𝘾𝙃𝘼𝙋. 𝙀𝙄𝙂𝙃𝙏𝙀𝙀𝙉 ─── 𝖲𝖤𝖠𝖲𝖮𝖭 𝟭
❝ 𝗪𝗢𝗥𝗦𝗧 𝖨𝖲 𝗬𝗘𝗧 𝖳𝖮 𝖢𝖮𝖬𝖤 ❞
❪ 𝙏𝘼𝙋𝙀 𝙁𝙄𝙑𝙀, 𝘚𝘐𝘋𝘌 𝘈 ❫

𝟣𝟪. ╱ ✷ ❝ i 𝘄𝗮𝘀𝗻'𝘁 going to be
𝗶𝗻𝘃𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝘆𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲 ❞

"𝙄'𝙑𝙀 𝙂𝙊𝙏 𝘼 question, Justin. Not the one you're thinking. Not yet. What's the best part of high school? The greatest friends you make? The romance? No. We both know the best part of school....is summer break.

"It's the great rest button. After everything that happened to me Sophomore year...I couldn't wait to start fresh...to tear the rest of the pages from my journal and forget it all. Except, I didn't get very far.

"At work, my usual partner in crime was spending the summer with his grandparents. His temporary replacement was nice enough, but entirely too normal. And I couldn't escape my past. I needed to change. I needed to be someone new. Have you ever felt like that? I wasn't going to be invisible anymore."

"I was going to start brand new. I was going to cut away the past...and leave it all behind. I was going to work harder. Be smarter. And stronger. Because you can't change other people, but you can change yourself."

ミ⛧ ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ ⛧ﾐ

"𝗡𝗢, 𝗦𝗢 𝗡𝗢𝗪 she's trying to punish me by giving all of my stunts to this eighty pound freshman."

Riley stood in a circle of people -- Jessica, Sheri, Justin, Bryce and Zach -- listening to Jessica about the coach of the cheer team, only being there because Zach dragged her over.

"Go ahead. You really think that she can lift Melanie Opstad's fat ass into pyramid formation? She's fucking fat! Really, good luck!"

"Your couch is such a bitch." Bryce laughed.

"Yeah!"

"She's actually cool as long as people show up to practice." Sheri teases the Davis girl.

"Oh!"

"Alright. It's cheerleading, it's not saving lives." Jessica says, pulling a purple thermos out of her bag, "Anyone down for a little pick-me-up?"

Watching Jessica scrunch her face up after taking a drink, Justin grabs it out of her hand and takes a smell out of it, "Is that Vodka? Since when do you drink at school?"

"Since when do you ever turn down a drink?" Bryce punches the boy's arm, motioning for Jessica to hand the thermos over to him.

"I, um, I gotta go." Riley shifted uncomfortably on her feet before she turned to walk off.

ミ⛧ ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ ⛧ﾐ

"𝗛𝗘𝗬, 𝗝𝗘𝗦𝗦𝗜𝗖𝗔. 𝗝𝗘𝗦𝗦𝗜𝗖𝗔." Clay caught up to the girl as she walked down the hallway, "I heard the tape about your party."

"Seriously? Haven't you figured it out?" Jessica asked him, "Those tapes are bullshit."

"I don't think so."

"Move on."

"Tell me why."

"Move on."

"No."

"My God! Okay, fine. Come here." Jessica pulled the Jensen boy into an empty classroom, "Seriously, Clay? Get over it."

"It was you she was talking about, right? Because if it was, I want her help, okay?" Clay tells her, causing Jessica to scoff. "We need to do something about it. Tell someone."

"That night did not happen the way Hannah said." Jessica tells him.

"Then how did it happen?" Questioned Clay.

"I hooked up with my boyfriend."

"With Justin?"

"Yeah. With Justin."

"Hannah said you were completely out of it." Clay tells her, "She said things happened."

"If something happened, I'd remember it." Jessica said, "We were both pretty drunk, so we basically just passed out after."

"Justin told you that, or you remember?"

"I remember, okay? So back off."

Riley's voice fills the two's ears, "Justin. Justin, stop!"

"Man, Jensen, you just can't leave it alone, can you?" Justin walked into the room as Jessica was walking out, Riley running behind the Foley boy to pull him away from her cousin, "Stay the fuck away from my girlfriend."

"Let's go." Jessica pushes on his chest.

"Justin, leave it." Riley pleaded with the boy.

"Who was it, Justin? Who did it?" Clay questioned.

"Clay! For once, just shut up!" Riley tells him.

"Did what?" Justin asked.

"Fuck him. Let's go."

"Mind your own fucking business, you got it?"

"Come on, I know."

"What the fuck is his problem?" Riley could still hear Justin talk as him and Jessica walk down the hallway.

"Shit, you're just asking to get hit." Riley shook her head, "Be glad I found him before he got in here or he would've knocked your ass out."

ミ⛧ ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ ⛧ﾐ

"𝙃𝙀𝙔, 𝙃𝙀𝙇𝙈𝙀𝙏." 𝙃𝘼𝙉𝙉𝘼𝙃 walked into the Crestmont, finding Clay scraping gum from under some chairs, "Sorry, I'm late on gum-scraping-day of all days. Hope you saved me some good ones."

"You snooze, you lose." Clay lifted his head up, staring at Hannah's cut hair.

"What?" She asked, "What are you staring at?"

"Ah, nothing. Nah, sorry." Clay pointed towards one of the chairs, "I saved you a particularly gnarly piece with some hair in it."

Hannah grinned, putting on a pair of plastic gloves, "Here I thought I was a flower and chocolate kind of girl."

"So, uh, are you going to that party tonight at Jessica Davis' house?" Clay asked her.

"Since when do you go to parties?" Hannah asked him.

"Well, since Jeff and Riley told me I had to come." Clay tells her, "Jeff assured me it will be the highlight of my high school career. And Riley threatened to send around a very...embarrassing picture around from when we were kids that I do not want to get out."

"Why can't people swallow their gum like when we were kids?" She asked.

"I never swallowed my gum."

"Of course you didn't."

Clay smiled and sat up, "You know, the party could be the highlight of your high school career."

"Yeah, I doubt it. Nope, it's part of my fresh start." Hannah stood up, "No more parties, no more slacking off."

"That's crazy. Because this is the year I'm gonna start slacking off." Clay joked.

"You gonna start riding your bike sans helmet?"

"I am."

"Gonna turn in a project late?"

"Um...maybe." Clay pauses before he shakes his head, "No, I'm not gonna do that. But I might half-ass a paper now and again."

"Whoa. Careful there."

"You should come." Clay tells her, "It might be cool to actually hang out when we're not both covered in chewing gum."

"Don't be an enabler." Hannah says, "I made a deal with myself."

"No, Riles would be the enabler." Clay laughed, "I'll watch out for you. One beer, max. Home by midnight, even if I have to pedal you home on my bike."

Hannah sighs, "I don't think so."

"Part of me knew I shouldn't go to Jessica's house that night. But another part of me couldn't help but wonder what..or who..I might be missing out on. So here I am, the brand-new me...living the same old life."

ミ⛧ ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ ⛧ﾐ

"𝗬𝗢, 𝗖𝗟𝗔𝗬." 𝗠𝗔𝗥𝗖𝗨𝗦 walked over to where Clay was walking on his own towards the lunch line, Riley nowhere around which was a good sign for the Cole boy.

"What's up?"

"How you doing today?"

"What do you want, Marcus?" He questions.

"Did you, Tony and Riley talk yesterday?" Marcus questioned.

"We sure did."

"Okay, and you're just...doing your own thing?"

Clay glances over to see Justin and Zach watching the two of them, "Oh, more than ever."

"Okay. Okay, look, I understand that you're going through your own process or whatever, but I'm worried about you, man. I don't want to see you get hurt." Marcus tells him.

"Yeah, I'm sure you don't."

"Hey, I'm trying to protect you, okay? But I can't if you keep running your mouth. I mean, what's your play here, anyway?" Marcus asked with a shrug.

"My play?" Clay turns to him, "Like it's a play. You guys threw rocks through Tyler's window. What did you do for Jessica? This is the second tape where somebody committed a crime. There's a criminal walking around our school."

"Wait a minute." Marcus pulls Clay out of the line.

"Don't touch me." Clay says, "Look, maybe Jessica managed to convince herself nothing happened, but if she's not gonna do anything, I will."

"Listen, no one knows if those tapes are telling the truth. And Jessica said nothing happened." Marcus spoke, "No court of law's gonna listen to a case where--,"

Clay cuts him off, "I'll start with the school."

"You don't know what the f...," Marcus pauses, "You don't know what you're doing. Okay? You haven't even listened to your own tape. And I'm telling you, the worst is yet to come."

"I thought maybe starting over didn't have to mean cutting myself off completely. Maybe I'd been hanging with the wrong people. Maybe I could start over with the right person. But if I'd have known what was going to happen, I never would have walked through that door."

ミ⛧ ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ ⛧ﾐ

"𝗛𝗘𝗬....𝗜𝗦 𝗘𝗩𝗘𝗥𝗬𝗧𝗛𝗜𝗡𝗚 okay?"

Riley pauses her movements as she hears Courtney's voice on the other side of the lockers as she was putting on her gym clothes."

"Clay listened to the tables about my party. All that bullishit Hannah daid. Of course he believed it." Jessica says, "He said he wanted to help me."

"So, whatever Tony and Riley did didn't work." Says Courtney.

"Apparently not." Jessica pulled her shirt over her head, "If Hannah had seen something, she would have told me, right?"

"I mean, we both know she made all that stuff up."

"Did she? Because the photo of her on the slide with Justin was real. The 'Hot or Not' list was real. So..maybe the rest was too."

Courtney chuckled. "Jessica, Justin is your boyfriend. Who are you going to believe, him or a girl who was jealous because you were dating her ex?"

ミ⛧ ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ ⛧ﾐ

"𝗜 𝗔𝗠 𝗜𝗡𝗩𝗜𝗡𝗦𝗜𝗕𝗟𝗘, understand, simply because people refuse to see me." The teacher reads from the book she held in her hands as Riley sat next to her cousin and Skye, "When you approached me, they see only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination..indeed, everything and anything except me. "What's the message here? What's the author trying to say?"

Riley sits up in her head as the door comes open and in walks Mrs. Childs, Mr. Porter, and a police officer.

"What are you doing?" Clay asked Skye.

"Hiding my contraband." Skye whispered, "They're doing a bag check, obviously."

Clay looked towards the three adults to see Porter looking at him, "What for?"

"I don't know. Drugs. Guns. Kiddy porn."

"Okay, Vice Principal Childs needs to check everyone's backpacks." The teacher spoke, "Please stay seated, hands on your desk. Study the quotation, think about what it might mean."

"Relax." Riley leans over to whisper, "I don't think you have what they're looking for, C."

"You know this is a complete violation of our civil rights. Do you have a warrant?" Skye asked as they started looking through her bag.

"We don't need a warrant on school property. It's for safety." Childs tells them with her arms crossed.

"They're tarot cards. Want me to read your fortune?"

"Okay, Mr. Jensen." Mrs. Childs looks at him, "Do you want to protest your civil rights?"

"Here it is." The police officer handed the little bagger to Mrs. Childs.

Riley tenses up as her cousin begins to protest.

"That's not mine."

"I need you to come to the office with me, Clay. We can talk there." Childs tells him.

"But that's not mine."

"Oh, I'm going to get into so much trouble for this shit." Riley whispers to herself before standing up from her seat, causing all heads to look in her direction, "It's not his! He was holding it for me."

"Riley!" Clay hisses.

"Clay was only holding it for me because I asked him to." Riley tells the adults, "I mean, c'mon? You really wanna believe that it's the Jensen who doesn't get into much trouble over the one that overdosed in a bathroom at a party?"

Mrs. Childs glances between the two cousins, "Both of you, with me."

"What the hell is happening?" Clay whispered to his cousin as they walked down the hall, "Where did that even come from?"

"I don't know." Riley whispers back as she glared down at the tiled floor, "But when I find out who the hell put that shit in your bag, they're gonna wish that they hadn't done it."