I hardly slept at all, wallowing in misery the entire night. A ton of bricks had dumped on my shoulders. Dr. Thorne would murder one of them if I didn’t suck it up and stay here. But then, how would I keep him from killing them anyway? They were all so damn talented. And so damn ambitious. It was impossible to keep them away from music.

I felt empty and trapped. Like it would never happen, and that this timeline was meant for them to die. And if they were going to die, I would rather not be around to see it or hear about it. Julia was enough for me.

Everything was so dismal that I didn’t want to leave my bed. I didn’t want to talk to John. But I didn’t want to leave. And I didn’t want to create any other excuse for Thorne to load those bullets.

The window cast a soft early morning sun patch which crept along the floor until it was a blazing afternoon square on my wall. For hours everything had been eerily quiet. And then the front door wooshed open from below.

“Where have you been?” Mimi scolded loudly enough for me to hear.

“At Paul’s,” John said softly. I sank into my bed and pulled the covers to my mouth. Hearing his voice physically hurt. I missed his stupid voice.

“You should have telephoned,” she snapped.

There was a strained pause. My ears throbbed to hear his reply. He interrupted her frustrated sigh with a mumbled, “Sorry, Mimi”. Then footsteps drudged up the stairs.

I tensed in my bed, pressing my covers so hard against my mouth that my teeth cut into my bottom lip. I held my breath waiting for the familiar creak of his bedroom floor.

Instead, there was a knock at my door. A slow and penitent rhythm.

A shadowy silhouette of two shoes stood at the wide gap underneath the door. I flopped my head onto my pillow to stare at the ceiling. I didn’t want to see his face. It just made everything so much harder. My eyes were starting to water again. I sniffed it away.

There was another sniff from John. The silhouette underneath grew as he slid against the door and sat on the ground.

A folded piece of paper slid underneath the crack and knocked into the foot of my bed. Creased right down the middle. My name scribbled on the front in cursive. My full name. Emmeline.

The crisp letter sitting non assumedly on the floor. John’s backside still darkened the gap underneath the door. The curiosity got to me and I plucked the folded paper off the floor.

Inside was a doodle of a little man with big cartoonish tears dripping from his face and forming an ocean. The only words written were “I’m sorry. – John.”

I whimpered. My shoulders dropped. Why did he have to come around all sad? It didn’t make the decision any easier for me. I closed my eyes tight and took a breath. I left my bed and opened the door. John scurried to his feet to face me.

“Em,” he said, his voice reminded me so much of when I had brought him a dinner plate at Julia’s funeral.

“What do you want, John?” I asked.

He looked past me and directly at my luggage open at the foot of my bed. “Are you leaving?” he asked.

I shrugged. Not exactly out of coldness, but because I really didn’t know.

John’s eyes dropped to the ground. “I’ve been to Paul’s,” he said. “He explained to me that there’s nothing going on between you.”

“You should have trusted me. Not run away to check in with Paul when I could have told you what was happening,” I said. How could I do this? How could I get after him for not trusting me when all I ever did was lie to him? I held my poker face as guilt jabbed me in the stomach.

“No, you’re right. I know, you’re right. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” He shrank down as if he were shriveling inside of himself.

“And…” I swallowed. “That other guy is just my boss. It’s an internship through the College of Art. Not at it.”

“I’m sorry, I should have guessed,” he said.

 More lying. More deceit. I felt sick. Every part of my soul ached to tell him the truth. How I was trying to save not only his life but the life of his best friend.

“I really love you… but I won’t be with anyone who treats me like that,” I said. And that was the truth.

He had those same teary eyes he wore at the pub. “I won’t, ever again, Em. I swear. I’ve never done anything like that before. I— I don’t know where my head’s at. I haven’t been right since my mum died.”

This grim feeling oozed into my mind. My fault. My fault for not saving his mom. My fault for drafting it into my proposal. My fault for actively trying to ruin his life since I came up with the idea.

“That’s not an excuse,” I said, adding to myself in my mind, “Glass wall, glass wall, glass wall.”

“I know. It’s not,” he said with a quiver in his voice. “But I can change. Whatever you want, I’ll do it. I will. Anything you want. You have me. I’ll be whatever you want me to be, Em. Because without you, I’m nothin’ besides.”

My heart pricked at that one. A big fat crush of a prick, that I couldn’t shake off. I stared at him hard with my hand on the door. His eyes weak, curled into himself as if I were about to bludgeon him to death with a frying pan or something. I hated seeing him like this. I hated myself, mostly.

“Please,” he whispered.

“I need someone stable,” I said.

“I’ll do anything,” he repeated.

Wait a minute. My posture straightened. What did he mean he’ll do anything? Was that anything anything? Because if he really meant that…

“I need a ring,” I said.

He rattled his head in surprise. “What?”

The idea unfurled right before me. The dawn after a moonless night. This wasn’t the end. I could salvage this mission.

“I can’t stay here in Liverpool unless I’m engaged… And I can’t be engaged to a starving musician who wouldn’t be able to provide for me. I need someone stable with a stable job.”

His eyes shifted as his mind whirred and struggled to compute the change of events. Good sign, he didn’t immediately start yelling at me. Bad sign, he didn’t immediately agree to it. Nothing but a shocked silence.

“So, if you really love me then… I’m sorry, John. It’s me or the band,” I said abruptly and then shut the door on him.

The silhouette of his feet remained under the crack of the door. I pressed my ear against the smooth wood. But there was nothing. Not a sound. No shift inside my rib cage. No split in the timeline.

The feet under the door stayed for a long time, shuffling, and acting unsure of what to do. Then finally after what felt like forever, the shadow left.

My ultimatum hung heavy in the air. The timeline hadn’t split, but what did that mean? Maybe he hadn’t made his choice yet. Or the timeline was still careening down the original path. But I couldn’t be sure where that path was going. He told me at the fair that he loved me. He seemed sincere. He seemed sincere when he came to the door.

My lungs were burning, and I finally exhaled. I wasn’t sure. I probably scared him off for good. But Thorne didn’t know that. And if nothing else, the ultimatum had bought me some time. I had a chance at a proposal now. A chance at taking John away from music and away from Paul. I could talk Thorne into setting the mission back on track. Keep everyone safe.

I waited for the sun to set before leaving for Thorne’s hotel. No way was I going to chance running into Stu again. As the last rays were settling behind the rooftops, I quietly slipped downstairs and out the kitchen door.

No sign of John.

I walked for a long time. In my stupid, stupid fifties heels. Why would they do this to women? Why did they hate women so much? Ugh. After a while, I took the heels off and walked on the sidewalk in my stockings. They got wet within the first two minutes and I stepped on at least five hundred icky cancer sticks.

I barged my way into Thorne’s room without knocking. I held my chin high, hoping to bluff the most confident of expressions.

“Things are underway,” I said shutting the door behind me. My hands trembled as they released the doorknob, and I hid them under crossed arms. “Soon we’ll have the marriage proposal and no more Beatles.”

He watched me with a dark and haunting look.

I sat on his bed with my arms crossed tight. “At this point, we just have to wait for him to make a move.”

“It’s over, Emmeline,” he said suddenly. “The mission is over.”

I tightened my lips against my teeth. “What do you mean?”

“He’s not giving up his friendship with McCartney,” Thorne said with a blank expression. “He’s not giving up music and he’s not proposing.”

“You don’t know that,” I said. “He hasn’t decided yet.”

Thorne took a paper off the table and tossed it furiously onto the bed covers.

“What’s this?” I asked without daring to uncross my arms.

“A request form to audition for The Cavern,” he said in a gruff voice. “He left with Paul shortly after speaking to you and filled this damn thing out before I intercepted it.”

I examined the paper on the paisley bedcover. Sure enough. John’s handwriting. Tomorrow morning 10 AM. Quarrymen. Signed John Lennon, Paul McCartney.

“I can stop the audition,” I said my throat constricting. “I can still get him to choose me instead.”

“He won’t choose you. I know that. You know that,” Thorne said with a sneer. “I think you’re forgetting that I can feel when the timeline splits just the same as you.”

My shoulders tensed, pulling my entire torso with them.

“So?” I asked with a choking voice.

“So, the timeline didn’t split,” he said blankly. “He didn’t choose you.”

My chest rose and fell quickly. “He hasn’t made his choice yet. You have to give him more time.”

“It’s over, Emmeline. It’s done. You know what you have to do.”

My nose stung and twitched, and I pushed it away with my anger. “I don’t have to do anything. I need more time.”

“No more time. No more chances. You need to decide tonight,” he said. “Who will be eliminated, McCartney or Lennon.”

The breath collectively knocked out of me.

“No, I can’t just make that choice—”

“Eliminating one of them is going to alter this timeline, so you need to tell me who is behind the success of The Beatles.”

“I don’t know,” I said my voice shaky.

“You do know,” he snapped. “You know who it is. You know who has to die.”

“No one! I mean, neither of them! No one is more talented than the other.” I felt desperate like a rodent trapped by a cat in an alleyway.

“Then is it George? Or maybe it’s this Ringo. Tell me who has to die, Emmeline.”

“I can’t— I don’t know.”

“Tell me who has to die, or I will eliminate all four of them.”

“No, you can’t! They’re just kids!”

“Then tell me who has to die!” Thorne yelled.

“John!” I heard myself shout. Then a dark silence filled the rest of the room.

Thorne’s posture relaxed.

I hung my head. “I know it’s John… Not because he’s the most talented… but because he’s the one who will never give it up.”

“Then it’s time to finish the mission,” he said.

I leapt off the bed and gave Thorne a piercing glare.

“I HATE you,” I said, pushing each and every sound of the word so he would feel it. Feel it driving right into his malicious mind. I shoved past him and out the door, slamming it behind myself and running down the stairs so roughly the entire stairwell echoed like a war drum.

Dashing down the street, I could no longer contain the intense choking sobs that were creeping up on me. I cried. A real, hard, ugly cry. Loud and uncontrollable. At least one small family stared at me as they passed.

“What’s the matter, dearie?” the woman asked me.

I was so overwhelmed and overran that I pushed past. My footsteps picked up speed. I was running but everything seemed to be moving around me in slow motion.

Trapped at every turn. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t just leave John to die, but how could I stay? I couldn’t salvage what was. Obviously, he would not give up his music and I would only get more attached before having to kill him. It was toxic. Everything about the situation. I wanted to run away back home, but I couldn’t.

So I ran to the next best place. The place that had most felt like home since I had been there. Strawberry Field. Outside the big iron gate, I took my heels off again. My stockings were covered in cigarette butts, leaves and at least one prickly thorn.

Thorne. He was a thorn. A big fat thorn.

Thinking of him, made me cry harder. He would kill those teenagers no problem. He would put them all in a shallow grave by the river. The imagery made me sick. I had gotten to know them. Hear their voices in person. Talk to them about their dreams. Kiss John…

I grabbed ahold of the iron gate with both hands, grunting as I hoisted myself and climbed to the other side. The night air made the iron that much colder. I let go a little too soon, landing hard on my feet and almost knocking over. Shutting my eyes tight, I leaned against the gate and stuck my hands into the pockets of my jacket. There I found a folded piece of paper.

I pulled John’s neatly folded note from my pocket and held it in my shaking hands. The note he told me was only for bad days. Wow. If there were ever a bad day, I would say this takes the cake. I sighed from the top of my chest. Not daring to open the contents.

Reading that note would do nothing for my emotional glass wall. But, fine. I was obviously beyond that now.

I unfolded one side. Then the other. Slowly exhaled and turned the paper to see what John had written at the fair.

On the other side of the flyer was a sketch of a girl kneeling with her arms lovingly around the neck of an angry tiger. A boy watched with a big grin from behind the barrier, half a dozen hearts around his head.

Beneath that, he had scribbled a couple of lines.

            A cheetah has spots,

            A tiger has stripes,

            And I have a girl,

            Who fits me just right

            I love, love, love you!

• John

That was the secret message? I thought it was going to be some profound words of advice or something. I let out a laugh. But as soon as the air rushed in from that laugh it turned into a sob.

I pressed his poem against my chest. “John. No. No.”  

I wandered aimlessly into our secret garden. The garden that he took me to. That’s where I collapsed. My eyes were soggy and swollen and I was too exhausted to cry anymore.

I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. Whatever. I was drowning and I didn’t care anymore. Time to sink underneath the waves.

“Play Que’s videos,” I commanded my IND. It lit up and projected the screen right in front of me. The video of us playing at Big Bear appeared, lighting the entire garden around me.

Not more than a few seconds into the video and I was jolted by a distinct feeling. A pulling inside my chest. The tug of war between the two rib cages.

 I bolted up. What had happened? The timeline split somehow. But what? What was it? I scanned the garden until I found what had caused the split.

John sat not too far away from me, his eyes wide, staring at me and my activated IND with a frightened look.

Oh. My. Galactica.            

“System override, camera off!”

The ferry rocked its way toward Liverpool. This time instead of holding my hand, John wrapped his arms around my shoulder and held me close. It was wonderful. I felt protected from the rough wind of the River Mersey.

When we got off the boat and were walking on the prom, John suddenly grabbed me by the waist and pulled me into an alleyway, away from the prying eyes of the boardwalk. He kissed me so passionately, he left me breathless.

After that good long smooch, John whispered in my ear. “Stu’s gone on holiday,” he said. “And I have the key to his room.”

All my little hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. I wanted to melt right there in the middle of the alley way.

“Do you want to go?” he asked.

I nodded rapidly. “Yes. Yes, please. Big yes. Let’s go. Right now.”

He took me by the hand, and we ran off toward the shared house where Stu had his room. My heart was pounding so hard, I could have popped and passed out right there and then. After all that romantic time on the sand dunes and the fun fair. I was ready for this. More than ready.

We swept into the house and past Stu’s roommates so fast they probably thought there was a heard of escaped lions outside. We tore into the hallway and John opened the door to Stu’s room so hard that it hit the wall with a bang.

“Get over here!”

He swung me into the room, sweeping me literally off my feet. The door hadn’t even closed all the way before John was viciously necking me. Yes, finally, alone! No Mimi. No Thorne.

Wait.

John undid my top button and started to kiss past my collar bone right on top of the little IND speck. I gasped and shoved him off.

“What? What’s wrong?” he asked.

I slapped my hand over my camera. “I need to use the restroom!” I squealed.

John blinked in confusion. “It’s outside, down the hall,” he said. “Are you alright? Are you sick?”

“No, it’s nothing like that. I just have to… take care of something.”

John laughed at me and sat on Stu’s mattress. “Everyone shits, Em. I’d really rather you do it sooner than later.”

“No, stop that! Don’t imagine that,” I said. “Keep thinking of me in a sexy way. Sexy thoughts, please.”

 “You don’t have a thing to worry about with that, Em. I haven’t been able to think of anything else since I was fourteen years old.” He stuck one of his Woodbines in his mouth and lit it.

“Good! I’ll be right back.” I slipped out the door. “Sexy thoughts!” I added before I shut it all the way.

I found the bathroom and locked myself inside.

“Camera override. Off.” I whispered as quietly as possible. Sorry, Thorne. Paul McCartney was just going to have to wait. And I really didn’t need this recorded for all Historians for all time. If I wanted to make a sex tape with John Lennon, I probably would have just done one virtually.

After I was sure my IND had terminated the camera, I slipped back down the hall and into Stu’s bedroom where John was waiting for me on the bed.

“Everything come out all right?” He asked with a big mocking grin on his face.

“Shut up,” I said pushing him onto the mattress and starting things up again.

Kissing. Undressing. Fingertips. Contact. Passion. All the tension we had hoarded for this one moment together … And then I felt that distinct buzzing hiccup from my IND. No way.

“That wasn’t fifteen minutes,” I said out loud.

“What?” John asked all breathy and confused. My IND buzzed again. It wasn’t a fluke. Thorne was tracking me. He was coming.

I slipped from under John and groaned, rubbing my face with both my hands.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” he asked, gently tugging on me. “Don’t go. Don’t be frightened. We can take things slower. I’m sorry—”

“It’s not you,” I said angrily throwing my legs off the bed. “It’s someone else.”

John sat up straight, staring at me as I put my clothes back on. “Someone else…” he repeated in a cold tone.

I pulled on one of my gritty sand-filled shoes. “No, not like that. It’s my work study thingy.”

“Work study again? What do you mean?” he asked. I grimaced. That excuse was wearing out, but I was too shaken and annoyed to think of anything else.

“I forgot that I have this problem. Well, not really forgot exactly, I just thought I could have one little ounce of grace for this kind of situation, but I guess not.” I picked up my other shoe and violently jammed it on my foot.

John watched me quietly. Probably more confused than disappointed. I wasn’t sure. It was hard to read him when he was quiet because he was hardly ever quiet.

“John, I’m sorry,” I said, slipping my arms into my sweater.

“That’s alright,” he said in that little quiet voice that was hard to read. “I can walk with you to the bus and we can go to the college together.”

“Uh…” He couldn’t come with me to the college. Because there was no work study at the college. “That’s alright. I’ll— I’ll say goodbye to you at the bus,” I said around the lump in my throat.

Frustrated. So frustrated that I could punch a hole in the drywall, reach through and strangle Thorne. What was he thinking buzzing me and tracking me like that? Hello! I was in the middle of something!

I imagined how I was going to yell at him, the next time I saw him. He thought I was the one compromising the mission? Ha! Every time I made a huge stride with Lennon in that department, he had a way to ruin it. He likes you? Tell him you like Paul. He loves you? Well too bad, I’ll force you to leave him.

I grumbled as I headed out of the house with a quiet John. Holding in my tears to spill on the bus ride to nowhere.

Then I saw Thorne, standing outside the building as if he were waiting for me. We caught eyes and as we passed, I gave him a dirty look. A super dirty look so he would know just how peeved I was at the situation. I couldn’t yell at him with John there, but I could yell at him with my eyes.

He called to me. “Emmeline.”

John pivoted on his heel and saw him. Thorne crossed his arms tightly over his chest.

“It’s time to go, Emmeline,” he said.

My jaw dropped. What in the world was he thinking? Ripping me away right in front of John’s face? Why would he do this?

John looked from me to Thorne and then back again. “Em, who is this?”

“It’s nobody,” I said through clenched teeth. “Just someone from my work study. He doesn’t matter. Let’s go.”

But Thorne hadn’t had enough of harassing me and ruining things yet. “You’re not leaving with him. You’re leaving with me. Right now.”

John’s eyes flashed and narrowed. “Piss off, you old man! Who do you think you are talking to Em like that? This isn’t just any girl, this is my girl. And she came with me.”

“Fine.” Thorne said, hardly giving Lennon his ice-cold gaze. “But she’s leaving with me.”

John turned me around by my arm. “Em? Who is this scabby looking troll, ay?”

I was shaking inside. I was so angry that he would show up and talk to John. Especially after all the constant berating about obeying the rules exactly. He was a walking example of a hypocrite and I hated him. I actually hated him.

“Emmeline, come with me now, or I’ll consider the mission compromised,” he said.

I could not believe the words I was hearing. Not only was he talking face to face with John, but now he was talking about the mission?

“You know what will happen if you don’t come with me, don’t you?” he asked, with a stern face.

“Whose fault is that?” I snapped back. “You shouldn’t even be here.”

“Em, what’s going on?” John pleaded with me.

I looked him in the eye, every inch of me wanting to drown into a big batch of tears. Everything had been so perfect until this moment. And now, how would I ever explain this to him? How could you explain something like this? You couldn’t.

Thorne had had enough. “If you don’t come with me now. I’ll end it right here.”

 Painful reality was sinking in. I had accepted a mission, with a partner who was hell bent on ruining it no matter how well I did. And I had fallen for a boy that I was going to have to murder.

“I’m so sorry,” I said to John, my voice tight and wavery. I left him and walked to Thorne. John stood on the pavement shocked, his hands clenching the opening of his jacket. His shoulders shrank underneath, like a lost little boy.

“Em,” he said quietly and confused.

A tear ran from the corner of my eye and slipped down the side of my nose. I got into the car.

“She doesn’t like you,” Thorne suddenly announced to John. “She’s having an affair with your bandmate, Paul McCartney.”

The color drained from John’s face. “What?” he asked with a small, hoarse voice.

“It’s important that you know that,” Thorne said swinging the driver’s door open wide.

John looked at me and wow, that look. That weak and trembling look will always be a haunting nightmare. Thorne got in the driver’s side and slammed the door shut.

As we drove away, I saw Lennon standing outside the building still clenching the front of his jacket and staring at our car. More tears ran down my cheeks.

“Why did you do that?” I blew up. “Why would you do that? Introducing yourself as a subject? How dare you do something of that magnitude after yelling at me for everything that I did? And for what? What am I going to tell John now, hmm? How am I possibly going to salvage this?”

“You left me no choice,” Thorne said, his voice equally as angry. “I gave you specific instructions and you deliberately ignored me. You’re only encouraging Lennon and I can’t have you compromising the mission in that way.”

“ME compromise the mission?” I asked jabbing at my chest. “When I wanted to save Julia’s life, you said no. And now you’re the one changing things around and doing whatever you feel like and whatever is going to mess things up between John and I.”

Thorne pursed his lips together as he kept his eyes to the road.

“Admit it, Thorne,” I said. “Just admit it. You didn’t give a single rat’s ass what happened with John. Because you were planning to kill him at the end of the hundred days.”

“That’s not the case,” he said, now yelling. “I am trying to help you have a successful mission despite every little twist and turn and way that you manage to screw things up. So excuse me for doing my job. And keeping this mission on track.”

“Oh, you’ve derailed the mission, bud,” I said with a little guttural laugh. “It is way derailed now. Taking me away from John in the middle of the street? What’s he going to be thinking now?”

“I wouldn’t have had to have done that, if you had told him about McCartney.”

“Alright, you know what? You don’t care about breaking up Lennon and McCartney,” I said leaning forward in my seat. “I think you were pushing for it because you wanted to see John be miserable. Just like you wanted his mom to die. And just like you can’t wait for the chance to shoot him. This isn’t about the mission. This is you and your little personal vendetta with the counterculture or rebellion or something. You hate John Lennon.”

Thorne slammed on his breaks so hard that I fell forward and bumped my shoulder into the dashboard. He whipped around to face me, his arm pulling himself forward on the steering wheel.

“Let’s get one thing straight right now,” he barked at me. “I don’t hate John Lennon. In fact, I couldn’t care about John Lennon even if I wanted to. Do you want to know what I hate? Being assigned to a demeaning little mission like this one. And I would do anything just to get on with it and get it over with. So I don’t have to spend every damn waking second sitting in my hotel room, watching a stupid little girl turning off her camera to endanger herself with a violent, unstable pop star. If you’re too attached, then that’s your problem. Grow up and execute this mission.”

And with that, he kept driving. I watched the downtown Liverpool disappear from the window and let the tears drip from my chin.