The End (Beatles Fanfiction)

Chapter 37

PAUL

John was staring at me from under his brow, above his glasses. His hands were stuffed in the pockets of his black jacket, his shoulders raised, his feet planted side by side.

I looked back at him, holding the door with my left hand.

"....Hello?" I spoke, surprise raising my voice as if I were asking a question.

"'Ello, ol' mate, sorry to be barging in on you like this, but there is a matter I need to see to." His voice was jovial but the rest of him wasn't. He stood in place. His eyes looked worn. "Is the ol' lady 'ome?"

I shook my head. "Linda went to see a movie with Heather." I had been alone all day, sitting and doing nothing, thinking, and while this meeting was unexpected, it was not unwelcome.

John rocked back and forth on his heels, nodding for a bit too long. I stared at him, raising my eyebrows as he bit his lip and turned his face away from me, staring down the street.

Amused by his agitation, I waited for a beat before asking, "Would you like to come in, John?"

With that invitation being enough, John marched past me into my living room, giving me a "Thanks, you're a real mate," on the way. Blindsided, I shook my head and closed the door slowly. He sunk into the couch, facing the television, the back of his head facing me.

"D'you want a drink or somat?" I rubbed the back of my neck. "We have some wine, milk, apple juice-"

"I met with Pru today," he spoke, his hair swaying as he did so. When I didn't answer, he turned his head to the right and looked over his shoulder at me. "George set it up."

I slowly walked to the loveseat next to the couch. "He didn't tell me anything about that." I heard an unwanted bite in my voice, and tried to swallow it down. I placed my hands on my thighs and sat down, staring at John.

"I didn't want anyone to know about it," he said softly. "I didn't even know if I was goin'ta go through with it, or if she would." He looked down at his hands. "But I did, and she did, so it 'appened."

I waited for him to tell me more, but he didn't. "So what happened, then?" I coaxed him. "Did you two make up?"

"I don't... think so."

"What d'you mean, you don't think so?" I leaned forward, my elbows on my legs, my hands crossed. "Did she tell you why she didn't-"

"She did, though." He flashed his eyes, full of pain for a fleeting moment, to me and then back to his hands. "She wrote."

I blinked. And waited. But his lips were tight. "I don't underst-"

"It wasn't her fault, and it wasn't mine," he explained, coldly, as if reciting something meaningless from memory. "I wrote letters, she wrote letters, and we didn't get them from each other. So she thought I was to blame, and I thought she was." He shrugged. "That's it."

He furrowed his brows and bit the inside of his lip, making him look pensive, concentrated. I knew, however, that he was just trying to cover up his emotions, to keep the appearance of an impenetrable man.

"That's not- really it, is it?" I didn't know what to say. There was so much that needed to be said, but none of it was right.

John dipped his head down into his lap. "Hell if I know. I split again." He said the last sentence with such disgust, such contempt for himself, that I saw him fold even more into himself when he said it.

I looked around the room. Light flooded through the windows, all lamps were off. Our reflections in the black telly screen stared back at us. We both looked pitiful.