𝚃𝚊𝚜𝚝𝚎 𝚒𝚗 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚝𝚘𝚗𝚐𝚞𝚎,

𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝚜𝚖𝚘𝚔𝚎 𝚒𝚗 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚕𝚞𝚗𝚐𝚜,

𝙰𝚗𝚍 𝙸 𝚗𝚎𝚎𝚍 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚕𝚘𝚟𝚎, 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝙸 𝚗𝚎𝚎𝚍 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚕𝚘𝚟𝚎.

𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝚜𝚊𝚕𝚝 𝚘𝚗 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚜𝚔𝚒𝚗,

𝙸𝚜 𝚙𝚞𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚖𝚎 𝚒𝚗.

𝙰𝚗𝚍 𝙸 𝚗𝚎𝚎𝚍 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚕𝚘𝚟𝚎, 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝙸 𝚗𝚎𝚎𝚍 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚕𝚘𝚟𝚎.

𝙸 𝚍𝚘𝚗'𝚝 𝚠𝚊𝚗𝚗𝚊 𝚜𝚊𝚢 𝚐𝚘𝚘𝚍𝚋𝚢𝚎 𝚝𝚘 𝚊𝚗𝚘𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚗𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝.

𝙰𝚗𝚍 𝚠𝚊𝚝𝚌𝚑 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚠𝚊𝚕𝚔 𝚊𝚠𝚊𝚢.

𝙸 𝚍𝚘𝚗'𝚝 𝚠𝚊𝚗𝚗𝚊 𝚕𝚎𝚝 𝚒𝚝 𝚋𝚞𝚛𝚗 𝚒𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚌𝚒𝚝𝚢 𝚕𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝𝚜

𝙰𝚗𝚍 𝚖𝚊𝚔𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚜𝚊𝚖𝚎 𝚖𝚒𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚔𝚎𝚜.

𝚃𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚝𝚒𝚖𝚎,

𝙸 𝚍𝚘𝚗'𝚝 𝚠𝚊𝚗𝚗𝚊 𝚠𝚊𝚜𝚝𝚎 𝚒𝚝.

"Could we not?" Eddie shot back, feeling queasy and ill all of a sudden. He didn't want to talk about it, especially not in front of Lennon.

Wayne groaned and turned to the girl standing by the door like a skittish mutt found on the street. She didn't look like she was comfortable and she didn't know what to do other than be present at a time that wasn't ideal to have company in.

She looked like a frightened animal caught in a trap, unable to move, unable to do anything but beg to be let go.

Truthfully, she was frozen in fear. It was all making more sense the longer she stood by the door, watching these two men argue and yell.

Why Wayne was so mad, the rattling of pills in his pockets that were shaking like maracas, Eddie's ambiguous and half-dead complexion, and his sluggish movements...

"I'm sorry about this," Wayne waved his hand into the air and offered Lennon a sympathetic glance. "This..." he sighed, turning towards the ground with a head full of incoherent thoughts before he looked up at Eddie angrily. "We will be talkin' about this later, you hear me?" Wayne moved to take Eddie by the shoulder. Eddie's whole body jerked and fell with the weight of his hand which seemed unnerving to Lennon.

"Mmhm," Eddie's eyes rolled slightly as his uncle gently moved him over to walk past.

"Knock some sense into him, would you?" Wayne asked, meeting Lennon's troubled eyes and feeling remorseful for shouting as he did.

She nodded her head shyly as he moved past her and made his way into his room.

It was just Lennon and Eddie now.

She turned to him fearfully and couldn't help but examine his state with a more considerate eye knowing what she knew.

His eyes were sunken slightly, puffy, and pink. His clothes were crumpled and his limbs were loose and almost disconnected from his body. His head was bent to the floor before his eyes moved towards his defiled cabinets by his bed.

"What's the time?" Eddie grumbled, hiding his eyes and wiping at them again. He was hoping they could move on and forget that ever happened but Lennon wasn't cooperating.

Lennon didn't reply. She couldn't stand the thought. She was truly hurt by the idea of Eddie filling his body with prescriptions with the intention of doing damage.

She was staring at him coldly, not wanting to believe it but not being able to find her voice to ask.

Her silence caused him to glance over and that only made it harder to look at him without wincing.

"Lennon..." he trailed off, dropping his hand from his face and causing his whole body to run loose and malleable.

He watched her face harden with pain, squeezing her bag tightly and grinding her teeth with restraint.

"Lennon," Eddie addressed again, taking a step towards her and watching her big green eyes follow his bloodshot ones in horror.

"You..." she broke off, reeling back and feeling like her feet were rooted into his carpet. She searched his eyes for answers but found none that would save her from crying. "Why?" her voice broke suddenly.

She had to swallow against the painful knot in her throat and pretend like her eyes didn't feel like a thousand needles were poking them from behind as she fought tears.

Her stomach tensed and her heart rate quickened with realization. It was true. He took a bunch of pills last night. There was no other reason for someone to do that if they weren't trying to...

By the angels...

"I wish you wouldn't look at me like that," he said in a low voice as he winced at the display of trepidation on her face. Her lip was tensed and worried, her eyes were big and sympathetic, her forehead was wrinkled slightly as she tried not to get bleary-eyed, and her knuckles were turning white as she clutched her bag out of fear.

"Like what...?" her voice was small and timid. She feared if she tried speaking normally then her voice would crack and the wall she put up around her heart would crumble, resulting in her becoming a blubbering mess which was not how she wanted to spend her Sunday.

"Like you actually give a fuck..." he scoffed hurtfully, turning his eyes to the ceiling before taking a step back. "It pisses me off," his voice wavered and his eyes were now directed anywhere but hers.

"Why is my concern pissing you off?" she shot back defensively. "I'm not sorry about giving a shit about my friend who tried to commit suicide last night. I'm not a fucking monster, Eddie..." she huffed out harshly, feeling her eyes water at the mere thought.

He scoffed and rolled his eyes. "That's funny," he spat back offensively. "So I'm your friend now, am I?" he turned to her with his lip pressed between his teeth as he tried not to show her how hurtful her words were to him. "When did that start?" he asked in a warble as he sniffled and wiped at his eye before tightly crossing his arms over his chest.

"Don't be a dick," she started to shake but she wasn't concerned with herself. Eddie overdosed and now he was acting like she was wrong for caring about him. He was hurt. She knew that. She just didn't know why he was acting out.

People didn't just try to kill themselves because they woke up one day and wanted to. They were in pain; insurmountable pain that they felt they couldn't face anymore. And she knew he was trying to hurt her because he was hurt; she knew it was for a reason. She just didn't know what that reason was. He had never spoken to her like that before. But what did she do that was so terrible?

"Would you-" he raised his voice with fiercely furrowed brows before he remembered how sensitive she was to loud sounds and stepped down. "Would you quit looking at me like that? I can't- you know what? Never mind..." he shook his head and sniffled, turning around and wiping at his eyes again.

"What, Eddie?" she pressed insistently, taking a step forward to prevent him from dismissing her. "What's so wrong with me looking at you?" she mocked him, not knowing him well enough to know what approach would be most influential.

Some people needed a shoulder to cry on while others responded better to a slap to the face. She didn't know how Eddie would respond but it came naturally to her and there was no taking it back now.

"I can't be mad at you when you're looking at me like you didn't just string me along for the hell of it!" he turned on his heels angrily and towered over her smaller frame.

She didn't move.

She didn't flinch, she didn't cry, she didn't leap back, she only batted her eyes to clear her vision.

She watched his pain-stricken features stiffen and felt the urge to ignore his weaponized words. She wanted to jump out into open fire so she could wrap him in a hug and if she got shot in the process, then it would have been worth it. He was the one in pain. He needed help a whole lot more than she did.

"What are you talking about?" she whispered, tilting her head slightly and causing Eddie to get more frustrated.

"It's just a game to you, isn't it?" he shrugged in defeat. "Some little joke..."

"What game, Eddie?" she curled her lip with contempt and shot him a puzzled look of confusion.

"Sinclair told me," he informed her bitterly. "He saw the whole spit-swapping show you showcased Friday with the Hargrove kid. I'm not dumb."

"Bi-" she cut herself off and looked up at him flatly. "Maybe you're not dumb but you're acting real naive because what I did with Billy didn't mean anything," she explained.

"Pft," Eddie rolled his eyes and turned back towards her. "Yeah, sure. Like I'm supposed to believe the popular girl would ever give the freak a second glance," he drew out drearily.

"Would you quit with the freak thing?" she winced. "You're not a freak. You're Eddie Munson. I thought you were the only damn person who hasn't expected anything from me since I got here," she narrowed her eyes at him and gained his eye.

"What did I do?" she begged for answers.

"You're the first person I don't feel like I have to pretend to be someone I'm not in front of..." she drew out in a sigh. "Why would I play games with someone who makes me feel safer than I've felt since my..." she gulped nervously.

"What did I do?" she renounced.

Her eyes looked like crystals under a sheet of tears and Eddie's eyes focused on the brightness of them, watching as she shielded what lie beneath with what little strength she had left in her. She was in pain too. She wouldn't let anyone know, but he could see it. He could see her.

"I've seen Billy," he groaned. "The basketball player and the cheerleader... A match made in heaven," he drew out remorsefully. "I don't even know why you'd be down here in Hell with me if this wasn't some kind of ruse to you," he cringed, tensing his muscles and trying to find a sense of security in the weight of his own arms.

"Is that seriously what's got you like this?" she stared at him incredulously with burning eyes and a questioning stance. "Me and Billy?"

She didn't understand. Why was he talking about Billy when she was asking him why he was upset with her? "Why would it matter to you?"

"Oh please," Eddie replied bitterly, holding his mouth in a crooked frown as his heart started to crack and shatter right before his eyes. "Don't act dumb. You're anything but dumb. You know what this is. You've known since day one," he sniffled and wiped at his eye. "To me, at least. But you... just some... fucking game..." he turned away and shook his head in disbelief.

There it was.

The thing she didn't want to admit to. He said it. He admitted to it. There was no way she was making it up anymore. It was true. She wasn't alone.

"Yeah," she spoke harshly.

She surprised Eddie with how willing she was to admit to doing something so crooked and evil. He thought she felt the same way and found himself to be misled but he never thought she'd be so bluntly malevolent.

"You're right," she nodded her head in quick, short nods as Eddie stood with his back to her. "I've had my suspicions..." she admitted painfully. "I know you wouldn't try to get me alone as much as you do if... But I can't..." she scoffed, turning away despite already being faced with his backside.

"Great..." Eddie's voice sounded humorous and stretched thin. He was trying to hide his pain with humor but Lennon wasn't blind to it.

"No, that's not what I mean," she replied sharply. "I..." she laughed incredulously. "I wouldn't be here if I didn't kiss Billy," she explained.

Eddie was chewing at his nails as he kept his eyes screwed shut in fear of the tears staining his cheeks. He couldn't face her. He couldn't face her and see those soft, sympathetic eyes of hers stare right into his soul as she broke his heart.

He would continue to entice his true feelings while she took his heart and slammed it against the wall and he wouldn't even be able to fight back. He couldn't even be whole-heartedly upset with her. He was incapable of it no matter how much she deserved his hatred.

"Because that makes sense," he mocked, shaking his head and tearing at his nail until it bled.

"Steve is a little snitch, you do know that," she informed him. "I needed a diversion and nothing seemed more promising than kissing someone like Billy so I took it so I could be here. And you talking to me in the halls caused Steve to accuse me of shit that my brother cannot know about."

"Right, because we can't have people know you're spending your free periods with a freak, right?"

"Would you stop-" she grunted, taking Eddie by the arm and whipping him around, "calling yourself a freak!" she sighed, holding his arms in her hands and forcing him to face her. His hand fell from his lips and his eyes were partially lidded but staring right back at her with surprise and desperation.

"You aren't a freak," she said softly. "You've got a passionate, enigmatic understanding of the world that scares people," she confessed sincerely, casting her attention from his left to his right eye. "What people don't understand scares them. And just because those bigots at school and those scared little reporters who hide behind a magazine don't understand the ways of the world, doesn't make you a freak," she expressed darkly, feeling the sudden tensing of his muscles under her grasp but not letting her nerves get the best of her so she held on.

"Do I scare you?" he whispered, wobbling his head in defeat and silently pleading that she didn't look away. Not now. Not when he needed her most.

Lennon blinked past the glare in her vision and subtly shook her head. "I couldn't sleep in my own bed for almost two months when I first moved here," she admitted softly. She went back to the instant trust she embedded in him and almost smiled at the thought. "I fell asleep almost instantly the night you brought me here," she confessed. "I don't think I would've done that if I was afraid of you, Eddie," she stated softly.

His eyes met hers in a sudden wave of hope and pain. It was indescribable how he managed to look both tortured and relieved as he got lost in the jungle of her piercing stare.

But what was even more incomprehensible was how she managed to feel the same way. She felt her chest seize thinking to have been even a partial reason as to why he swallowed his fill of pills but at the same time, she felt safe. She was looking at his reddened and glazed-over eyes as he was surely still feeling the light buzz of a high but she could still sense his yearning.

For what, she could only imagine. But she swore she could feel his longing for something and she couldn't help but feel like that something resided in whatever caused him to look at her like she was a delicate piece of valuable stone that would shatter under pressure.

For a moment, the connection of their intense eye contact eased the frayed ends of their tension. And as engrossing as it felt to have been looked like that, the pain still existed between them.

She, for having hurt him.

And he, for being unable to have her.

However, the pain without him would have been unbearable and the searing torment without her would have been insufferable.

"I did what I did just to be here," she whispered, feeling like the normal volume of her voice would have been inconsiderate and inappropriate, like wearing white to a funeral, or going to school in your underwear. Whispering was the only way she could express herself. "Just so I could help you with a stupid book analysis," she hissed, causing Eddie to hum a half-laugh in his chest.

The buzz from his lightened spirit felt reassuring as she had her hands clasped around his upper arms. She exhaled a breath of relief and let her eyes fall to the sight of them. Her fingers were pressed to the warm skin of his body and the rough cloth of his over-washed shirt.

Her body against his. Again, in the most innocent of ways and yet in the most tempting too.

"I wasn't trying to kill myself," Eddie caused her to look up from their flushed flesh. "Just... So you know. I wasn't trying to commit suicide. I was just trying to... be numb? And... I don't know. I might not have cared if I woke up or not but I wasn't actively... trying..." he explained nervously, causing Lennon to examine his face more in-depth. She was close enough to see the single strands of hair growing from his eyebrows and around his absorbent brown eyes and being allowed to be this close was too opportune.

"I don't see much of a difference in that..." she admitted, pulling her hands away from his arms and tenderly staring down at his chest in contemplation. "You should care," she replied assertively, nodding her head and looking up again to see Eddie already staring back. "Because people do care about you."

"Mmhm," Eddie curled his lip and his eyes dropped with dissatisfaction. "I've heard that so many times in my life..." his head rolled on his shoulders and Lennon worried if his joints were beginning to corrode because all his limbs acted as if they were stuck together with jelly. "And as you can see," he lifted them weakly as evidence. "It's just me and my uncle."

Lennon wasn't going to accept that excuse. She didn't care if the truth of those words didn't withstand in the past by other people because she meant them. She truly gave a shit. She cared. And she wasn't going to let Eddie brush that off.

"Wayne, Jeff, Gareth, Grant, Mike, Dustin, Will, Lucas..."

"What are you doing?"

"I'm telling you all the people that care if you wake up or not," she explained impatiently.

"Alright, would you stop? Seriously," he groaned.

"No. I would be devastated if something happened to you and you don't want to believe me."

"Just stop, would you?" he sighed peevishly, squirming under the microscope of her gaze. He was getting more and more uncomfortable with their closeness and the things that ran through his head were getting more and more insistent that he didn't know how much longer he could keep hurting himself.

Looking at her and not being able to do the things he wanted to do with her was like his heart was wrapped in barbed wire and the more it yearned for her, the tighter it got, the more he bruised, the more he bled.

"Why?" she questioned restlessly, obviously not understanding what was bothering him.

"Because when you look at me like that I'm incapable of being mad; and I can't be mad when all I can think about is kissing you!" he hissed, staring sharply down at the girl who seemed to soften at his sudden outburst.

His eyes ran across her face frantically, searching for some kind of notion that he should back off or that he was wrong for what he said or felt. But there was none.

She was looking up at him like his words hadn't hit her yet; like his confession was still lingering in the air and yet to be heard by the human ear. She was attentive and innocent and she didn't back away. She didn't even flinch.

She knew better. She knew what she wanted and she knew what he wanted but she knew it was stupid for so many reasons.

But fuck... those eyes...

There was desperation in his eyes that filled Lennon's lungs with oxygen and made her fingers stop picking at the skin around her nails. There was a needy disposition in him that Lennon craved to provide.

Her eyes raced between his and her head started to shake slowly like she was about to state her disrelish. She looked like she was about to refuse him any form of satisfaction and take the step Eddie was waiting for backward and away from him. He prepared to be smacked across the face, to be told how ridiculous he was, how idiotic it was of him to even think he had a chance, to be shattered at her denial.

Her head continued to slowly move from the left to the right as she bore holes into him like Death would to a dying man. Eddie knew what was coming, he could sense the foreboding tragedy, and he knew in that instant that he would let this woman take his soul without a fight. He would consider it a privilege to be carried away from this world at the hand of her driving scythe.