Dedicated to ThisBensonGirl for KNOWING my name (by reading my Up in the Air A/Ns) and the awesome comment she left.

Listen to Help! by The Beatles in the sidebar or Light Years Away by MoZella.

I truly hope this chapter makes up for the long, long wait.

8 – Help!

“I'm not going to shove you off the ledge,” I announced after five minutes of Finn sneakily giving me worried glances. “So you can stop staring at me like I'm about to kill you.”

Of all the things he could have done – throw himself back into my bedroom and run far far away, for example – Finn Wallace did the one thing I wasn't expecting him to.

Finn Wallace laughed.

Just when I was starting to think he had a decent-sized brain inside that pretty little model-worthy head of his, he goes and laughs.

I felt my right eyelid start twitching. With it came a strange tingle in my right hand. It was the same hand that, come to think of it, was only inches away from his left.

It may have skipped Finn's mind that there was barely a foot of space between the pair of us, definitely more than enough space for me to eat my words from before and actually push him off to an untimely end. It probably never even dawned on him that I wasn't above giving into the overwhelming desire to send him crashing down to the gravel and cement pathway just ten feet below us if it meant silencing his booming laugh.

He should be okay if he didn't land on his head, I mused to myself.

If I pushed him so he fell a certain way, the worst thing that could happen was that he could break an arm or a leg. If he was lucky, he might even be able to walk off with a fracture or just a sprain.

Well, that's definitely better than being dead.

But Finn stopped laughing before I could act on my very strong and very murderous instincts.

“I didn't think you were going to push me,” he said, the left side of his mouth lifting up into a light-hearted smile. “As crazy as people make you out to be, Lennon, you just don't seem like the kind of girl that's looking for a reason to go to jail.”

I raised an eyebrow at him. “Make me out to be? So, you don't actually think I'm crazy?”

Finn didn't even blink. “No, not really. You're just … well, you're something else,” he shrugged.

“So you keep saying, Finn,” I replied in a flat tone. I slapped both my hands on my thighs in frustration and leaned back against the cool exterior wall of the house.

I'm not sure exactly when it happened, but being called something else had lost its appeal in the past ten minutes. The idea of being complimented that way no longer made me want to quirk my lips up into a smile. Now, all it did was make me want to push through with my aforementioned murder-the-hottest-guy-in-school plans.

I suppose Finn meant it as an honest compliment. But he'd already called me that three times since I met him. The first and second times he'd said it to me – wherein both cases involved some very light to moderate flirting – just didn't match up with the third.

If my parents were around, they'd be telling me not to question the compliment and to just suck it up and accept it like a lady.

There were two things wrong with that statement that even a Neanderthal could sniff out.

One: Lennon Simms, a lady?

Anybody who thought that was even close to being true was, without question, a delusional αsswipe.

Two: Compliments? Fυck yeah. Compliments that I didn't really understand? Fυck no.

The words something else could mean anything. Literally.

Finn could have been shooting for anywhere between boring-as-a-bag-of-dog-shιt and crazier-than-a-drugged-up-celebrity-on-a-downward-spiral. Feel free to visualize a former Nickelodeon or Disney star of your choice – I suggest Amanda Bynes or Miley Cyrus. But if you want to picture a guy, Justin Bieber looks like he's heading down that road too.

Hell, Finn Wallace could be calling me mutant.

Though Lennon “Bιtchzilla” Simms has an awesome X-Men kind of ring to it. At the very least, it'll make for a good super villain name if ever I do give in to my not-so-subservient evil side. It'll even work if a radioactive spider decides to chomp on my finger and I become the next friendly neighborhood superhero. In my case though, the friendly part is kind of debatable.

Bιtchzillajust fits with my personality. It might as well have been my actual middle name instead of the crαppy one my parents decided to oh-so-generously gift me with.

If you couldn't tell, that there was some some very lightly veiled sarcasm.

But going back to the real issue at hand, something else was starting to feel like it wasn't a compliment anymore. Instead, it was starting to feel like Finn Wallace's personalized filler words when it came to me. It was as if something else were just empty words that he pulled out of his head when he wasn't sure what to say next. Truth be told, it was starting to feel like a –

“It's not a cop out,” Finn finished my train of thought.

“You know,” I mocked. “You should try looking for work as a fortune teller or a mind reader at a carnival if being an underwear model doesn't pan out for you.”

How else could you explain how easily he just finished my sentence?

Finn just shook his head at me. “I meant it as a genuine compliment, Lennon.”

To that, I simply narrowed my eyes.

He seemed to understand that I was still doubting him. His eyes gained a determined glint to them and he squared his shoulders, he steeling himself. You'd think he was about to give a speech to the entire United Nations and not a sixteen-year-old headcase.

“Most girls – or at least most of the girls that I've met – are afraid of people thinking that they're strange or different. And you,” he paused to cast another worried look in my direction. “Well, you're not.”

I opened my mouth to tell him that he was wrong. I didcare – or at least I cared enough to make sure that what people were thinking of me was right. But before I could tell him just that, Finn had resumed talking.

“I'm not saying you don't care what people think about you but at the very least, you don't seem to have an issue with people thinking that you're different.” He flashed me a wide grin. “Or that you're crazy.”

Well that just hammers the nail into the proverbial coffin. Finn Wallace definitely had to be descended from a couple of legitimate psychics.

“It's because I actually aminsane, Finn,” I dead-panned and gave him my best I-shall-kill-you-if-you-doth-dare-protest eyes.

Again, he did the unthinkable and simply laughed at me.

Did this boy have a death wish?

“Lennon, you're definitely not crazy,” he insisted right when I was about to tell him to quit laughing or I was going to let him experience free fall in all its bone-breaking glory. “You're opinionated and headstrong, that's for sure, and you might be a little bit too honest at times. But crazy? No, definitely not that,” he smiled.

A little bit too honest.

That sounded eerily familiar. Where did I hear that –?

Ah.

Carter.

I turned away from Finn before he could see that my smile had melted into a scowl and stared off into the distance, at the lights that blinked from our neighbors' houses.

Was it really just an hour ago when Carter had said those same exact words to me?

Like Finn, Carter had also told me I wasn't insane – that, if anything, I was just a little bit too honest. I remember throwing back a lame joke at him – about how Dory from Finding Nemo was just a little bit too forgetful. Lame or not, we both had had a good laugh over it.

Shιt.

It felt like that conversation happened to a whole other person.

It kind of did, a snarky voice in my head happily chimed in. That version of Lennon didn't mess things up just yet with her all-too-perfect boyfriend.

I ungraciously – and in a lot more colorful words – told myself to shut the hell up.

Oh please, that voice in my head snapped back. You just hate the fact that you're just realizing how easy it was for you to fυck things up with Carter.

I imagined slamming my hand down on a mental mute button and tuned out the small voice before I got into a cat fight with myself. There was no need to add more things to the why-Lennon-Simms-should-be-institutionalized list. That list was already a mile long.

If I was going to be really honest with myself, I knew there were better ways I could have handled what happened with Carter. I could have talked to him calmly and rationally. I could have explained why getting the tattoo was a dick move on his part. I could have even avoided the scream-athon that had gone down not even ten feet away from where I was seated right now.

But all of those options needed me to have a firm hold over my anger and that was something I just didn't have.

I wouldn't be surprised if Carter had changed his mind about me not being crazy. If I were him, I definitely would think Lennon Simms was irrefutably insane. I wouldn't be surprised if Carter was looking up psychiatric wards and treatment plans right now.

Somehow, that snappy little voice in my head went back to talking. But instead of insulting me, it decided to bring up a quote – one that I'd read in passing a long time ago:

“We judge people by their actions and ourselves by our intentions.”

You saw how I flipped my shιt over the tattoo Carter got in my honor.

But he probably meant it as a grand romantic gesture – Carter was all-too-fond of those. To him, the tattoo was nothing more than a way for him to show me and the rest of the stupid world just how much he loved me – or, to be more apt, how devoted he was to me.

In the exact same way, I too had my own reasons – good ones, in my own opinion – for basically ripping his head out over what he'd done. I'd just turned sixteen a few weeks ago and Carter was turning eighteen in December. Yes, we'd been dating for almost a year but teenage love just isn't known to last – especially if youconsider the fact that we now live thousands of miles apart and in different timezones.

I can see you rolling your eyes at me and pulling out a stereotypical line most people dole out in situations like this:

“If you really love someone, you make time for them.”

See, this is why I hate stereotypes. Even the stereotypical pieces of advice that are floating around the world are made out of a hundred-percent bullshιt.

Oh, look! Lennon's being a drama queen again.

Paul, need I remind you, is the drama queen of the family. I'm just crazy.

I was a junior – a new kid at a new school in a new town who single-handedly banished herself to social Siberia after acting nuttier like a Christmas fruitcake in front of the whole student body. Only people higher up than me on the weird scale would even consider being my friend. Jared – were he not my frenemy – would be a very good example of that.

That just made me was a girl with an excess of free time, right?

Hell. Yes.

It would be nice if Carter Jones was the same boat. Except he wasn't.

Carter is a high school senior with college applications and the SATs to worry about on top of all his regular and advanced classes. Let's not forget about how he's on the swim team and how he's captain of the football team. To add to all of that, Carter is aiming for an athletic scholarship to a good college. Exactly why he wanted that scholarship, I really have no clue since he could buy a good college with his family's bank account.

As you can see, Carter already had a lot on his plate without a crazy girlfriend – overly attached or otherwise – adding to the mix.

So did my freak out over his tattoo really just come from the fact that I didn't want people to think that I was clingy and overly attached?

I'm crazy but I'm definitely not shallow.

You see, if you think about it, a tattoo is a scar.

You pay someone to rip out bits of your skin, little by little while dripping ink into the wound. After how many minutes' worth of pain, you get a visual reminder of a time in your life, a place, an event or a person.

In Carter's case, the word scrawled right above the skin covering his heart would always be a visual reminder of me. And, indirectly, that same tattoo would be a reminder of a relationship that didn't work out. At this point, it's really just a question of when we were breaking up and not if.

He could always get it removed, Lennon.

If only things were that easy.

One of the things that made Carter Jones so dαmn good at everything was that he had excellent follow through. I would bet my life – even Paul and George's – that there was no way in hell Carter Jones would get that tattoo removed.

That there is where my real problem with the tattoo begins.

Carter would think of it as a reminder of happy times – he is, after all, a humongous sap. But in my ever pessimistic frame of mind, I would always think of that tattoo as a physical reminder of something that ended. The ink might be on Carter's skin but it was on my conscience since I, obviously, was the one who fυcked everything up.

To Carter, it was a work of art. To me, it was nothing more than a scar.

I guess that's how Carter and I always operated. We weren't just opposite sides of the coin. We were different currencies altogether.

For one, I was never a flowers-and-hearts kind of girl. Carter, on the other hand … Well, Carter was a flowers-and-hearts-and-chocolates kind of boy.

Carter Jones – excessive romanticism aside – was perfect. The only thing perfect about me was my ability to piss people off and my vocabulary of curses and swear words colorful enough to convert every single black-and-white film ever made to technicolor.

Carter was the one guy every girl pined for and all the guys wanted to emulate. I was just the blonde that everyone – guy or girl – ran away from.

Or maybe all it came down to was that Carter loved me too much … or that I didn't – couldn't – love him enough. Carter had the heart of a lion while I only had the lion's roar.

“Opposites attract.”

Seriously, you need to stop pulling these crαppy sayings out of your αss.

That whole opposites attract thing? That's only pretty and poetic in a science laboratory when you're dealing with magnetic poles or electric charges. And yes, I actually do pay attention in class.

Things just aren't as black and white when it comes to people. The whole spectrum of social interaction is painted in a million fυcking shades of gray.

For a relationship to really work, there has to be at least some common ground.

Since I've already started spitting out facts harder than a skinny αss white boy who really wanted to be a hardcore gangster rapper, I'm going to own up to the fact that the only common ground Carter and I had were our hormones.

Embarrassing as it may be to admit, but that was really all our relationship boiled down to: biology.

Carter was so hot that the air around him sizzled and, as I'd earlier mentioned, I can be hot if I wanted to.  Together, we were a supernova.

But any kind of a fire, no matter how strong, will end up in embers and ash and, eventually, nothing. Whatever spark that existed between Carter and I, it was dying if it wasn't already dead.

We were always on borrowed time. Carter Jones and Lennon Simms always had an expiration date and something tells me that was either today – Friday, September 6, 2013 – or any of the next two days in this ill-fated weekend.

“Whatever it is that's bothering you, it shouldn't be enough to throw yourself off the ledge,” Finn said, breaking into my thoughts. His voice was light and teasing but when I turned to him, his jaw was clenched and there was a hard, determined edge in his hazel eyes.

While I'd been going through and contemplating the end of my relationship with Carter, I somehow managed to move away from Finn. Where earlier there'd only been a foot of space between us, there was now almost two. I was sitting right on corner of the ledge, half of my left hand already hanging above ten feet of empty air.

If that wasn't surprising enough, the fingers of Finn's left hand were wrapped tightly around my right wrist. It looked like he was poised to pull me to relative safety if ever something did happen – that something being me unknowingly launching myself off my bedroom ledge.

Before the thought even crosses your mind, let me make it clear that I'm neither suicidal nor am I in a state of depression.

There are people outside my sphere of existence that are actually suicidal or depressed – I'm aware of that fact, thank you very much. There are people with problems that can actually be called problems unlike my soon-to-be failed relationship and a pair of shoes that were just recently coated with a blonde cheer leader's stomach juices.

But foul-mouthed as I may be, I'm still entitled to the basic human right of being able to feel things. Lennon Simms is just in a dark place right now – not that my head is usually a meadow filled with sunshine, daisies and prancing, glittering rainbow unicorns.

I may have anger management issues – and a whole other bunch of issues that I won't even bother going into – but what I also have is perspective.

I'm not making light of anyone else's problems. I'm simply going through my own.

I gave Finn a small smile. It was the least I could do after he was being, for a teenage boy, unnaturally nice. “I'm going back in,” I announced, easing my wrist out of his grasp.

A look of relief crossed his face. “That's a good idea,” I heard him say from behind me as I pulled myself through the window. “You should probably be getting back to the party and, you know, have some fun,” he gave me a hopeful smile as he followed me back into my room.

I turned around and smiled at Finn. Unlike his though, my smile was twisted. “I'm not going back to dance and get drunk,” I informed him.

I wasn't going back into the party because I wanted to drink tonight into oblivion – I was going back because I had to.

On the list of things that I actually really valued in this world, my family was right on the top. My going back to my role as party supervisor wasn't even about how Dad would kill me if the house got wrecked or if the TV got smashed in.

I couldn't bring myself to leave Paul and George hanging, not when this party was as much my responsibility as theirs. I'd already left them on their own for a good hour or two while I was busy dealing with my non-problems.

As much as those two have driven me up the wall with their antics, the diva-slob and blond Satan were still my brothers and – prepared yourselves for a very rare moment of mush – there was genuine love between us.

“Listen, Lennon,” Finn started, his eyes slowly narrowing. “My offer still stands. If you want to talk about whatever it is that's got you down in the dumps –”

I silenced him with a glare. I wasn't being cute when I told him I wasn't the talk-your-feelings-out type.

“Finn, I'm done with being down in the fυcking dumps,” I hissed. “I don't even know why I just spent thirty minutes sitting out there on that ledge like a sad little puppy.”

If you paid attention to my internal Carter-centric monologue from earlier, you can probably tell that was a bold-faced lie.

Finn, however, didn't have the golden privilege of being privvy to the innermost workings of my messed up blonde head. He simply stood in the middle of my room and watched as I marched up to my closet, pulled out an old pair of scruffy black boots and shoved both my feet into them.

I turned around to look Finn in the eye. “If you're waiting for me to open up about how pissed off I am that I just fυcked things up with Carter, that's never going to happen. The same thing can also be said if you're waiting to find out why Carly probably thinks I'm going to rip her pretty little head off the next time I see her –”

“I didn't come here to gossip,” Finn roared. He ran a hand through his dark hair, taking in a deep calming breath to steady himself. “I already know about the thing with Carly, alright? I ran into her and she told me what happened. I just wanted to see if you were okay. Not everyone is out to get you, you know.” He clenched his jaw, as if he was bracing himself for a fresh tide of red-hot Lennon Simms anger.

It was my turn to do something unexpected.

My feet shuffled nervously against the tile floor as I looked up at him and flashed a very tiny smile. “I'm sorry,” I mumbled. “I've just had the most fυcked up night and –”

“I'm not looking for an explanation,” Finn repeated. “I told you I just came here to see if you were alright,” he stopped. “You are, aren't you?”

Was I alright?

Of course I wasn't, fυckface. But Finn Wallace didn't need to know that.

“Yeah,” I lied, plastering a smile onto my face.

Finn nodded, confirming the fact that an Oscar for Best Actress was probably in my immediate future. “That's good,” he mumbled, nervously stuffing both hands into the pockets of his jeans. He turned to look at my closed bedroom door. “We should probably be heading back, shouldn't we?”

I nodded and took the initiative to step out of my bedroom first with Finn following close behind me.

There's a strange thing called Murphy's Law that goes, “Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.”

Why the sudden philosophy lesson?

You'll find out in a minute or two.

But Murphy's law is a law for a reason.

As if a reunion with a boyfriend and vomit-covered motorcycle boots weren't enough wrong for tonight, I just had to yank my bedroom door at that exact moment.

Standing in front of me, a foot raised in the middle of a step they'd been taking, was the one person in the entirety of Middle of Nowhere High who had an unfounded anger and hatred towards me.

MATHletes president, Ghost Girl, the Wicked Math Bιtch of the West Wing – whatever it is you wanted to call her, she was the rail-thin pale-as-a-sheet girl who went by the name of Elena McDermott.

To top it all off, her phone was in her hands – the same phone that nearly blinded Finn and I when the flash went off.

It probably doesn't need to be said but Elena had taken a picture – one of me and Finn exiting my bedroom, both of us looking worse for the wear – before she ran down the hallway to who-fυcking-knew-where.

I was never a fan of non-verbal communication. So unlike Finn who let out an irritated groan at what had just happened, I simply opened my mouth to say the one thing that very well described how tonight had gone down for me.

“Fυck.”

DRAMAAAAAAA!!!

Moe Lee to the side! (Park Ki Woong looks prank-y, badαss-y and awesome)

Read Paul and George's interview in The Crayon Chronicles (External Link).

Chapters 1 to 7 now have more substance and detail and Lennon feels more human to me now. Check them out if you want. Also, if you like how this chapter was written, please tell me in the comments :D

Please don't bark at me if you didn't laugh as much with this chapter as in the previous ones. One, this chapter actually wasn't meant to be funny. Instead, it was more contemplative and to make Lennon more three-dimensional and accessible (as a human being). To top it all off, my funny bone needs some oiling. I will be funnier in future chapters. Patience, young grasshopper.

VOTE. COMMENT. SHARE. (And follow? XD)

- Chompy aka Krista

P.S. I missed you guys :D