Hey You ⌲ Paul McCartney

19 // at last

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August 14, 1964 // 2:28 am
{ Soundtrack; At Last - Etta James }

The violent winds hammered at my window with passion and anger as I brought myself up from my unkempt bed. As I trudged downstairs seeking for a glass a water, I abruptly stopped in my tracks. There was this ominous loud knocking at my front door and the storm outside fell silent.

I tried to ignore it, but it wouldn't stop. The knocker was determined to get in here. I wanted to yell out for my Dad, but I didn't want to wake him up, it might make matters worse if the knocker knows there's actually people in here. I stood still for what seemed like hours, absentmindedly slowing my breathing as the the key groove started to shake.

I finally decided to take matters in my own hands and grab a lamp while walking up to the the peep hole. All I could make out was a fuzzy silhouette of a tall, slender man. "Who's there?" I yelled out.

"Ah, would you just open the bloody door already?" He retorted, making me step back and rethink what I'm going to do next. But suddenly, he said something else that drastically changed the situation. "It's Lennon.. Y'know, John."

I opened the creaky door and found myself face to face with the boy who loved me and broke me faster than light speed. His soaked hair fell over his eyes, evoking a dark and melancholy-look. He wore grey blazer over his collared shirt, clearly coming from somewhere fancy.

"Hey, buddy, what are you doing here?" I asked as he walked in. He shrugged and asked to stay.

"I just can't do it. The fame and the fortune and the success... It's all piling up too much; too fast," he mumbled, seemingly seconds away from crying.

I focused on the third person in the house, John, and on him alone, and if I had ever held any moments of doubt that he was as beautiful as I remembered him, they were washed away, then and there.

"You filled yourself up with so much light, you forgot about the shadows that'd follow." It took every ounce of willpower I could muster to talk to him and not merely rush in and crush him with a hug.

"Look, I never told you why I left and I'm sorry about that... But my son is turning 3 soon and I don't know what to do. I never had a real father figure in my life," he asserted. I knew he had a troubled life, I knew he never had anything easy. He told me all of this on his way to drop me off at my house, actually only a few moments away from swerving and crashing... Subsequently resulting in my arm being casted and he forsook me.

"Don't worry about that, alright? You'll be a great father and I know that," I reassured as he sat down at the foot of the stairs.

I noticed the gleam of his wedding ring on his finger. The contemplation about whether or not I should get married soon lacerated my brain again and I stood there, trying to distract myself from it.

"I just love Cyn so much, but I feel as though I'm not ready for this. I don't want to treat Julian the way me father treated me." It was evident he aspired to be a positive role model for his son, which made me happy.

"You won't treat him the way you were treated, I believe in you, John. Well I used to believe in everyone but... It's hard to believe in yourself when your dreams are so blatantly implausible," I sighed as I slumped onto the stairs, trying to sustain a low and soft whisper.

"And what is this blatantly implausible dream?" He spoke in his normal tone, prompting me to shoosh him so my dad wouldn't sprint down the stairs with clenched teeth and an axe for the bloke who broke my wrist.

"I want to go to Oxford. I want to study journalism - I want to write, but I can't get in, they keep rejecting me," I sulked as I motioned over to the pile of ripped up and shredded rejection letters. John without hesitating, picked up the pile and shuffled through them, reading them and throwing them to the ground with a grimace threatening at his lips.

"They're fucking sods, alright? I've read your stuff, and they're bloody brilliant!"

"Look, all I know is that I have stopped looking for validation in other people's eyes. My validation comes within. My meaning comes within," I said slowly. He nodded, and pulled out a folded, bent, and battered newspaper out of his dark-velvet trench coat pocket.

"You wrote for the daily paper... I know. I was at a newsstand and I saw your name bolded at the front of a newspaper and I read it - it was eloquent, compelling, just - brilliant! I read your articles every day for the next 4 months until you suddenly stopped," he explained thoughtfully, eliciting a cheeky smirk to my face.

"My professors told me that writing for shitty little newspapers would never get me anywhere... That I had to take classes day and night including my regular studies." John narrowed his curious eyes at me, pushed himself off the stairs and walked out through the front door without a noise.

"John! The hell are you doing?" I shouted.

"I'm gettin' you into Oxford, damnit!" He yelled back.

I tilted my head and considered this impetuous young man more carefully. He was weird one, for sure. My mind whirled as I tried to sort out his thoughts, and his motivations. He was surprising me with every word, considering that he was a now a famous Beatle, and yet, given the fire that I clearly saw burning behind his impenetrable brown eyes, he was not surprising me.

I saw trouble brewing there, in those simmering and too-passionate eyes, but even more than that, I saw excitement and the promise of thrills.

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