And Your Girl Can Sing

Chapter 35: My New Years Resolution: Avoiding John

Hello!

Thanks for popping by to read this :-) hope ur having a wonderful day! Tbh I'm not so happy w this chapter lol but I promise the next one is gonna b good :-))

Due to the circumstances of my very romantic New Years Eve, the first thing I did was leave the Cavern Club. George could find his way back home by himself. I huddled into my thin brown coat and walked and walked through the streets of Liverpool, which looked very different by night than by day. I passed drunks and couples and was reminded of Hamburg. New Years Eve in Liverpool—ha! It equated a regular night in Hamburg. I wondered what Hamburg was like right now. Probably somewhere in the confines of Dante's Ninth Level Of Hell.

    John hurt. His words hurt because they were true, because, really, ultimately everything that has truth makes you uncomfortable. As grateful as I was that he was honest about how he felt... well... never mind. I couldn't think of anything that I had done right. Date his best friend. What was I thinking? Spurred on by Preludin, couples all around me, the allure of Paul McCartney, my very first Beatle Crush...

    Looking up, I noticed that I had arrived at the Library. As I stared up at it, I was reminded of my first purpose there. To find the book; to go home. I walked around to its side and tried all the doors, but nothing worked. I sat on one of its steps and buried my head in my hands. I was slightly tipsy at this point but I didn't care.

    What do you think about John? June had asked, so long ago.

    John Lennon? I remember responding, and gave a short laugh. Oh, oh, if only you knew.

    I am slightly educated, you know. I remembered a sliver of sunlight on the London Tube. Crisps. She had been eating crisps.

    Did I like him? The question was complicated. What I knew about John was not much—I suppose I was too fixated on Paul. John made a lot of jokes, one about the jewelry rattling and another spastic joke which was deemed offensive in modern day culture. He had a traumatic childhood or something of the sort. Drank. Married a strange conceptual artist and had two sons, one of which he didn't see a lot. John resembled a dark patch of the Beatles, somewhere that I hadn't thought of venturing before. He seemed hard to love.

    How had I gone from this mindset to completely falling for somebody? Never in my wildest dreams had I anticipated this. But that wasn't important. The problem was, I knew this was not going to end well. I had arrived at a crossroads—go big or go home. And right now, in my state, I decided that I wanted to go home.

    "Hey! Fuck you, Michael, I want to go home right now!" I yelled into the sky, not caring if anyone heard me. "You heard me, Michael, show your face! Show me the truth! All I want is the truth! Why am I here?"

    No response. Only the wind. And then clearly someone emerged from behind a tree. They spoke, and the words were hazy. "You have to keep persevering, only you can make this happen."

    "Speak English, you short haired yellow bellied son of tricky dicky!" I yelled.

    "What?"

    I blinked as the figure's characteristics blurred and sharpened into a familiar form. "...Martin?"

    "Cora? What are you doing out here so late? The library closed a couple of hours ago—"

     "Martin," I said, giving him a little smile, standing helplessly. "You're... you were behind that tree?"

    "...yes," he said, looking perplexed. He was wearing a similar outfit to the one he had one last time, but the buttons of his shirt were buttoned up wrong. I brought this up; he looked embarrassed. "Thanks."