𝟎𝟎𝟏.

N O T I C E : This book includes detailed themes surrounding violence, suicide, abuse, drugs and blood—all are depicted in this story.

Proceed with notice.

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Y/N FOUND a seat towards the front of the classroom in her first period class, eagerly waiting for Millie and Finn's arrival.

  She had been hanging out with Finn very often, finding that he was a very sheltered person and quite unusual at that, but he was interesting nonetheless.

He was mysterious, and she liked that.

"Y/N !"
Millie practically yelled once she entered the doorframe of the classroom and her glance landed on her best friend, she sprinted for her and slammed her body into the desk beside her.

She leaned over the desk with a frantic look on her face—almost pleadingly.

"What? What's wrong?"

With a gulp, Millie looked behind her to make sure Mr. Montgomery wasn't listening.

"Did you do the homework that was due today?! I didn't even know we had any ! I mean, what homework could you possibly get for a drama and theater class?!"

Y/N chuckled to herself, nodding before fetching her sheet of notes to pass to Millie for her to copy off.

While Y/N watched her frantically scribbling on her paper while glancing at the clock, she saw a figure enter the doorframe of the classroom.

His curly hair bounced with every turn of his head while he searched the classroom nervously for any familiar faces, until his eyes widened with relief when they landed on Y/N.

Looking behind his shoulder and around at the students formulating in the class, he quickly made his way towards her, mumbling 'excuse me's' and 'sorry's' while bumping into kids before finally taking a seat in the desk behind Y/N.

Y/N turned around in her desk, seeing how on edge Finn looked as he sat tensely in his
chair—his head looked down at the desktop below him while his curls shielded his eyes and face from Y/N's view.

"Hey, you okay?"
Y/N tried to look under Finn's curls to try and find his face, but he wouldn't let her.

Y/N furrowed her eyebrows, thinking he was just messing with her. So in a joking attempt, she reached over to flick his curls out of his face, earning a frightened glare from Finn that Y/N could now see.

Y/N gasped at the sight now that his curls were parted, revealing his face and neck.

Bruises littered his face, trailing down his neck.
Red and purplish blotches decorated around his eyes and lips, and Y/N watched as Finn licked his mouth—licking a scab from his busted lip.

"Finn..what happened?"
Y/N choked out, a fury of worry for her friend took over her.
She was now turned around completely in her desk, her back facing the front of the classroom so she could see Finn better.

Finn hesitated for a moment, his eyes searched around the classroom and over his shoulders before he decided to lean in closer to Y/N.

His scabbed and bruised lips parted softly before leaning in towards her ear to whisper in his unnaturally and unusually raspy voice, "They're hickeys. I got laid last night."

That was a lie.

Finn pulled away shakily from Y/N's now shivering ear from his whispers, and her eyes widened with disbelief.

Well, now that she thought about it, it was actually quite believable that he had gotten laid. He was quite attractive, no doubt.

Finn searched Y/N's face for any signs of disbelief or doubt, but exhaled with relief when she seemed to shrug it off with a nonchalant nod.

He felt horribly for what he had said, but found that he wouldn't want Y/N to think any less of him if he had told her the entire truth.

He had lied to her.

"Alright, class. Please pair up to go over your character's lines for our play, Clue."

The Australian voice that belonged to Mr. Montgomery broke Finn's trance of staring intensely at Y/N, making him shake back to reality.

Time itself seemed to stop as he watched Y/N turn around in her seat to shoot an insistent smile at Finn, hinting that she wanted to pair up with him.

His stomach fluttered as he looked up at her slowly before nodding shyly.

~

The theater class came to a roaring close an hour later as the bell rung for a passing period of 5 minutes.

Millie had a class in the opposite direction of where Y/N and Finn had to go for classes, so she walked one way, and the two walked in a separate direction.

Side by side down the school hallway through bustling high schoolers.

"I think you're doing really great things for your character."

Y/N admired what she thought was Finn's great dedication to his role of the creepy, stalking butler, when really, Finn didn't have to do much to act for it.

Unbeknownst to Y/N, playing the character of the butler was really just how Finn was in real life.

Lanky, brooding, mysterious, misunderstood, dark, violent—

"Thanks. A-and I love your character, too. It's really..really captivating to watch you act."
Finn was absolutely mesmerized by Y/N's talented acting, but what really captivated him, was her.

Y/N smiled in acceptance of his sweet compliment, shyly looking at him in the corner of her eye while they walked down the school hallway.

But not before Jack Grazer stopped them in their tracks with an echoing catcall whistle.

"Hey, L/N..nice skinny jeans. You wear those just for me..?"
  His taunts never got to Y/N, for she always knew how to make him feel stupid. But for some reason, she froze.

Jack noticed her lack of defense, so he took his shot.

He took a step forward to her from his gang of douchebag friends, reaching his hand to softly skip his fingers along her cheek with a look of pure hunger while she shook from his
touch—she could feel his hand begin to trail down her neck and if he had been given the chance, his hand would've gone lower.

If it had not been for Finn. 

In a rushed moment, almost as if it were in slow motion, Y/N saw Jack's head get thrown back from a punch issued by Finn's fist.

Jack spit out a pocket of bloody saliva onto the polished floor, before turning his deadly gaze to Finn who's eyes were cold as stone.

Jack swung his fist in the air to try and land a punch on Finn's own face, only to miss, and instead feel Finn's fist pop Jack's jaw once again.

This time, Jack fell onto his back on the floor.

"Don't ever fucking touch her again."
Finn spat with a clenched jaw, his hands balled in a fist at his sides while he shot deathly glares at Jack who was obviously at Finn's mercy.

Y/N's jaw was hanging open, her eyes flickered from her bully's defeated position, back to her hero's triumphant stance.

Finn's breath was heavy, his chest heaving with each movement he made while teachers flooded the hallway to pull Finn away from the scene and towards the Principle's office.

  Finn was practically dragged from the bloodied hallway floor, and it was a good thing too.

  Because what Y/N didn't know, was that if this had occurred outside of school, he would've killed Jack in a heartbeat.

~

"Mr. Wolfhard, we don't tolerate violence at our school, and we certainly don't tolerate weapons being brought onto campus by a student."

   Mrs. Buono, the principle of the school, lectured Finn who sat slumped on his chair in her office with his tangled curls now covering his face while he crossed his arms.

Finn always had a switchblade with him, but today, he had been sloppy with hiding it in his bag.

"You will be suspended for the following week, and this will go on your permanent record. I hope you're aware of your situation, Mr. Wolfhard, considering the fact that this isn't the first time this has happened in a school you've attended."

Finn was hardly listening to Mrs. Buono's words, with his mind traveling elsewhere.

Y/N.

"I'm aware that you live with your father?"

Her questions and lectures were dull. This was simply routine for Finn at this point.

He nodded carelessly.

"He will be notified about this in an email that will be sent to him."

  Finn hardly ever got scared of anything or anyone. He had done many bad things in his past, and many times, he simply didn't care.

But to hear that his father would hear of his actions today, sparked a horrid feeling in the pits of his stomach.

It was fear.

~

"Hey, sweetheart. How was school today?"

Y/N's mother's cheery voice always seemed to have her mood lighten in the least bit when she walked through the front door of her house.

Y/N had walked home alone since Finn was picked up early for what she assumed was the fight, and Millie received a ride from her 'boyfriend.'

"It was good, I guess."

Her words sounded duller than what she felt inside—she felt fuzzy inside at the thought of a guy standing up for her.

For once.

No one had ever done that for her before, and she found it rather sweet of Finn to do that for her.

"That's great. Hey, I need you to do me a favor."

Y/N huffed before dropping her bag on the couch of the living room that was only shared between her and her mother alone. No one else.

She followed the sound of her mother's voice coming from the kitchen, the smell of freshly baked cookies made her hum.

Her mother had baked cookies, and plated them all together on one single dish covered in plastic wrap.

"I have so many emails to send and papers to fill out for work, so can you run these cookies I made for the new neighbors next door? I think they're..the Wolfhards..?"

Y/N's heart fluttered a hundred times faster at the mention of the last name of the sweet guy that stood up for her earlier today.

Her lips curled into a blushing smile before nodding before receiving a kiss on the forehead as a thank you from her mother.

Eagerly, Y/N rushed to the bathroom to make sure she looked decently put together, straighten a few out of place hairs, and fixed her shirt.

She grabbed the plate of cookies, and exited her house to walk along the sidewalk leading away from her house but then led to Finn's house.

The afternoon sun of March 14th seemed particularly hot today, or perhaps, it was just Y/N's nervousness from the blush of her cheeks.

She walked up the creaky steps that lead to the patio of his house, meeting the front door before ringing the doorbell.

But she didn't know what was happening on the other side of that door.

She didn't know that Finn sat on his living room couch with a gun in his mouth—ready to pull the trigger with a shaking hand.

  She didn't know that she just stopped Finn. 

Silence fell over her as she waited for an answer at the door, and a feeling of disappointment struck her that no one may be home.

She didn't know that the reason no one answered, was because Finn was scrambling to hide his father's antique gun that was in his mouth just seconds before.

But just as she was about to turn around to walk down the steps, she heard the front door unlock and open, and there he was : her protector.

She smiled widely at the curly haired boy who stood in the doorway with a surprised look on his face that Y/N was there.

He looked exhausted and on edge—vulnerable.
  His bruises and cuts on his face were clearly visible now that the sun was shining directly on him.
  It was almost as if he had received fresh ones..

Y/N walked back up the steps to the front door to offer Finn the plate of cookies.
   "Here. My mom made chocolate chip cookies for you guys as like, a late 'welcome to the neighborhood' gift. From the both of us."

"Thanks. T-That's really nice, thanks."

Finn smiled shyly as he took the plate of cookies with gratitude, staring down at the plate then back into Y/N's mesmerizing eyes that he was lost in.

Y/N stared back in admiration as well, the way his cheeks were littered with freckles beneath the bruises on his sculpted cheekbones.

She blushed shyly before tucking a strand of hair behind her ears, and cleared her throat.
  "Also..I just wanted to say thanks. For standing up for me earlier at school. No one's ever done that for me before, and I thought it was.."

Finn listened intently as he stared at her with a fondness so intense, he drowned everything else out besides her.

"I thought it was really sweet of you.."
She finished, fiddling with her hands before looking up to see Finn's reddened cheeks and astonished expression.

Then, before Y/N even processed what she was doing, she leaned in and placed a kiss upon Finn's bruised and freckled cheeks above his cheekbone.

"Enjoy the cookies.."
She smirked before turning around to hide her blushing face to walk down the patio steps in a daze.

She didn't know that she just saved Finn's life.

She left Finn with his jaw hanging open, completely taken by surprise.

  He could feel the lingering feeling of Y/N's soft lips still tingling on his cheek as he reached up to brush a finger on his face where she had kissed him.

No one had ever called him sweet before, no less kiss his cheek.

It was then that Finn rethought his entire mentality.
Perhaps life was worth living because maybe..just maybe..Y/N liked him back.

Maybe there was hope for him.

~

Y/N twirled her mechanical pencil around her fingers, tapping on her homework as she tried to work out these couple geometry and calculus math problems at 10:00 at night.

She groaned with frustration before throwing the binder off her bed and watched it slide across the carpet by her window.

Y/N begrudgingly got up from her bed to go pick up her binder of horrid homework, but not before standing back up to notice Finn's window was open with the lights on.

She could see his silhouette move, so she reached for her lamp to turn it in and off—a secret signal they had made to say 'hi' through their windows.

Finn's silhouette moved until she saw his entire figure—curly hair and all. She smiled, waiting for him to notice her signaling, but he looked to be talking to someone.

  No. Not talking.

Yelling.

It was then that she noticed that it wasn't just Finn in his room as another silhouette appeared, and revealed a large, broad man practically screaming at Finn.

Finn's father.

Y/N's smile faded quickly as she watched the man's fists clenched, and rose before he landed a punch on Finn's jaw.

She gasped, and fell back on the floor, her eyes wide as she watched Finn get hit repeatedly.

  Brutally.

She watched in fear as the man's hands clenched around Finn's throat to throttle him.

She watched Finn fight back furiously, but he couldn't regain enough strength.

She felt tears water in her eyes, threatening to spill as she couldn't bare to see her friend get beaten so harshly.

  In a hurried motion, she rapidly shut her window closed and drew the curtains to shield her eyes from the horrific scene across the street.

She turned off her lamp for good measure, and she sat in the darkness—single streams of tears spilling over her eyes as she hugged her knees to her chest.

  It was then that she realized how Finn received his bruises and cuts she noticed earlier..

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a/n : so, this book may be one of the darker ones I've written, but I really love the concept and plot as it matures.

more chapters to come, but as usual, i will only further write if i see that people actually read this story.

thanks for reading, let me know what you think about this story.. <3

stay tuned.. ;))

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