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*This chapter contains images for portraying the texts (which are fundamental in the plot buildup) so please make sure you are connected to the Internet when reading. :)

On Friday, Mit discovered that she had in fact not been dropping death threats in Marshall's locker, but rather, Smelly Terry's, the most flatulent member of the junior class. That would explain the frightful toots that always echoed the halls every time he opened his locker, and the nervous darting of his eyes at everyone, as if any possible human being could be a viable suspect for the person plotting his family's demise.

Other times, he'd smile dreamily at the letters, leaning against his locker and wondering about who possibly liked him to the extent of committing homicide.

Mit whistled past him, attempting to draw as little attention to herself as possible, walking at a quickened pace so that she could meet Finn at his own locker at a corner bend.

"Hello, Finland," she greeted, poking his side.

"So we're back to that again?" Finn rolled his eyes, dropping another textbook into his backpack to take home, since the final bell had already been rung.

"Yes."

They walked towards the exit doors of the building, the autumn sun temporarily blinding as soon as they stepped out. He was talking about what happened in his chemistry class today, about someone's hair singeing in the Bunsen burner, but she was barely able to add an input to the conversation, since her phone started to spontaneously buzz in her back pocket.

She pulled it out, unlocking the screen to see a message from Paris.

Mit gnawed on her bottom lip, contemplating the invite. Had it not been a Friday, she wouldn't mind at all with hanging out with Paris, but it was. This being the first time her separate schedules with the separate individuals intercrossing, she was stuck at an impasse, wondering what to make of the situation.

She could go with Paris, but that would equal to the offending of her three-year-old tradition with Finn, and she could go with Finn, but that would mean her missing out of a portion of her hard-earned redemption. She balanced the pros and cons of both options on a mental scale, although she thought she was already sure of what her decision would be.

"What's the matter?" Finn asked, sensing the change in mood. "Just found out that you missed Taylor Lautner's follow spree from ten minutes ago?"

"Taylor Lautner had a follow spree?!" she all but shrieked, her eyes widening to the size of twin moons. 

"I was just kidding," he said, a little standoffishly, like he didn't understand why she had to make him explain his own joke.

She rolled her eyes, loosening the iron grip on her phone as she focused on getting her heart rate back to normal. "Not funny, Finn. Almost gave me a damn heart attack."

"You could go really far if you put this amount of commitment into schoolwork, you know."

"Sorry? I don't remember when I asked for your opinion, Carrot Top," she retorted haughtily, smirking, but he was smirking too. Their friendship sometimes seemed more like a competition, or a wavering seesaw, running on the basis of opposition. Either she was propelled high in the air and had the upper-hand, while he rested at the ground with the shorter end of the stick, or vice versa.

Mit decided that she had the upper-hand now, but he wasn't about to back down so easily. "Well, I just had to, since you've been making so many bad decisions lately you might as well be going to shit by the end of the year."

She almost laughed out loud at the subtle trueness of the statement, instead tilting her head and giving him a small smile that ran along the lines of if only you know right you actually are. "Imagine a hypothetical situation, whereby I go to a rich kid's house to hang out. Any thoughts on that?"

Finn snorted in contempt. "Why would you even want to do that? Rich kids are lame."

"Are you just saying that to feel better about yourself?" she teased.

"I plead the fifth," he defended sharply. "But seriously, they are. I mean, their lives must be so miserable and fake on the low-key. Haven't you watched enough drama shows on Netflix?"

"So you're judging people based on what you've learned from Gossip Girl?"

"Not the point!" His cheeks warmed slightly as he hiked his backpack up his shoulders again. "Besides, the rich people here are more like Regina Georges than Blair Waldorfs, but I digress. Like, just imagine the types of conversations they hold with their parents." Finn began to chuckle, struggling to pace his breath in order to actually get the joke out. "Get this: Mum! Why did you get the the iPhone 7 Plus? I wanted the iPhone 8! Why do you hate me this way?"

It took all the willpower in Mit not to keel over in laughter right then and there, and she didn't hesitate to play along. "But, Honey! They aren't out yet!"

"I don't care! Make it happen!"

At this point, it almost it seemed as if they'd both inhaled tank-loads of nitric oxide, their guffaws echoing around them so loud that they attracted a couple of wary stares from the other students.

"That was a good one," Mit finally got out the moment she was sober enough. The lighthearted ambience gave her the extra encouragement she needed to break the bad news to Finn. He might have been a Fish Face, but he was understanding most of the time. She was sure he wouldn't mind at all. "On a similar train of thought, I kind of have to go to Paris' today..."

He paused, slowly processing the information. It wasn't long before his head snapped in her direction again, his eyebrows knitting, emphasizing the confused visage that his face was bearing. "But it's Friday."

"Yeah, I know. That's what calendars are for."

"It's Friday, Mit. You know what that means, so don't try to play funny."

She fought the urge to shout, or to roll her eyes, or both. "Look, Finn, it's just a one-time thing. It's no biggy. I know my presence is pleasurable and all, but I'm sure you'll survive."

He rolled his eyes, but they still held a calculative intent nevertheless. "What's the catch now?"

"Oh, uh," she fumbled only slightly, as a result of being put abruptly on spot, not expecting Finn to delve into details. "It's this assignment I have to do for her, for Trig class, and after that I—"

"Cut the bullshit, Mit." His green eyes narrowed. "I know you're lying. I always have."

She fell mute, biting down her tongue in shame. She wasn't sure what was more humiliating: Finn outing her suddenly or the fact that he'd already found about her cupboard skeletons before she got the chance to bury them. She conjectured that secrets were a lot like dead bodies in a way; if they weren't hidden properly and buried deep enough, they'd start to have a telltale stench, or someone would find the skeletons or incriminating evidence, which would all then result in your imminent downfall.

Her imminent downfall. 

"I'm not going to stop you from going. You're in charge of your life and you have the right to make your own decisions," he paused and swallowed, as if to push down the words that were crawling up his throat frantically, but nevertheless failed to do so, "and I don't know why you want to be all buddy buddy with Holland and her friends, especially after what they did to you, but I'm going to try not to judge you for it."

She was so relieved by his words, she was tempted to gather him in a hug and squeeze him like he was the ripe orange to her juicer, but there was a niggling thought at the back of her mind. The occasion in itself was a sort of sign, a harbinger of what would come in the future. She could already feel the strains on their friendship, but she didn't want to let it go, and neither did she want to let go of Marshall. A small, bothersome part of her refused to give up on Paris too, only proving that she was a masochist at heart.

"I just need you to promise me this one thing, Finn," Mit said just before he left the lot in the general direction of the subway.

He raised a questioning eyebrow, and even though he'd managed to put on a relatively indifferent frontier to her ditching him, she still felt the subdued anger radiating off of him, and a certain sharp quality of his irises.

Mit took ahold of his hand, because she remembered she'd read somewhere that people were more likely to respond positively to requests in the presence of skin-on-skin contact, and she needed all the luck she could get. "Promise me that we'll still be friends no matter what, and you won't ever make me choose between you or Paris, okay?" Or Marshall. His hand was slack in hers, so she already knew the answer. She knew the answer to the question before asking it, but did it anyway, because it was better to waste time on redundant queries than to ask the real questions that she didn't want to know the answers to.

"You know I can't promise you that, Mit. I'm only human, and whatever happens, happens."

She nodded stiffly, dissatisfied, and felt his palm squeeze around hers once before he was  walking out of the lot alone.

She felt her spirits fray away and drop, not like the gentle flutter of falling feathers, but the hard plummet of a solid igneous rock into a stirring lake. She realized then, that she was now at the bottom of the seesaw, the seesaw with Finn, the one with Paris, with them possessing the upper-hands, influencing or dictating the decisions she made, like she was a stringed puppet living off of approval.

She realized also, that maybe she never really did have the upper-hand in the first place.