I need to vent. Badly. So I apologize ahead of time if anything's screwy. Key for songspeak/moviespeak is in ch. 2. Radiospeak is the same as songspeak but not in stanzas.

I refuse to repeat the disclaimer. Read it in ch. 2.

I grind my teeth in frustration as I listen to Stephanie poor her heart out. I want so badly to meddle in this situation, but I know that anything I try is going to mess it up even more. Steph finishes, and makes some lame excuse about a project I know she finished a week ago. I don't call her on it, because I understand. Sometimes venting just isn't enough, and you need to just be alone.

I trudge dejectedly back to my Camaro, climbing in through the already-open door. I don't even chide him about blowing his cover and freaking people out.

"What gives with the long face, Jules?" He's taken to quoting out of my aunt's movie a lot, especially since I told him that she played Juliet. I've heard about a third of that movie come through my Camaro's speakers since last night.

"It's my friend Stephanie. She's got a really bad crush on this guy named Tim. Heck, at this point I honestly think it's past crush and on to in love. He, however, seems too dense to notice. She's hurting really bad right now because somehow the JV cheerleaders got ahold of that information and have been making passes at him and flirting with him all day."

He revs his engine angrily. He's taken a liking to Steph from what he knows about her through me.

"And that's not the half of it. Steph doesn't know, but at lunch I saw Tim sitting there mooning at our other best friend Mica. Mica thinks he's a weirdo, and wouldn't touch him with a ten foot pole if she did like him because of Steph, but if you add this to other stuff I've seen—like him going out of his way to catch up to Mica and trying to put his arm around her a couple of times—then you have a pretty solid case of him having a crush on Mica. I really want to do something, but everything that comes to mind is guaranteed to screw things up even worse.

"Add to that an out of the blue math project due two days from now, two 5000 word essays, another research paper on the life cycle of the slug that I haven't even started due Thursday, and the fact that I'm developing a crush on Michael Banes (who happens to be dating a JV cheerleader who harbors a bitter hatred toward me for some reason that I have yet to figure out), and it's been one heck of a bad day."

"And I say to you, let go of your problems. Give them to God. There is a reason for all those clichés like 'Let go and let God' and 'Quit trying and trust.'" The radio evangelist's voice filled the cabin of the Camaro, now on the road back to my home.

"Yeah, I know, but it's still hard."

"Lean on me when you're not strong

I'll give you strength to help you carry on . . ."

I chuckle. "You just don't give up, do you? Thanks." My eyes widen as I realize something, and I hit myself on the forehead with the heel of my palm.

"Hey, I never asked your name, did I?"

"The Flight of the Bumblebee" dances through the air.

"Bumblebee, huh?"

Applause follows my query. "Cool."

Okay, that ended up way short and rather fluffy (I assume that's the right word), but I needed to get it out of my system, and it adds some interesting places I could take this story.

I hope you enjoyed it. Review, please!