Lennon

Chapter Ten

 Chapter Ten – TV Taught Me How to Feel

“You can’t possibly be serious, Jude.”

            The boy in question looks me straight in the eye, daring me to call him out on his bluff. He doesn’t miss a beat when he begins to speak, “I kid you not; that’s literally my sister’s name.”

            Shaking my head at the fine piece of art who speaks of nonsense, I don’t believe my eyes. If what he’s saying is true, then I have lost all hope for humanity. Not really, as my own father named me Lennon just because he liked the Beatles well enough.

            “That’s crazy, though. Why would they every do that?”

            He gives a slight shrub of the shoulders, resulting in him making the cutest face expression in the world. “How am I supposed to know what was going on in my parents head when they named my baby sister Penny Lane? That thought it would be adorable if all of our names were a referenced to the Beatles. I, for one, still don’t see the cuteness of the situation, but to each thier own. You know that some people are just so obsessive like that.”

            “Your parents’ names are references to the Beatles too?” I smack the top of my head with my hand, faceplaming for the sake of all of the Love Household. It’s one thing to name both of your kids after your favorite band back in the good old days, but to make it a custom? That’s just really weird.

            “My mom’s name is Abbey with Eleanor being her middle name, obviously a double threat to all of the world’s population. My dad’s name is Paul, clearly making the connection to Paul McCartney,” Jude lets out a series of groans as he lists off the unfortunate names of his relatives.

            “I feel so bad for you and your sister to have to put up with that, my God. Your sisters lucky, though; her family is a real life cliché of the typical Pop Cultured family and she had to put up with an idiot like you. That’s enough to make anyone go insane,” I tease him with a smirk to match his famous one.

            “You know that you both are lucky to have me grace your lives, I know. There isn’t any need for you to keep denying it like that. It’s not good for your mind to keep chasing paper like this. You have to stop and face the music one of these days, Len Ben.” I know that he’s saying the words in a laughing matter, but that doesn’t stop the breath from clogging in my throat. 

            My thoughts start reeling back to what happened last night, replaying the moment as slow as possible. It goes back frame to frame, not letting me escape from myself. No matter how hard I push back on the memory, it remains stubbornly rooted in my brain. Meredith thankfully was dead asleep when everything started crashing down on me, so that saves me less of a headache of thinking up some lie to keep Meredith’s reputation of me at bay. I know that this is the place where troubled souls to go and I’m not even that messed up in comparison, but I don’t want Jude or Meredith to know what’s wrong with me.

            I let out a laugh, pretending that I’m not as mixed as I feel. The moment I let it out, I knew that there was no mistaking the fact that I’m not okay. It’s coming out way too laugh, bouncing off of the walls of my cabin. I drag it out for way longer than necessary, as I can’t seem to make it stop, no matter how much I wish to shut up.

            “You know it’s true,” Jude comments, seemingly not hearing the messed up jitter. He must have heart it, as I’m inches away from him. Just another thing I love about the people here; I can appear to have be centimeters away from being put into a mental hospital, but everything will pretend that I’m as normal as they are with witty joke about inappropriate matters.