𝙼𝚒𝚡 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚌𝚑𝚎𝚖𝚒𝚌𝚊𝚕𝚜 𝚛𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝, 𝚍𝚎𝚊𝚛.

𝙼𝚒𝚡 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚌𝚑𝚎𝚖𝚒𝚌𝚊𝚕𝚜 𝚛𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝.

𝚈𝚎𝚊𝚑, 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚖𝚊𝚛𝚐𝚒𝚗 𝚘𝚏 𝚎𝚛𝚛𝚘𝚛 𝚒𝚜 𝚜𝚕𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝.

𝙼𝚒𝚡 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚌𝚑𝚎𝚖𝚒𝚌𝚊𝚕𝚜 𝚛𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝, 𝚍𝚎𝚊𝚛.

𝙼𝚒𝚡 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚌𝚑𝚎𝚖𝚒𝚌𝚊𝚕𝚜 𝚛𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝.

𝚈𝚎𝚊𝚑, 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚔𝚗𝚘𝚠 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍 𝚜𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚖𝚢 𝚕𝚒𝚏𝚎.

𝚂𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚖𝚢 𝚕𝚒𝚏𝚎.

𝚃𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚎 𝚒𝚜 𝚊 𝚛𝚒𝚜𝚔.

𝚃𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚎'𝚜 𝚊 𝚛𝚒𝚜𝚔 𝚠𝚑𝚎𝚗 𝚢𝚘𝚞'𝚛𝚎 𝚍𝚎𝚊𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚕𝚘𝚟𝚎.

𝚈𝚘𝚞 𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍 𝚜𝚗𝚊𝚙 𝚖𝚢 𝚗𝚎𝚌𝚔.

𝙰𝚗𝚢 𝚜𝚙𝚎𝚎𝚍 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚍𝚛𝚒𝚟𝚎 𝚌𝚊𝚗 𝚋𝚎 𝚍𝚊𝚗𝚐𝚎𝚛𝚘𝚞𝚜.

𝚈𝚘𝚞 𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍 𝚜𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚖𝚢...

"Lennon..."

It wasn't a question. It wasn't even a statement.

Her name dripped from his lips like a prayer.

It was like he had to make sure she was real, like it was some miracle he had to proclaim that she wasn't made up.

The second was split into two as soon as she locked eyes with him.

One portion, filled with relief washing over her festering wounds of worry and panic.

Another, jabbing a gaping hole in her previous reassurance with a spike of dread and realization.

She was originally pleased to have caught both the hem of his jacket and his eye but that was soon stolen from her when she noticed the puffy circles around his eyes.

The realization settled like the snow falling around them. She felt free from the shackles of her own self-pestering, like the fetal snowflakes dancing through the soft wind. But the moment those icy crystals hit the ground, it was anything but delicate. It was hard, terminating.

She could feel something in her stomach reach up into her throat and tug at her gag reflex. She blinked past the daze and pulled away from him.

Her eyes stayed focused on the hollowing of the soft tissue around his eyes and the sunken look of them sitting deep within his skull. She could make out the odd coloration of his sclera from under the poor lighting that pooled around their clashed bodies.

Her worries were becoming reality and she couldn't decide if she was chuffed with how well she could predict him or if she was absolutely horrified with what she was seeing.

As she backed away, someone caught the door and she was overtly aware that they weren't alone.

Her eyes landed on a blue pair and her stomach felt ever more upset than before.

"Hi... Are-are you okay?" Gareth wondered, growing shy but obviously concerned about her pale face and wide eyes.

"Yeah..." she whispered unconsciously. "Yes," she said louder, clearing her throat and blinking rapidly to clear her vision. "I..." she inhaled deeply but the air was sticking the way it was supposed to.

"Hey," It was Grant who rode up from behind Eddie. "You don't look so good..." he admitted with concern entangled in his voice.

"I'm-" she forced a smile, not wanting to admit to struggling to breathe. "I'm fine," she heaved quietly, too focused on Eddie to have leveled out her breathing.

"I- uh. You-" she closed her eyes and smiled as she mentally laughed at herself.

She spent so much time trying to get to Eddie but she didn't plan out what she would do once she got there.

She wanted to talk to Eddie but she also knew that dismissing them was the easiest way to yield any suspicion.

But what was more important?

"I need to talk to you..." she admitted hurtfully, immediately looking up into Eddie's artificially alert face.

She couldn't stand it. She couldn't stand that slightly buzzed look in his eyes or that slack sheet of emotion he wore under his flesh. She couldn't stand it.

"We..." he trailed off at a loss of words. "We go on in twenty."

"Please..." she whispered into the wind, refusing to look away from the horrifying sight of his reddened and darkened eyes. It was almost like looking into someone else's soul. It was like they were Eddie's eyes at all.

She watched something wash over his features. His expression set like cement. His brow hardened as he concluded the severity of her situation and took a moment to collect his clouded thoughts.

He wanted to argue. He wanted to walk away from her like she had him and yet his feet were rooted to the ground and he couldn't shake that look from his mind.

She was pleading.

He didn't think he would hate it as much as he did.

With that one word, with that one begging request, he folded and nothing else mattered.

He took Lennon by the arm and moved her out of the way of the door so his bandmates could go inside. His knees felt weak and he wobbled slightly but it was nothing compared to what the sedatives did to him in the past.

"What happened?" he immediately asked, wanting to make sure she was alright before defending his own feelings.

"Have you been using?" she asked nervously, swallowing uncomfortably and watching how tapped his shoe against the ground like he was incapable of sitting still.

"Have I ever stopped?" he smiled childishly, avoiding her gaze as he looked off into the distance.

"What did you take?"

"Look," he scoffed incredulously, finding her bipolar kindness to be a bit too much for him at the moment. "Concern appreciated, but that's none of your business," he sighed, taking a step back and placing his hand on the handle.

"Why are you avoiding me?"

She couldn't speak in full sentences. There was too much on her mind and all she could speak were questions.

Eddie stopped in his tracks and took a deep breath before dropping his hand from the door.

"You know, if you stroke a dude's ego with words of confidence, it's fun if you make it seem like he has a chance but I can take a hint when a girl doesn't actually want anything to do with me. So, you don't have to keep playing this game because I resign," he sniffled and put his hand back on the handle.

"What game? What hint?" she cringed, feeling threatened and overpowered all of a sudden.

Eddie scoffed and walked back up to Lennon. "The chase is fun and all, but I'm tired of running after something that doesn't wanna be caught, alright?"

Her eyebrows knit ferociously as she studied his face up close. His whole body seemed fueled by something much stronger than sugar and she could smell the faintest beer lingering from his lips.

None of this sat well with her. None of it made any sense.

"What did I do?"

"Jesus..." he rolled his eyes and fell back a step as he threw his head back. "You project a lot, you know? Asking me what I want with you when it's me who should be asking you that question," he spoke sharply and shook his head rapidly, obviously feeling the effects of whatever he took before arriving and being unable to let anything sit and linger on his tongue before he wagged it.

"I don't get it... What are you talking about?"

"You're always-" he reeled back and smiled to make up for the hurt aching inside his chest. "You're always either hiding or running away from me," he informed her sharply. "You don't want anything to do with me... Why would you?" he whispered that last part under his breath as his head was lowered to the ground.

"That's why I run..." she expressed painfully.

Eddie stopped sighed and stopped in his tracks once more.

"I-" she took a deep breath of the icy air and sighed, hoping the release would bring her some relief.

"That doesn't make any sense, you know that?" Eddie winced, hating the fact she managed to ruin his high.

"I-" she cut herself off and sighed, finding the ache in her chest to be too much. "I'm- I don't- I can't-"

"What?" Eddie said resentfully.

He wasn't kind anymore. He wasn't nice or considerate and if he was worried, he didn't show it.

Her beating around the bush was aggravating him and time was of the essence. She didn't have a choice anymore.

"I run because I'm afraid of wanting-" Her voice for caught on something in her throat and a smile spread across her face to keep from crying.

Images flashes across her vision with every bat of an eye and she hates each one of them.

Her mom... her brother... the people at school... the judge... the jury... her teachers... Brontë's face when he came to pick her up... Miss Riordan and her sympathetic features... and then something stood out.

Amongst the blood, the autopsy photos, the last smile on her family's faces, the mutilation of their corpses... Eddie's face flashed before her eyes and she was overcome with a melancholic sense of peace. It went as quickly as it appeared and the slightest tranquility was gone in the blink of an eye. The thought of that becoming reality made her stomach tighten.

"I'm afraid of wanting you more than I want this life," she admitted, feeling like she was suddenly naked and shivering in the cold. "I'm afraid of losing it all again... I run because the longer you're there, the more I do want something to do with you and I don't want to..."

Lose someone else?

Go through that again?

Lose you?

Lose this life?

Lose everything I worked so hard to get?

Scare you off?

"What?" he pondered, quieting his voice and forgiving her the moment her eyes got bleary. No amount of anger could make up for the fact she was unsettled. If he hurt her, he would be far more upset with himself if he let his anger consume him rather than comfort her in a time of need.

"What did I do?" she asked miserably, slumping her shoulders and swallowing tightly. "What did I do to make you like this? I know it's me... Please, tell me. What did I do?"

Eddie was shaking his head curtly. "That's not... What were you going to say?" he asked, too concerned with her fragile state to have shared his own pains.

"I did something... What did I do? Did I say something? Was it something at school? Did I-?"

"What's wrong?" Eddie approached her and furrowed his brows. "What's wrong with you?"

Those words would have sounded harsh or mean coming from anybody else but there was genuine worry in his words that made it sound impossibly gentle.

"Can you tell me?" she scoffed with tears brimming her evergreen eyes.

"No, I can't," Eddie responded fretfully. "Are you okay?"

"Am I?" She smiled because if she hadn't, she might have cried.

"You don't look it."

"Well neither do you," she expressed anxiously. "What did you take? What did I do, Eddie? You didn't... I didn't cause this did I? Like last time?" she pleaded for answers, somehow managing to keep her tears contained as her lip wobbled and her hands shook violently at her sides.

"No," he moaned lowly, slouching as he reached for her elbows, bringing her hands into his as he tried to warm them. "No. No. You haven't done anything wrong. This isn't like last time, alright? I'm sorry."

"Stop," she winced but she didn't pull away. It wasn't his touch that she despised it was his words that made her nose prickle. "Don't do that." But again, she didn't pull away. Instead, her fingers curled around the edges of his wide palms and encouraged his warm grasp.

"I'm sorry," Eddie loosened his grip on her hands, thinking he had overstepped her boundaries.

"Stop!" she raised her voice, giving out in a gritty, deeper tone than before as she rapidly reached for his hands again.

"What? I don't- I'm sorry-"

He let her try to wrap his hands around hers but he couldn't fully commit. Something still felt off in how she pleaded for him to stop. He couldn't justify touching her after she screamed for him to stop. The thought was enough to make him taste a bitter bite of bile as grew disgusted with himself.

"Stop saying that," she groaned desperately, knitting her brows together and shaking her head. "Please," she begged, lowering her voice and feeling the heat rise to her face again as a wave of emotion washed over her face. "Tell me what I did..."

Eddie stared at her incredulously and gave short, soft shakes to his head. He didn't understand what happened to her or why she had come out of the Hideout so shaken, but he couldn't let her continue to believe she had done something unforgivable.

"You left..." he admitted solemnly, feeling a pang of pain return despite his attempt to drown it out with antidepressants.

"When?" she said with an uneven tone.

It wasn't the question he was expecting and it certainly wasn't the one he deserved. He deserved to be faced with a much more accusatory question, one that blossomed out of defense and not surrender.

But of course, she had to return to him with a question so innocent and relenting. She had to ask a question that made him feel horrible about ever being cold toward her.

"On Friday..." he continued to speak from a place that was aching, making him crave a higher dosage of something that would terminate his feelings. "When we started playing originals last week... You left."

Lennon tried to think back on the moment Eddie recalled and remembered being dragged out by the arm. She hadn't thought much about it considering suspicions were high and leaving willingly was one way to counter those predictions, but perhaps it may have seemed like she had gone out of her way to leave before their set was over.

She didn't think it would mean much to Eddie either. She was but one person out of dozens that occupied the room that night. She was sure that was one of the biggest crowds they received so she didn't think her participation would mean too much...

"I was forced to leave," she responded, dropping his hands from hers and frowning. "Did I offend you in-"

Lennon was cut off when the back door swung open and Grant was staring back at Eddie with a reddened face.

"C'mon, dude! We've got two minutes. Let's go!"

"I..." Eddie trailed off, looking back to Lennon with a look of confliction. "Give me a sec!" Eddie shouted to his bassist.

"We don't have a sec! C'mon!"

"I'll be there in a second!" Eddie reprimanded, quickly turning on his heels and leaving Grant to run back inside as if to make up for the lost time. "You weren't meant to leave until four..."

"Brontë had someone cover his shift and he pulled me out before I could say anything. You should go-"

"You didn't hate it? The music. You didn't get bored or... We didn't scare you off?"

"What?" she took a step back and huffed out a breath that filled the air in a large cloud of liquidy steam. "No. I wouldn't-" she shook her head nervously before being interrupted by the door being flung open again.

This time, Gareth made an appearance and Eddie knew he had to go despite his wishes.

"I'll watch this time..." she promised him as he hurried to follow his drummer. "I'll be there."

Eddie turned briefly and Lennon could have sworn there was a tug at the corner of his lip before he nodded and ran after his bandmate.