To Put On An Act [bxb]

chapter 25 - GOOD 4 U

If Leia Zhang tells you to meet her after school, one of two things can happen. One, she stabs you in the gut multiple times. Two, she pulls out a list of every bad thing you've ever done, and then she'll read it out, and then tell you to kill yourself. Which one of these was worse, Alex hadn't figured out just yet.

Her request came at lunch, when she walked past Alex' table, who really was just trying to enjoy his soggy fries, and her two girl friends (friends who are also girls) immediately began to whisper to her, like a dog who'd just done some mildly impressive trick.

"She's gonna kill you," Min concluded as soon as Leia was out of earshot.

"She can try."

"Oh, she will." They took one of Alex' treasured fries and shoved it into their mouth. "But good luck."

"I could just not show up."

"Then she's gonna find a way to kill you another time. Or she'll text you."

"I have her blocked."

"That's Leia we're talking about, she's finding a way."

"Min," Alex leaned back and stared at his no longer as treasured fries, a brownish yellow pile of salty sadness, "stop trying to convince me to meet Leia. I don't really care about what she has to say to me, to be honest."

"Oh, but I care!"

"So you go talk to her then!"

"What's she gonna say to me? Come on, just go and talk and dodge a couple of murder attempts and report back to me."

"Y'know, Margo would tie me to a tree in order to prevent me from talking to her." But Margo wasn't here. Margo was hanging out with Lani somewhere, and Lani wasn't speaking to Alex, and so all of his friends that knew the deepest parts of Alex weren't there to tell him what the right choice was.

And it wasn't like Min knew what the right choice was, because they only knew Alex on a surface 'this is my friend' level, and not on a 'I'm literally his therapist at this point and always know exactly what he needs and wants even though he's not even telling me anything about his emotions' kind of layer.

But, Min was the only advice Alex had right now. So he decided to trust them, for once, maybe getting ready for the sweet release of death already.

  

At the willow after school. We'll talk.

Alex was now at the willow, after school, and not talking to anyone. He should've known that this was probably going to be a prank. Or an actual murder attempt, he'd started to actually believe that.

Or maybe she'd reveal that she actually wanted him back. And then maybe she was secretly recording, and then sending it to all her friends, and then to generally every person ever in Rosebury. Or in the world. And then Alex would be murdered for being too cringe.

Not that he'd have a cringe reaction to that, actually. He'd say something like "Well, should've considered that before you dumped me, I'm literally soooo happy and fine now, without you."

No, he wouldn't say that. What would he say, actually? Nothing, probably, he'd just kind of stare at her and shake his head and then go insane. But also, Leia would never want him back, so like, whatever. Well, hopefully. It wasn't like Alex had to worry about that, because if she really was stupid enough to want Alex back, then that was her problem, and her responsibility to get her brain checked out and seek therapy.