In Your Atmosphere (Paul McCartney/Beatles Fanfiction)

Chapter 34 - If I Needed Someone

If I needed someone to love

You're the one that I'd be thinking of

If I needed someone

Marisol moved like a robot through the next two weeks. Her only goal was to slog through each day of classes and dinner with her parents and hold in the tears until she could lock herself in her bedroom at night and sob herself to sleep.

Donna was a godsend. Feeling horrible for having broken the news that had broken her best friend's heart, Donna tried everything she could think of to distract her. One afternoon she showed up with a big smile on her face, pulled Marisol behind the barn, and brought out a tiny baggie full of weed. Marisol burst into tears.

"Oh my god! This is not the reaction I expected," Donna said, throwing her arms around her friend.

"Paul smokes pot every day for breakfast," Marisol wailed. "They were so funny together. I'll never see any of them again."

"Okay, it's okay," Donna said, rocking her and patting her back. "We'll never smoke weed again. We'll just drink more wine. You don't need those idiots."

Intro to Journalism was Marisol's last class before lunch on Monday. She was collecting her things, her mind a million miles away when her shoulder bag slid off the back of her chair. It fell at the feet of a tall, dark-haired boy and a tampon rolled out. Of course it did. It couldn't have been a pen, a butcher knife with blood on it, or a bag of pot, it had to be a tampon.

"Sorry," he said, in a British accent, reaching for her bag.

Her eyes snapped up to his face. Gray eyes, pale skin...and a dimple on his chin.

"Sorry," he said again when their fingers brushed as he handed her the purse. She scooped up the tampon and stuffed it inside the bag.

"Thanks," she said, and he gave her a nod.

That might have been the end of it, would have been the end of it, if not for that accent.

"You're English," she told him.

He raised a brow. "Guilty as charged." 

"My mother is English." Marisol forced a smile. She really did not have the energy for this.

"Let's not hold that against her." He held out his hand. "James. Notting Hill."

"Marisol." She shook his hand. "Nice to meet you, James Notting Hill." She turned away, heading for the door. He was cute. And the last thing on earth she needed.

Paul called that night from New York. It was the last night of their incredibly successful American tour.

That voice. Would there ever come a day when she could hear that voice without her heart breaking into little pieces?

"I miss you, Mari. I want to see you and work through this. I have two weeks off before we tour England again. If you won't go away with me, I'll come to California."

Instead of answering, she sat cross-legged on the floor and examined the ceiling, imagining what her life would be like if she'd never found out about Peggy Lipton. They could have shared two weeks together somewhere, and then he would be on the road again. His life was madness. And now that she had this girl's image and story in her head, could she forgive him and trust him again? Not likely. The lifestyle, the constant travel, the alcohol, the drugs, the women, the reporters chasing her. No way in hell.

If she saw him again, she'd only fall more in love and be tempted to move in with him and wind up even more devastated the next time a girl wrote a magazine article about being with him. She'd have to limp home from England in disgrace with her mother saying 'I told you so.'