No reply

Chapter 22

____________

Part Twenty two

____________

Later that night, after their time spent in that middle of nowhere field, and after John had offered to walk Paul home, the latter was now sitting with his family in the dining room, scraping his fork across his plate and looking at it blankly, barely realizing it was in front of him.

He appeared zoned out as he picked at his food and tapped his foot absentmindedly on the floor in a anxious way. He could vaguely register the fact that he was receiving odd stares from his father and Mike, but not enough to feel the urge to do anything about it.

He was caught in between so many emotions, yet his face remained bored and blank, stray strands of his tousled hair starting to fall into his face.

His lips were pulled into a bittersweet little smirk, and before he could stop it, a conflicted sigh escaped his mouth.

He blinked a couple times and glanced up, meeting the gaze of his confused and somewhat irritated brother, those signature McCartney eyebrows raised in suspicion.

Paul's fork was gripped in his left hand, uncertainly mid-air, in between his plate and mouth.

Mike looked as if he were going to ask a question, about to make a remark of some sort. But before he could, Paul spoke up, hoping to change the topic of him being gone for a while, even if no one had actually said anything about it yet. He fought to think of something - anything- to clear this tense and uncomfortable atmosphere.

"It was bloody warm out today, wasn't it?" He said stiffly, swallowing thickly.

Great, the fucking weather. That's the stupid typical thing to say when you want to avoid a topic.

Not very convincing at all, Paul hardly ever started a conversation with a comment on the bleedin' weather, of all things.

Usually he'd talk about John or the band, but well, that's kind of the whole point. That's what he's avoiding.

Michael shrugged uninterestedly and his dad nodded a bit, causing Paul to feel a little hopeless when it came to making conversation. He picked up his barely touched plate and took it to the kitchen, laying it on the sink. It was Mike's night to wash them, so he would just let him worry about dealing with the left-over food.

He excused himself to his room and plodded up the staircase, glad to finally be free from the uneasy feeling brought upon by how his family was behaving.

He immediately picked up his older acoustic guitar in his room, settling himself on the edge of his bed and tuning the strings with care- it had been a while since he'd played it.

He started playing what first came to mind, and grinned to himself as he realized it was the first couple chords to Twenty Flight Rock. Remembering the time he played it for John, the images flashed in his mind as he sung softly, his crooning voice barely audible to himself because the memories were so distractingly vivid.

He shook his head slowly and sat the guitar down, laying back on his bed.

He'd been avoiding this all day, the moment his thoughts would be free to run wild, and he wouldn't be able to contain everything he'd been holding in.

He felt like he could laugh, or cry, or just bloody scream into his pillow, if it got some of these heart-pounding feelings to go away.

Him, and John...

they had--

he had let him..--

Fuck, no turning back now, was there?