What If

Chapter 1

I was raised on The Beatles. I thought most of their music was awesome. I think my favorite is Here Comes the Sun. That song just picks me up whenever I'm sad.

Even though they're oldies and I get teased a lot by my friends at school for liking them so much, I find what they've done is a lot better than anything that comes out today. Rap is my pet peeve. I can't stand that shit. It's just someone talking really fast and cursing every two seconds. That's not music. That's crap. The 60's: now that's music.

I have every song The Beatles made on my iPod and they are the main music group that I listen to. I thought they were the greatest people music-wise to ever exist.

But people-wise, I hated them with a passion. They were horrible to their wives and girlfriends and they were snotty and offensive at times. Honestly, they were just scum in my mind.

I mean, John cheated on his wife about a billion times and she says nothing. But when she so much as dances with another man, he slaps her across the face. Not to mention how terribly he treated Julian throughout his childhood life. He was never there for him and pretty much abandoned him when he was a child only to be reunited with him because Yoko, doing the one good thing she ever did, told him to. Having to have someone tell you to spend time with your children should ring an alarm in your brain that something isn't right, but I guess not in John Lennon's world. I would assume that knowing what it was like not to have a father growing up, you would want to avoid the same thing happening to your own child. I could go on, but I won't.

George had an affair with Ringo's wife, Maureen, for God's sake, who happened to be one of Pattie's closest friends. Gee, that's really nice. I mean, you shouldn't be cheating anyway, but the very freaking least you can do is not do it with your wife's best friend. That's like a double-backstab. And when Pattie says she's leaving him, he begs her not to go. Like, what did you expect, buddy? Can't treat a girl like that forever.

Paul was a sex-hound who's had at least five thousand paternity suits. He cheated on Jane, which is why their relationship went belly-up and he was known as the master of seducing women and then dumping them once they were of no more use to him sexually. Not as bad as John or George, but still not worth me liking.

And Ringo . . . was just Ringo. I haven't found anything on him that would make me dislike him as of yet. I'm sure there's something, but I'm not gonna call him a bad guy unless I've actually found something he's worth blaming for. So until then, Ringo is okay.

But nearly all musicians are assholes, so just because they were awful people wasn't going to stop me from listening to their music and that's exactly what I was doing one night towards the end of the school year.

It was summer and it was hot out, so I had my window open to let some of the cool air in. I was sitting at my desk, doing my homework, and listening to the Beatles for Sale album. I was only wearing a gray sports bra and black shorts due to the heat, but I still felt overly hot.

"Colleen!" my mother called from downstairs. "It's time to go to bed!"

"Okay, mom!" I called back down. "In a minute!"

Math was never my favorite subject, but I was seriously good at it. It was just something that came naturally to me, I guess. After finishing the last problem, I put all of my books away and changed into my pajamas, which were really only navy blue shorts and a white tank top. The breeze from my window felt so good that I just wanted to sleep naked, but I wasn't into that so I changed anyway.

I turned off The Beatles, shut off my light, and went underneath the covers, expecting another normal day at school the next morning.