"Hi, I'm George." 

"I'm sorry."

"You're not interested?"

"Oh, no, I'm very interested.  But I'm also interested in my boyfriend too."

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"You've got the most beautiful cherry hair.  I'm Paul."

"Thank you.  I'm Lucy."

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When John walked into Paul's apartment, he knew the younger boy hadn't left the house in days, nor he had called in his cleaning lady or picked up after himself.  He found him asleep on the couch, curled up in a ball.  His face and eyes were red from crying himself to sleep the night before.  Empty bottles littered the floor and table, but there was a leather-bound notebook on the chair next to him.  

But when John went to touch it, Paul woke and said, "Let go!"  The older man immediately pulled away.  

"Alright, mate.  You've finally lost it.  You need a good shower, some proper food and someone to help you clean up this mess."  John marched over to the windows and pulled open the blinds.  

"Go away, John."

"No," he said, fimly, "not until you get cleaned up and relatively functional again."

Paul stood up rather wobbly.  "You don't understand.  You'll never understand!  I can't be 'fuctional' again.  My heart is gone, John!  It died in that car with her!  Imagine Cynthia and Julian dying without you being able to say goodbye.  How would you feel?  How could you continue to live?  Brian wants me to put a happy face, and say it was her time.  Say it's alright, and that I'm looking to you and my family for comfort.  No one understands!" 

John felt bad for his friend, and he was sad too.  He had known Lucy and Layla quite well.  Lucy had done some baby-sitting for Cynthia and John while they went on vacations or out for a gathering, and occasionally Layla would join.  But John had to admit that he and George had had more interesting times with Layla.  The girl wasn't afraid to drink, so they had spent many a drunken hour with her.  Meanwhile, Lucy enjoyed talking with Cynthia and playing with Julian.  

Thinking of Julian, John produced a piece of paper from his pocket.  "Hey, Jules wrote you a letter.  He said I couldn't read it."  He handed the folded paper to Paul who took it gingerly.  While he read it, John cleaned up some of the bottles and put them in Paul's recycling.  

"Did you see this?" Paul said, after a minute.  "He made a drawing of her."

It was a simple picture, but it showed how high of a pedestal Julian placed his baby-sitter on.  The drawing was of Lucy flying, wearing a dark blue dress, surrounded by stars.  "I think they're diamonds."

Paul smiled a bit for a moment, but then he dropped the picture.  Holding his hands above his head and then dropping them quickly, he said, "Diamond!  Oh...I-I was going to give her a promise ring.  It was one of the first things I bought when A Hard Day's Night started selling like mad.  I wanted to show her that...that I wouldn't stop loving her." he held his face in his hands.  John put a hand on his shoulder, but he shrugged it off.  After a minute, he wiped his eyes and sniffled, "I'm going to take a shower.  Will you, um, still be here when I-"

"Of course."

Paul felt only slightly less sick after cleaning himself up.  When he was dressing himself in new clothes, he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror.  He looked thinner and had rings around his eyes, from lack of sleep and eating.  Paul was drinking himself to his doom each night, but threw all of it up in the morning.

Suddenly, Lucy appeared beside him.  She held onto his shoulder and put a hand on his bare chest as they looked in the mirror.  Her hands moved down to his hip and stomach, which weren't very healthy looking.  "My dear, what has happened to you?"  Lucy carefully touched his hair and his newly shaven cheek, and he leaned into her hand.  He missed her gentle touch.  

"Paul..." she whispered, leaning up to kiss him.  He leaned down to kiss her, but found that he was only feeling the ghost of her, like amputees felt ghost pains on limbs they no longer had.

But the pain he felt was real.  All too real.  

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"Lucy, it's obvious.  I know you fancy Paul."  

"I do not.  I've only talked to him a few times.  He's an acquaintance if anything."

"What if I said I saw him staring at you when we went and saw their show last week?"

"It doesn't faze me, Layla."

"So...if I snogged him in the back room next time we see them at the Cavern, you wouldn't mind?"

"Don't you dare!"

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George had marks on both sides of his arms and he could barely lift his guitar.  Ringo didn't know, but he was starting to find out that something was quite wrong.  For when he was making tea, his sweater sleeve rolled up and his secret was revealed.  

"What the hell is that?" Ringo demanded.  "George, what have you-"

"It takes away the pain," he said, quickly.  He put the kettle down to let the water boil.  Ringo followed him out of the kitchen.  "But you're hurting yourself!  You're losing precious blood!"  

George turned around to face him.  "What's done is done."  

The older man continued to push him.  "Layla wouldn't have wanted you to do this to yourself."  

"How do you know what Layla wanted!  Before she died, she probably thought that I didn't care what she wanted..." George began to tear up.  "I-I read a part of her journal...Oh, God!" he hit the wall with his first, which didn't help the fact that his arm strength was failing.  "I was so stupid!  I should have seen the signs!"  

Ringo grabbed the younger man by his shoulders.  "George, you've got to explain to me.  What did you read?"  

George was sobbing.  "I was so cruel to her.  All she was trying to do was tell me...and I wouldn't listen...I...if I had known, I wouldn't have been so awful.  I should never have been so awful!"  

"Please, George.  Tell me.  I want to help you." Ringo pleaded.  However, when George finally told him, he hadn't the slightest clue on what to say.  

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Stephen showed up on George's doorstep the next day.  George knew what he was there for.  "You had to have known.  Why didn't you say anything to us?"

"I didn't know," was his reply.  "She-she was trying to tell me the night they died."

Layla's foster father was angry.  "How could you have been so careless!"  

"I didn't-"

The man clenched his fists.  "If you had listened to her-"

"THAT'S ALL I WANT TO DO NOW!" George shouted, silencing them both.  He held onto the doorway, fighting back tears.  Stephen ran a hand through his hair.  After a moment, he asked, "What...what about Lucy?  Do you know...is she...was she...?"

George shook his head.  It would have been something Paul knew.  

Stephen didn't say much before leaving again.  George was left alone, which was the time he loved and hated most.  

That night, he made a mistake.  

"Hello?" Paul's sleepy voice answered.  

"Paul...I need your help.  Please...I cut myself, and it's deep.  It won't stop bleeding.  I need you."  

"George!  Please...I was out, and I'm lost.  I need you." Layla cried into the phone.  She had gone out with Lucy, managed to lose her and was completely drunk.  Luckily, someone directed her to payphone.

The boy shrugged on his jacket, the corded phone in between his neck and ear.  "Don't worry, love.  I'm coming.  Just tell me what street you're on."

"Fine.  I'll be over in a minute or so."  

It was twenty minutes later when Paul arrived, and he came quite drunk.  His nightly routine had already begun.  

George, out of anger, had cut a straight line up his arm, from his wrist to his elbow, across all of the other cuts, which were now bleeding.  Paul helped him bandage it all up, but a bit haphazardly, for he couldn't see very well.  They would have to change the bandages more than once throughout the evening, for he bled through them.  

Paul was nearly passed out on the couch when George asked him if he had found out anything about Lucy after she died.  Paul said he found out that he loved her more than ever now that he couldn't have her.  

"I found out something about Layla...and me." he whispered.  

When George had the courage to flip to page 142, this was what he read:

Dear Diary, 

I honestly loathe these things.  They're so boring.  It's a Lucy thing to do.  

But I'm so scared.  

George's anger has worsened.  He doesn't want to cuddle anymore, and has taken to sleeping on the couch.  I've never made him sleep on the couch, so I don't know why he's doing it.  We've had so many fights.  Every night, it's World War Three.  It's always because of silly things, and I can't help but give it right back to him when he yells at me.  He knows I don't tolerate it.  

However, I found out something a few weeks ago, and I need to tell him sooner than later.  But what if he gets angry with me?  What if he never wants to see me again or leaves me?

I didn't even tell Lucy.  

And though I want to be able to handle it on my own if he doesn't want me after I tell him, I wouldn't be able to.  I need him.  We both would.

I'm pregnant with George's baby.

"She was expecting...with my child.  I remember I shouted at her once, and she just shook her head.  She said, 'If only you knew, George.'"  he began to cry silently.  "If...if I had just listened..."

"If I had just said, 'I love you,'" both of the lads agreed upon.  

Maybe they would still be there that day...