I get through the second day. And the third. And the fourth. Actually, after a while, life starts to seem pretty normal again. I never saw John much anyway. But that’s not what stings. What stings is knowing he’s not here. Finding myself reaching for the phone like I used to, to check on him in New York, not caring about the calling fees, just wanting to talk for hours. And then I remember: all I have to do to check on him now is look at a magazine or newspaper stand. See the face of his murderer, or the hallowed out, photographic eyes of him himself.
As I look through old pictures, I start to wonder why, in all the pictures with Yoko, John isn’t smiling. But I can’t stand to look at those pictures anymore, so I find old ones of my own, from fifteen or so years ago, of John and I, with our Beatle haircuts, both of us smiling at each other. He was always smiling at me, looking at me with those soft brown eyes, until I looked back at him, my gaze wide-eyed and glimmering.
I decide to go to the studio again today, alone this time. I leave a note for Linda, who’s out taking the kids to school, tell her where I’ll be, that I want to be alone. Hop in the car and go. The radio’s playing a new band, so I turn it up and listen, curious, as always. The music fills me up, makes me forget what I’m doing temporarily, so that I’m just going through the motions of the drive.
But then the music changes. Suddenly, it’s John’s voice filling up the car. My song. In My Life. The car swerves as I lose control of my thoughts. My breathing, too, becomes involuntarily irregular, as I remember the evening he first played me the song. The cloudless sky, the brilliant sunset. He loved that about New York, how the skies were always so much bluer, like the sky was that day.
His voice sends shivers through me. This is all I have left of him: repeated recordings, empty promises. A relationship that could have never been. I think that’s what killed John. The secrecy of it, how we couldn’t tell anyone, not even George or Ringo. And yet, he still loved me. When we were alone, he’d take my face and kiss me slowly and passionately, just because no one was around to say he couldn’t. You can do anything in secrecy.
He was the only man I ever loved.
His voice agitates an ache in my stomach so deep, I’m sure I must be dying. It’s a miracle I make it to the studio in one piece, but even once I get there, I can’t bring myself to turn off the radio and go inside. It feels wrong to stop listening to him when I miss him so sharply. I just want to hear his voice, hear him harmonize with me, feel his hand entwined in mine, his lips sweet as I taste him with a forbidden fervor. The memory of doing just that is so strong that when I finally turn off my car and walk into the studio, I half expect him to be there, make some joke, hop up off a chair, chide me for being late, his lips lingering just a little too long near my ear until I become afraid everyone’s going to realize John and I are more than just songwriting partners, more than just best friends.
“If you were here today,” I hum under my breath, my lips finding the melody easily. But nothing else comes, at least not anything that belongs in a song, nothing that would be less than ten minutes, twenty even. I need distance to write a song about John, and this revelation hurts; he could write about me straight from the start. What can I do if I can’t even write a song about us?
My eyes sting again, but I get to work again, pushing the tears away, pick up an acoustic guitar and finger notes, humming a song I’d started before John died. But it doesn’t feel the same way it did a week ago, not now that I’m swirling with internal conflict. And as I try to rework sections that aren’t clicking, I just get frustrated.
I am startled out of my frustration by the feeling of hands pressing on my shoulder, and I breathe in Linda’s sweet smell. I can’t even be mad that she didn’t listen to the note saying I wanted to be left alone, because it feels so good to be in her arms.
“You really loved him, didn’t you?” she whispers, and I know that although she always knew that, she’s just now grasping the depth of it.
“You have no clue,” I say.
She takes my face in her hands. “Oh, I think I do,” she says, and kisses me.
I melt into her again, and whisper, “Thank you. I love you. I love you so much.” I want her to know in case anything ever happens. It’s important for her to know. And I never realized it until John died.
“I love you, too.”
It means so much to me that I still have someone left to love me that I can’t help but cry again. I still have the love of my life to help me through my grief. This thought makes me smile through my tears. But then I remember that Yoko has no one, and even if I might not like her that much, no one should have to go through this alone. I can’t even imagine what that’s like. Linda made me happy after my relationship with John became rocky and uncertain. She swept in, took me off my feet, and took away some of the pain I felt about losing John after our relationship collapsed and he found Yoko. To her, we were just feuding best friends, and yet she somehow managed to capture us in our best moments to remind us we were still friends. She fixed my life, made me whole again, and I have no doubt she can do it again.
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Yesterday (McLennon)
FanfictionAfter John is murdered, Paul has to learn to live without him, all while trying to sort through the memories of the relationship they had during their time with the Beatles.
