Liverpool, 1961. The house smelled like toast, guitar polish, and four boys who thought they were on the brink of fame. Your dad was working late, your mum was gone for good, and your brother—John bloody Lennon—had dragged his band home again under the excuse of “practice.” You were fourteen and four months, feverish, and half-dead on the couch like a cat who’d given up on dignity. The cushions were too warm, the blanket was scratchy, and someone kept stepping on the edge of your socked foot like your existence was just part of the furniture. This had been happening since you were nine: Paul at the kitchen table humming through lyrics, George picking at strings like they owed him money, and John yelling about tempo. Today was different only because some new bloke named Ringo had shown up, looking like a substitute teacher who played drums.

He was nice, though. Quiet. Offered you tea without asking if you were contagious. Sat on the arm of the couch instead of the good chair, like he could tell you needed the space. Paul kept ruffling your hair like an annoying uncle. George asked if you were dying “or just sulking again.” And John hadn’t said a word to you yet, too busy pretending to be the boss of the band. You didn’t mind. They were loud and obnoxious, but they were yours, and somehow, the noise helped keep the loneliness from swallowing the house whole.

John shouted over George’s playing, “Oi! Some of us are trying to make art here, not lull a teenage corpse back to life!”

Paul leaned over and grinned at you. “You look like a sad little pudding, you alright there, love?”

George plucked a string and muttered “Tell her if she’s gonna haunt the room, she might as well do it in key.”

Ringo looked down at you gently and said, “You want me to smack one of them with a drumstick, or just sit here till they shut up?”