A/N: Only one chapter left until Leila meets two of the gods, one of which is the one that put her in this situation.

Cindy and Peter have played their parts and will not return after this chapter, except in conversation.

Disclaimer: I don't own the gods, I don't own those clothes, I don't own anything, though how fun would it be if I did?


4. Lynn

"that. was. awesome," some girl I don't recognize says, taking up the seat Peter just vacated.

I don't recognize her because in my time-line I probably never actually talked to her. So over the course of seven years, I just forgot she ever existed.

"yes, it was," I agree, smiling widely. "man, that felt great."

I laugh and the girl laughs with me.

"yeah, I can imagine. Nobody really likes him, but since he's one of the popular kids, nobody ever dared to speak up and stick it to him, you know? At least, not the way you just did," she says.

I shrug, still smiling.

"maybe so, but I just spent the last two years of my life being afraid and not daring to speak up and look where that got me. I've decided to fix myself up a bit. If I don't like something, or someone, I'm damn well going to speak up and let myself be heard," I say.

"you go, girl," she says, pumping her fist in the air, making me laugh.

"that was outdated even when it first came out," I say and she shrugs.

"maybe, but it fits, doesn't it?" she asks and I nod, laughing again.

"I'm Leila. But then, you probably already knew that," I say, gesturing to the stage where the principal is reading some grand speech about bullying and harassment.

"I'm Lynn. Actually my name is Gwendolyn, but nobody ever calls me that. And only my mother calls me 'Gwen', which she knows I hate, and only when I'm in trouble, but not in enough trouble for her to go 'Gwendolyn Marissa Torres', you know? Using my full name like parents tend to do when you're in so much trouble. So...Lynn," she says, babbling away without ever coming up for air. It's actually kinda impressive.

"Lynn," I just say, nodding.

"that's me. And don't you forget it, because you and I are going to become great friends," she says.

I want to answer, but suddenly her eyes go big and she slaps her hand over her mouth as if she can't believe she just said that.

"I didn't mean...not like that," she says, pointing to the principal. "I just mean...you seem like a really cool girl, so...I didn't...um..."

I laugh loudly, making everyone around me turn their heads and frown at me, probably wondering if I've finally lost my mind or something.

"I know what you meant," I say when I've finally stopped laughing enough to form complete sentences. "and don't mind me. The whole Cindy-thing is over and done with. It's in the past and this time, it's staying there."

"this time?" she asks, sounding confused, but I just laugh again.

...

"what in the name of Zeus are you doing?" Lynn asks when she walks into my room and sees me throwing almost my entire wardrobe into big garbage bags.

"I'm donating these to goodwill," I say, shrugging. "I thought you said you were coming over around noon."

She sighs and nods, sitting down on my bed.

"I was here, standing at the front door, at exactly noon o'clock," she says.

I look at the clock and then back at her, confused. According to my clock it is now half past one. How could it possibly have taken her an hour and a half to get from the front door to my room?

And did she just say 'noon o'clock'? And 'in the name of Zeus'? Odd girl.

"your mother opened the door and made me sign – I'm not kidding here – a contract saying I was not going to turn into another Cindy, I had no intention of ever stalking you and I solemnly swear – it actually said that, in those words – that you really did invite me over. I'm not sure why she couldn't have just come up and asked you about me, but whatever. After I signed the contract she spent an hour interrogating me, asking me about my likes and dislikes, what are my grades like, who are my parents,...? Then she made me fill in this form she'd made. My full name, my age, the names and ages of my parents, where I was born, where I live, where I've lived before I lived there, my phone-number, my mother's phone-number, my father's phone-number, my e-mail address, my mother's e-mail address, my father's e-mail address, what hospital I was born in,... I think this whole Cindy-incident scared her more than it did you," Lynn says.

At least, I think that's what she said. It's kinda hard to hear her talking over the sound of my own laughter.

Damn, I knew my mom had a crazy-streak, but this...?

"she made you tell her what hospital you were born in?" I ask incredulously and Lynn nods, obviously completely serious.

"damn," I just say, shaking my head and then going back to emptying my closet into the garbage bags.

...

"so tell me again why you're throwing out every single thing you own," Lynn says when I've thrown all my clothes into the bags and start emptying my cabinets.

"I already told you," I say, still throwing stuff into the bags.

"yeah, you have the sudden urge to donate stuff to goodwill, but usually, you donate stuff you're just gonna throw away otherwise, not stuff you actually need," she says and I shrug.

"not that. The other thing I told you," I say. "I'm fixing myself up a bit, reinventing myself."

Lynn just looks at me stupidly and I sigh. "I bought all of this because at some point it was considered 'cool' by the popular kids. Most of these are things I've never actually needed or even wanted. I just bought it because not having it was considered social suicide. Like, you actually needed a portable game-station, even if you've never played a single game in your life," I explain.

"the same goes for all those clothes. I don't like them. I don't find them pretty or comfortable or even affordable. I bought them because fashion weekly told me they were hip and I was willing to spend way more money than I actually had to spend, just to be cool. I'm done with that. So, I'm throwing all this shit away, except for those few things in that blue bag over there. Those were so expensive that I've decided to sell them, rather than give them away. With the money I make selling that crap, I'm going to buy cheap, comfortable, colorful clothes that I like, not this gray and black junk that is apparently cool, but I've always secretly hated because it's so boring. And fun, interesting, cool stuff that I've always wanted to own. Like a laptop, for one. Or at least a computer that takes less than four hours to boot up. But hey, if you see anything you like, feel free to take it. It'll just go to kids just like me, who are too poor to buy the 'cool' stuff, but want to be popular anyway, so they buy this crap at discount stores and just don't tell anyone it's second-hand."

"well, I have always wanted a portable game-station," Lynn says, ripping the gameboy from my hands and looking at it adoringly before turning her begging eyes on me.

I laugh and shrug.

"consider it yours. Here, have all these stupid games I never got around to playing as well," I say, throwing her at least 200 dollars' worth of games for that thing.

Her eyes go big and she smiles widely.

"well, I also saw a shirt that was pretty cool just now," she says, looking at the garbage bags littering my room with whole new eyes.

I laugh again.

"go ahead. The blue bag and everything – however little it is – left in my closet and cabinets are mine, but other than that, have fun with it. Take all of it, for all I care. I just want it out of my room and out of my life. No more changing myself to fit what other people think is acceptable. From today onwards I'm just going to be 'Leila', the girl I was always meant to be," I say dramatically.

Lynn is only half listening, spending the other half of her focus on the bags she's now emptying on the floor, picking out clothes and gadgets she wants.

"you don't have a lot of money, do you?" I ask when I see her picking out a simple white shirt.

Sure, it's from some expensive brand, but still...it's a plain white shirt.

"not really. My mom is raising me by herself and although my dad sends us money every now and then for my school and stuff, it's never really enough to take care of both of us, you know? And as a simple cleaning-lady, my mom doesn't have the most amazing salary," she says and she shrugs as if it's no big deal, but I can see the joy in her eyes as she picks out one shirt or skirt after another, gathering enough so that her mom won't have to spend their precious money on clothes for her for at least a year or so.

"you know, you can just take it all and sell the stuff you don't need, if you want. This is not charity, mind you, I was going to throw it out anyway," I say. "I only need that blue bag and I'm going to sell that as well. If we go together, between the two of us, I bet we can make enough money to buy a whole new wardrobe for me, a nice gift for your mom, and ice-cream for you and me both."

"two scoops?" Lynn asks childishly and I laugh.

"maybe even three," I say, making her laugh as well as she gets up to help me sort out the rest of my stuff, gathering it on four piles: one pile of stuff I want to sell, one pile of stuff Lynn wants to sell, one pile of stuff Lynn wants to keep and one pile of stuff I want to keep.

...

"what the hell am I going to do with this much money?" Lynn asks me, the look on her face suggesting she's actually looking for an answer.

"I mean, this was all your stuff, so I guess..." she says, trying to hand me the money, but I just laugh.

"not gonna happen, Gwenny dearest. I gave you that stuff knowing how much money it would bring you, should you sell it," I say.

"Gwenny dearest?" she just mumbles and I laugh again.

I've been laughing more these last three days with Lynn than I have in my entire life before this, the fifteen year long one or the twenty-two year long one.

"besides, have you seen this?" I ask, showing her the money in my hands, easily twice as much as what she's carrying. "I didn't realize exactly how much money I've been wasting on 'being cool'. But look at this! I can buy ten times what I've just sold, without the brand-names, and still have enough money for that ice-cream."

"yeah, but you still need to buy all these new clothes and stuff. I already have a complete new wardrobe and a bunch of other stuff, with the brand-names," Lynn says, shoving the money into her wallet.

"so? We can go shopping and you can buy some more stuff if you see anything you like, we can buy a nice present for your mother and then you can just give the rest to her for food, bills and trips to the doctor and stuff," I say, shrugging.

"this might sound very gold-digger-ish, but I am so glad I decided to come talk to you after you told Peter where he could shove it," she says, sighing happily.

"yeah, you and me both. Seriously, I've really upgraded, as far as friends go," I say and she laughs.

"well, that's not much of a compliment, really. My only competition was Cindy, the crazy stalker-girl," she says and I shrug.

"not really, I did have a real friend before Cindy, called Sandra, but even she couldn't hold a candle to you," I admit, making her smile.

"well, good. Guess we're going to be great friends after all, just like I predicted," she says, sighing dramatically. "you know, sometimes it's just creepy how often I'm right about stuff like that. I'm probably psychic."

...

"what the hell happened to you?" someone asks, sounding horrified, the very second I walk into the school the next Monday.

I'm wearing the kind of thing I've always wanted to wear, but I was always too shy to.

Bright red high tops; striped knee-high socks – red, blue and yellow; a short skirt – black leather, ripped in places to show the bright blue, red and green underneath; a pretty belt – a silver chain, a gold chain and a blue, a red and a violet ribbon intertwined; a black T-shirt – ripped like my skirt to show the red and blue underneath; striped arm warmers – the same colors as my socks; and a wine-red choker with a silver pendant of a grapevine and a strand of poison ivy intertwined around a thyrsus.

"awesome!" Lynn yells when she sees me. "the bright colors, the thyrsus, it's total madness."

She claps her hands happily, jumping up and down.

"I want to steal that choker," she sighs, running her fingers over the pendant.

"you cannot," I say, slapping her hand away. "it cost me an arm and a leg. I bought it in some back-alley store that sold all kinds of stuff that probably isn't all 100% legal. But it was so worth it."

Lynn nods, smiling widely.

"that look would make Dionysus himself sick with envy," she says.

"that's the point," I say, winking conspiratorially, making her laugh. "but seriously, I've wanted to dress up like this since I was a little girl, but it just wasn't 'cool' enough. But now that I no longer care about being cool, I see no reason why I shouldn't let all my crazy come out into the light."

"man, I wish I could be more like you. Well, I wouldn't walk around like that, exactly. I would just die. But you, you're so...you!" she yells. "I want to be me."

"well, what's keeping you? Let your crazy out," I say.

"maybe I will," she says, sighing again and turning to go find her locker with one last longing look at my choker.

...

"you're coming with me and that's final!" Lynn says firmly, sitting down next to me in the lunchroom.

"uh..." I say, looking at her questioningly.

"oh! Duh. I haven't actually told you about it yet. I just practiced this conversation in my head so many times and in it you always refused, so I somehow convinced myself you actually had already refused," she says, as if that makes perfect sense, which it really doesn't.

"there's this meeting that my mom wants me to attend. Some boring old-people stuff. We're into Hellenism, my mom and I. Usually, it's pretty cool. I mean, I get to learn all the old myths and stuff. Fun, right? Yeah, except every now and then my mom drags me into these meetings where a bunch of old people talk about 'the ancient Greek mythology in regards to modern-day society and religions' or whatever they call it. Boring! So...I asked my mom if I could bring a friend this time and she said yes, so you're going, end of discussion. Glad we had this talk," she says, nodding as if it had already been decided and pulling her lunch out of her bag, apparently serious about this 'discussion' being over.

"uh..." I just say again and she sighs annoyedly, obviously not happy I want to re-open this conversation.

"I won't take no for an answer," she says.

"I wasn't going to say 'no' perse, but I'm gonna need a little more information. When is it? Where is it? How am I getting there? Are we going to be gone for more than one day? And if yes, what do I need to pack? When will we be back?" I ask, throwing my hands up in a helpless gesture.

"oh. Well, we'll be gone for one week, exactly. It's the first week of the coming vacation that starts four days from now. It's in Greece, obviously, but don't worry," she says.

Obviously?

"everyone there speaks English, because there are people from all over the world coming, so they decided on just using one central language, so everyone can understand each other. You're traveling with me and my mom, duh. She already bought an extra plane-ticket so you can come and she rented a hotel room for herself and one for the two of us. She paid for it with the money you 'gave' me, so she doesn't really mind the extra cost. And you need to pack...whatever you would usually pack for a one-week vacation in Greece. The meetings are only the first day, the third day and the sixth day. The other days are a real vacation," she continues, talking as if I should somehow already know all this, as if it's obvious, common knowledge and I'm weird for not knowing this.

...

"ugh, I hate student-teacher conferences," Lynn says, looking at her watch for the millionth time, waiting for the time our parents will arrive.

"I don't particularly care," I say, shrugging.

"how did you get that?" Lynn asks, finally noticing my new pendant – I just used the same wine-colored choker, but replaced the pendant.

"what, this old thing?" I say sarcastically. "I figured if you're going to drag me to a meeting about Hellenism, I might as well dress for the part. So I went back to that back-alley store and it turned out they had a whole collection of these crazy pendants, so I used up all the money I had left from our 'shopping-trip' to buy as many of them as I could afford. I have this one..." A golden bull-pendant. "...a crystal wineglass-pendant with silver decorations; an emerald serpent – now that one was seriously expensive. Luckily, it was probably stolen, so I managed to convince the salesman to sell it to me for half price, but even then it was ridiculously expensive, but it's so pretty; another one with a poison ivy strand and a grapevine intertwined, but without the thyrsus; a pretty silver fig branch and one just a simple golden pine cone," I say, counting of fingers as I'm talking.

"correct me if I'm wrong, but your favorite Olympian is...Dionysus," Lynn says and I laugh.

"is it very obvious? I tried to be subtle about it," I say sarcastically.

"but I'm a nice person, so I'll give you this," I say, giving her a small blue box.

She opens it excitedly, letting out a very high-pitched screech that hurts my ears when she sees the thin gold chain in it.

She hasn't even seen the pendant yet.

Guess she's never owned a gold necklace before.

"it's a lightning bolt," she says, laughing.

"it was that or a rose. And while I understand that the rose is Aphrodite's favorite flower, there are just too many 'normal' necklaces with a rose-pendant," I say, shrugging. "apparently, the shady salesman also preferred Dionysus, because he had all these awesome Dionysus-pendants, but only one pendant for Zeus and one for Aphrodite and none for the others and...oomph," I say, sucking in a quick breath when Lynn finally releases me from the choke-hold she had me in, probably trying to give me a hug.

"thank you, thank you, thank you," she chants, putting the necklace on and smiling widely as she runs her fingers over the small golden lightning bolt.

...

"how was it?" Lynn asks worriedly as I flop down on the chair next to the one she's sitting on.

"it was...ugh," I say, having no other way to describe it.

"he said 'we're worried about your daughter's mental health. Since this thing with Cindy came out, she's been dressing oddly and acting unpredictably, that's not to say 'crazy'. I can suggest a few good psychologists to you that you can take her to. She obviously misses some kind of closure in this, so she acts out as a cry for help'," I say, causing Lynn to fall into fits of hysteric laughter.

"it's not that funny. He said all that while I was sitting right there. And then he asks me to wait in the hallway because he wants to speak privately to my parents for a bit, so whatever he's telling them now is even worse," I say, sighing deeply. "seriously, show your true nature and people immediately think you need a shrink or something."

Lynn just keeps laughing until I stomp on her toes.

"look, you know your clothes are pretty insane," she says, sounding perfectly reasonable, as if she's talking to a stubborn child. "and you have been acting unpredictably. Walking out of class halfway into the lesson because 'you're bored' and drinking wine in public..."

"it's non-alcoholic!" I yell.

Lynn puts up her hands in surrender.

"I know. I also know that, apparently, the 'real you' is a dead ringer for Dionysus, personality-wise. Which is probably the reason why he's your favorite Olympian. But he's also the god of alcohol, drugs and insanity, so if you act like him, it's no more than normal that people are going to be a bit worried," she says.

"I don't know. It's not like I'm purposely acting like him, you know. I just love the taste of wine, even non-alcoholic wine, and as for getting bored halfway through class...well, those classes really are boring. I already know all this stuff. Just let me do the exam and be done with this crap," I sigh.

"I know you're not acting like Dionysus. You're acting like you. But, like I said, personality-wise, you're a dead ringer for Dionysus. At least, for Dionysus as he's depicted in the stories," Lynn says. "but, like I also said, drinking wine – even non-alcoholic wine – in public, dressing in ten-thousand colors, walking out of class because 'you already know all this', when before you could barely get a passing grade,... People are bound to get worried, if only because this change is so sudden. People fear what they don't understand, remember? And no-one understands you, not even me."

"I know," I say, sighing again. "still..."

Then the door opens and my mom walks out with a worried look in her eyes, making me sigh again.