“Well, now he’s a famous Roman pizza chef and it’s late at night, the restaurant just closed and he’s drinking a glass of wine with –”

“With Isabella, the drop dead gorgeous Italian waitress, they just grabbed the bottle of wine and are walking through the moonlit streets, it’s hot, and when they come to a fountain she takes off her shoes and jumps in . . .”

“Dad doesn’t even take off his shoes, just jumps in and splashes her, they’re laughing . . .”

‘But standing in the fountain under the big, bright moon makes him think of home, how he used to swim at night with Mum.”

“You really think so, Chelsea? You really think he’s in a fountain in Rome on a hot summer night with gorgeous Isabella and thinking about us? About Mum?

“Sure.”

“No way.”

“We’re thinking about him.”

“That’s different.”

“Why?”

“Because we’re not in a fountain in Rome on a hot summer night with gorgeous Isabella.”

“True.”

“Night, Chelsea.”

***

I’m brought out of my thoughts by Amy, whose standing in front of me snapping her fingers to get my attention. I look up at her from my cross legged position on the floor in the Inner Pumpkin Sanctum and wait.

“Did you just hear any of what I said to you?” I shake my head sheepishly and she throws her hands up into the air.

“What am I going to do with you, Kitty?” She says, smiling now and shaking her head. I just shrug, a grin spreading across my face as well.

Last night after my truth or dare with Niall, I had told Harry how I felt after he had accidently done the same. I had stayed at the boys’ house for a while after that until I decided I should be going home. That was at 7:34PM, three hours after I said I would be home.

It is now 2:04PM and I had spent most of the day catching up with my girls and telling them about everything that had been happening. I told them about me and Harry last though.

As I expected, Amy wasn’t exactly happy but when I described everything about the kiss to her and Mikayla she had forgotten all about her earlier hostility towards our so called ‘relationship’. Ever since then she had been gushing about how cute our babies would be, and had basically planned our whole wedding.

We didn’t talk much about my father; both of the girls knew it’s a sore topic, especially now that we actually knew he wasn’t alive anymore.

I start drifting again and Amy sighs. I hear Mikayla tell her to just leave me in my room, let me be alone for a while.

Telepathically, I tell her I'm sorry. I tell her I just can't confide in her right now, tell her the three feet between us feels like three light-years to me and I don't know how to bridge it. Telepathically, she tells me back that I’m breaking her already broken heart.

They both walk out, leaving me to sit there on the floor by myself. I look up at the walls. I have an impulse to write all over the orange walls- I need an alphabet of endings ripped out of books, of hands pulled off of clocks, of cold stones, of shoes filled with nothing but wind.

I grab my guitar from its spot next to my wardrobe and sit back down on the floor. I play my song for dad. I play our song and I cry a little more.

It’s 2AM, and if I play my guitar any more, my fingers will fall off. I go to the kitchen to get something to eat, and when I come back into The Sanctum, I’m blindsided by a want so urgent I have to cover my mouth to stifle a shriek.  I want my dad to be sitting on my bed, I want to talk to him about Harry, I want to play the guitar for him.

I want my dad.

I want to hurl a building at God.

I take a breath and exhale with enough force to blow the orange paint off the walls.

***

“Kat, where is he tonight?”

“I was sleeping.”

“C’mon, Kat.”

“Okay, India climbing in the Himalayas.”

“We did that one last week.”

“You start then.”

“All right. He’s in Spain. Barcelona. A fedora on top of his head, sitting by the water, drinking Sangria, with a woman named Genevieve.

“Are they in love?”

“Yes.”

“But he will leave her come morning.”

“Yes.”

 “He’ll wake before dawn; sneak his suitcase out from under the bed, put on a black wig, a yellow scarf, a green silk shirt and black jeans. Nice shoes as well. He’ll catch the first train out.”

“Will he leave a note?”

“No.”

“He never does.”

“No.”

“He’ll sit on the train and stare out the window at the sea.”

“A woman will sit next to him and they’ll strike up a conversation. The woman will ask him if he has any children, and he’ll say ‘no.’”

“Wrong, Kat. He’ll say, ‘I’m on my way to see them now.’”