𝘾𝙃𝘼𝙋. 𝙎𝙀𝙑𝙀𝙉𝙏𝙀𝙀𝙉 ─── 𝖲𝖤𝖠𝖲𝖮𝖭 𝟭
❝ 𝗟𝗔𝗖𝗘𝗬 𝗕𝗟𝗔𝗖𝗞 𝖯𝖠𝖭𝖳𝖨𝖤𝖲 ❞
❪ 𝙏𝘼𝙋𝙀 𝙁𝙊𝙐𝙍, 𝘚𝘐𝘋𝘌 𝘉 ❫

𝟣𝟩. ╱ ✷ ❝ shit 𝗵𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗲𝗻𝘀, and people 𝘀𝘂𝗰𝗸 ❞

"𝗪𝗘 𝗔𝗥𝗘 𝗥𝗘𝗔𝗟𝗟𝗬 freaking high!"

"Don't think about it. Chalk your hands if they're sweaty." Tony tells him.

"I can't really feel my arms."

"You gotta shake 'em out, one at a time." Riley says, "Get the blonde moving, alright?"

"Whoo!" Clay shook his arms out.

"Good. Good." Tony looks down at him, "We're getting closer. Remember, you gotta go slow if you want to climb fast. Alright! Oh, shit!"

One of the rocks broke off of the cliff, falling and hitting Clay on the head.

"Ow! Gah!"

"Shit! Oh, shit!"

"What? What? I can't see!" Clay exclaimed, squeezing his eyes shut since dust and dirt had gotten into them.

"What the hell is going on?" Riley peaked her head down below, having made it to the top.

"I lost a handhold." Tony tells them, "Give me a sec, I've got to figure this out."

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"𝗔𝗟𝗥𝗜𝗚𝗛𝗧, 𝗜'𝗠 𝗚𝗢𝗡𝗡𝗔 throw this." Tony calls as he finally makes it to the top of the cliff, throwing some of the rope down as he tied the end around his waist, "Grab it, pull yourself up."

"Tony, I can't."

"Of course, you can. One foot at a time." Tony looks back at Riley, "Riles, hold onto my waist."

"Alright, you got it." Riley calls to her cousin as she holds onto Tony's waist just in case.

"There you go. There you go!"

"Oh, shit! Oh, man!" Clay yelled as Tony pulled him up, steading him on his feet, "Whoa! That was fucking amazing!"

"Was it? Or was it fucking amazing?" Tony asked him.

"That was fucking amazing." Clay says, "Like...I thought I was gonna die!"

"But you didn't, did you?" Riley asked.

"Fuck!"

"Fuck!" Tony yelled out, his voice echoing.

"Fuck!"

Riley couldn't help but to laugh as her cousin, even though she was still pissed at him from the little stunt he had pulled that morning at school.

"I saw this YouTube video once where this guy in Spain was walking on this crane. He had to be at least fifteen stories. He's walking, walking, walking, and then he slips." Clay explains to the two, "He lets out this loud scream. Seconds later, wham!"

"Wham, what?" Tony asked him.

"The camera went black, but I'm pretty sure he died." Clay says.

"Shit, Clay."

"Fuck." Clay breathed unevenly, "I never totally realized, that's a really great world."

"It is, huh?" Tony asked.

"Uh, Clay." Riley points to her cousins' forehead, "You're bleeding."

Clay brought his hands up to his head gently touching his forehead, pulling his hand back to see blood, "Fuck."

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"𝗬𝗢𝗨 𝗕𝗢𝗧𝗛 𝗣𝗥𝗢𝗠𝗜𝗦𝗘𝗗 me the secrets at the top of this rock." Clay says as the three of them are sitting down, "I risked my life to get here."

"You wouldn't have died." Tony says.

"You'd break a bunch of shit."

"I never thought of it. Dying." Clay states, "Until this year."

"Have you ever seen a dead body?" Asked Tony.

"I've been to a few funerals." He glances at Riley as he thought about holding her as she cried during Jeff's funeral.

"Have you ever seen a crime scene?" Riley asked him.

"Well, like...CSI and Law and Order, all that."

"No, no. She means like a...a real one." Tony said.

"Have the two of you?" Clay questioned.

"Yeah," Riley nods, "Once."

"What was it like?"

"Quiet." Riley says softly.

"Not silent or anything, just....no excitement. No big noise. Just cops walking around doing the jobs." Tony said, "Like it was nothing."

"How old were you?" Clay asked.

"Seventeen."

"What was the crime?"

Riley sits in silence for a moment, "Suicide."

Clay stays silent this time, looking between the two in shock, "You were both there. You saw her."

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"𝘽𝙐𝙏 𝙄𝙎 𝙏𝙃𝘼𝙏 why you really did it? So you could help touch just one person? I doubt it. People like you don't make selfish moves."

"Oh, my God, dude, this shit is crazy!" Marcus exclaimed as Hannah walks to her locker, "Today, I am wearing lacy black underwear with the sole purpose of knowing that I am wearing it". I wonder who's the skank who wrote this!"

"I don't even know what this means." Zach says.

"It's a bitch who's been burned. I know that.'

Hannah walks away from her locker where Zach and Marcus were across from, still talking about the poem that she knew had been hers.

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"𝙔𝙊𝙐 𝙆𝙉𝙀𝙒 𝙏𝙃𝙀 shit I shared was personal. You knew where it came from, and that it would get people talking. I realize now that I was desperate for someone to listen...and you listened. And then you made my most private thoughts a public spectacle."

"It's her writing." Jessica tells Courtney as Hannah walks into the classroom, Riley sitting behind the Davis girl with her arms crossed over her chest which Hannah found her doing a lot, "I can totally recognize it."

"Why would she write something like this?" Courtney asked, "So humiliating.

"No, Courtney." Riley spoke loudly, turning a few heads in her direction - including Courtney, Jessica and Hannah, "What's humiliating is the fact that the only kind of underwear you're able to write about has 'Hello, Kitty' printed on the front of them. You sound jealous. What? Are you mad that someone else was able to - and did - write about their lacy black panties and you're not able to?"

Courtney looks down at her desk in embarrassment as there were a few chuckles and giggles to ring out in the room.

"What kind of panties are you wearing, Riley?" Marcus smirks, looking back at her.

"The kind that you'll never be able to see." Her voice was blunt as she spoke, a blank expression on her face, not even making the effort to look in his direction.

"It had been brought to my attention that Ryan's publication now includes poetry." The teacher stood in front of the class, and Riley can't help but to cringe at the ugly black bob she had for hair, "And since we're doing sonnets this semester, I thought I would take a minute to praise the work of this poet."

"Hannah." Marcus coughed out, causing the class to laugh.

"Shut the fuck up, Marcus before I take your big ass head and smash it against your desk so that you gain brain damage to the pea sized brain that you have." Riley snapped.

"There's a sort of naked vulnerability to it that I like. It's quite intimate." The teacher continued on, the kids laughing, "Intimate is not a dirty word." She continues to read. "Today, I am wearing lacy black underwear for the sole purpose of knowing.....,"

"So, you bear your heart to one person and everybody ends up laughing."

"I've got skin, miles and miles of skin. I've got skin to cover up all my thoughts like Saran wrap."

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"𝗜 𝗖𝗔𝗡 𝗦𝗘𝗘 her through the window." Tony said as the three are still on the top of the cliff, "She's walking up to the door, she left these boxes. And goes. I don't get up. I figured if it was important, she would have knocked. Rang the doorbell or something, right? And I...I should have gone out there. I should have talked to her. But...look, I liked Hannah. She was a friend. But the girl was a lot. She was a lot. She was drama."

"And Tony was apparently the only guy at Liberty High who didn't grab her ass or stare at her tits. Or mine." Riley said.

"And so I always got to hear about it...and on that particular day, I didn't want to deal, so I let her walk away." Tony finished.

"Jesus, Tony."

"Half-hour...forty-five minutes later, I got the boxes, open 'em and there's these tapes, and a letter. 'Please take care of these. Give one of the boxes to Riley. Listen, and you'll both know". I called Riley and she came straight over. We started listening to the first tape together. And then...I tried calling the Baker's. They don't answer. We speed to her house."

"The ambulance was already there." Riley tears up, "And the cops. And the front doors open. We run inside. Her parents are there. And she's...they've got her in a body bag."

"I remember thinking, 'There's no fucking handles on that bag. How are they gonna pick her up? How are they gonna carry her'." Tony says, "And they just grabbed the bag...and threw her in the ambulance. Just like that."

Clay sniffed, "Do the other kids know? Why you're both taking care of Hannah like you are?"

"Of course not. You need to know." Tony tells him, "You're my friend."

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"𝗧𝗛𝗘𝗥𝗘 𝗪𝗔𝗦 𝗔 path the whole time?" Clay questions, "We could have just walked up there?"

"Yes. But where's the fun in that?" Tony asked, "It was Riley's idea 'cause of the little stunt you pulled this morning."

"Everything you both told me, you could have told me anywhere." Clay says, "In Monet's the other night."

"Would you have been ready to hear it?" Asked Tony.

"Yeah."

Riley and Tony shot him both the same look.

"No. I don't know. I wish I had known, though. Why you cared so much about Hannah. I kept trying to figure it out. I thought maybe...I thought maybe you were in love with her."

Riley lets out a loud laugh, "Oh, my God! You are so stupid!"

"Clay...," Tony shared an amused look with the blonde Jensen, "You know I'm gay, right?"

"What?" Clay was shocked, "No, I didn't know that. How was I supposed to know that?"

"I thought everyone knew it." Tony starts to walk once more.

"I don't think anyone knows that."

"A lot of people know it." Riley tells her cousin.

"Wait, wait, wait, wait." Tony was the one to stop the three from walking, "Did you think that I was...just friends with Ryan?"

"Well, yeah, I guess so."

"You think I would be friends with a guy like Ryan?" Questioned Tony.

"Yeah, I would think you would be 'cause apparently you went out." Clay says, "Wait, how did Riley know?"

"Riley was the first one I told." Tony tells him, a smirk making its way on his face, "Put it on a cake and everything."

Riley grinned, "It was a really nice cake."

"So that guy Brad...is he your boyfriend now?"

"I hope he's still my boyfriend. He's been pretty annoyed lately because...I've been spending all my time with another guy." Tony says, Clay looks at him with a dumbfounded look on his face.

"You, dumbas." Riley rolls her eyes.

"Oh. Right." Clay says, "You mean with the tapes and all, not in the romantic way."

"Sure."

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"𝗔𝗣𝗣𝗔𝗥𝗘𝗡𝗧𝗟𝗬, 𝗬𝗢𝗨𝗥 𝗠𝗢𝗠 called my dad." Tony tells Clay after checking his phone when the three got back to his car.

"Oh, Jesus. My mom." Clay sighed, "I'll text her. We do not need that particular hysterical phone call at this moment."

"Maybe if you didn't keep all those secrets from her-,"

Clay cuts him off, "Oh, fuck you, with your secrets. Could I, uh, could I get those tapes back sometime?"

"Sure thing." Tony handed the shoe box of tapes back to him.

"So, what? Was this you guys' plan the whole time?" Clay asked the two.

"We knew sooner or later you'd want the tapes back."

"You knew?"

"Yeah." Riley nods, "You haven't heard yours yet."

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𝗥𝗜𝗟𝗘𝗬 𝗔𝗡𝗗 𝗖𝗟𝗔𝗬 walk into the house, looking at Matt and Lainie who sat at the table by the front door.

"We're sorry...I'm really-," Clay spoke up, "Tony, Riley and I had to talk, and we lost track of time. And I know this is really not like us, believe me."

"We're sorry." Riley bites her lip.

Matt pulled his niece and son into a hug, earning shocked looks from the two.

"Oh, God. We must be in huge trouble." Clay says.

"No." Lainie spoke up, "But next time, a text would be appreciated before you both go, and not on the way home."

"No, right, of course.I couldn't reach my phone for a while. But, yet." Clay nodded, "And you can ground us for a month."

Riley snapped her head in his direction, punching his arm ,"Don't say that!"

"No groundings." Matt tells them, "Were just...glad you're both alive."

"Me too, Dad." Clay says before the cousins go their separate ways, Clay going to his room and Riley going to sit in the backyard.

"Sometimes the future doesn't unfold the way you think it will. Shit happens, and people suck. Maybe that's why I stopped writing....and eventually started making tapes."

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"𝗖𝗔𝗡 𝗪𝗘 𝗧𝗔𝗟𝗞?" Clay moved to sit next to Riley, who still sat in the backyard, the sky now a dark color as the sun had disappeared an hour ago.

"Yeah." Riley sits up, bringing her knees to her chest and wrapping her arms around her legs, chin resting on top of her left knee, "What's up?"

"Be honest...how much do you have me right now?" He asked her.

Riley sits for a moment, "I don't hate you, Clay. You're the only other family I have, so I can't hate you."

The two sit in silence.

"I just - for a while after my parents deaths, I shut myself off from the world - from everyone including Jeff - and I didn't know what to do with myself. I mean, my mom died by the hands of the person that vowed to love her until the end of time, and then killed himself in front of his daughter. And I felt as if I didn't have a place in the world anymore, so I took some pills and I overdosed. Then, I woke up in that hospital room and I hated myself, hated that I was still alive. But Jeff was there to help me find myself again."

"Riley....,"

She continues, "Then when Jeff - my literal lifeline - died everyone saw me as this breakable doll that they were scared to touch in fear that I would break, break my sobriety. And I was so mad at the world, locking myself in my room and staying in bed, hiding away from the looks of pity that everyone gave me. And as I was getting myself together, and finally getting things back on track, Tony calls me and we listen to Hannah's tapes, and I found the truth behind something that broke me more than I thought was possible. But everyday, I tell myself that everything is going to be okay...that I'm going to be okay."

"Do you - do you ever get the urge to do it again? Take more pills?"

Riley nodded, "Every fucking day. But then I think about how many people I would be hurting if I did it, both alive and dead. I think about how disappointed Jeff would be in me."

Clay holds onto every work from his cousin, "How do you fight it?"

"Jeff." She reaches up to hold onto the silver 'J' that hung around her neck, "Even when he's gone, Jeff knows just how to pull me back to reality. And I'm thankful everyday that he was brought into my life. Because without him, I would've been dead long before he was."