Hallelujah

chapter twenty-four

"Whoa Alex," Brendon said.

"I know right, breathtaking," I said. I pulled the camera out from his backpack and snapped a photo of him overlooking my spot. He looked and me and turned his head to the side slightly. "I needed a photo of you."

"Alex you are one interesting human," he said sitting down.

"I could say the same about you. Vegas, smoking, bad boy image yet somehow underneath it all lies a person I never would have guessed could exist but somehow manages to not only exist but to exist at the time as I do," I said looking at him. He blushed a bit and turned away. I cleared my throat, "so about Maddy, I say we take her down."

"Yeah Alex I don't want to drag you into that mess, you have a lot to do with your own life let alone mine," he said.

"Yeah maybe but you're a part of my life now, you're problems seem as big as mine."

"What are you thinking we do?"

"Well we could just take her phone and delete it?" I said pointing out the obvious.

"She'll know it was me then, she'll just find another way to blackmail me. That's how she works."

"I could have told you that," I said laughing a bit. "She did the same thing to me."

"What do you mean?"

"Do you remember when that giant thing went around the school on how that girl slept with her dad and then the girl's father left and her mom kicked him out and her mom was ashamed of her kid?" I asked laughing a bit. He nodded and gave me a confused look. "Yeah, she started that rumor about me."

"Are you joking?" he asked surprised. I nodded and rolled my eyes.

"I was so angry at her because I put all my trust in her for that one topic and she shared it all with the school. I didn't sleep with my dad but she made it seem like I did and it made me want to die so bad," I said quietly.

"You wanted to what?" he asked as his eyes went wide.

"I was just angry at why God would let that happen to me when I was nothing but good to him. I was just angry and I just wanted so badly to die and go up and yell at him for what he was putting my family through," I said. It was weird feeling so comfortable telling Brendon these things. I rarely knew him yet I was pouring my heart out for some odd reason.

"Well she's a bitch."

"A bitch we both deserve to take down," I smiled. "I'm really glad I met you Brendon. I hate admitting that because I didn't want you in my life but now there's just something about you. I don't know if it's the thrill of adventure, the surprises, the fact that I'm breaking rules I never thought I'd break, I don't know what it is or why it makes me feel this way but it does, and I'm really glad I feel it."

"That's the thrill of freedom Alex," he said. I nodded because he was right.

"So tell me, about you. You heard about me last night. I want to know about you," I said leaning my head on his shoulder so he knew I actually cared.

"You want to know about my mom," he said quiet. I nodded a little bit and grabbed his hand. He took a big breath, "she was amazing. She was one of the coolest people you ever would meet. You would have loved her and I know she sure as hell would have loved you. You and her are so similar. She was a different person, just always out there making sure no one anywhere was hurting. She cared so much about other people that she pushed herself out of the way. She was there with me throughout everything. I wasn't a great kid not going to lie, I was really hard to deal with and I give her props for handling me for years," he laughed. "I was really young when I got diagnosed with ADHD and as a kid it seemed really scary. You know, you go to the doctor for a normal visit and then realize that there's something really wrong. They gave me a pill to take for it and it didn't work, we tried probably about 5 or 6 medications before one actually worked. After figuring that out and I started middle school they threw anxiety at me and I hated it. I worried about everything, and sometimes when I'd be with my friends I would get this aching in my stomach and the only way I could describe it was like my mom was tugging on my umbilical cord which sounds stupid, but it was like I was just too far away."