𝘾𝙃𝘼𝙋. 𝙁𝙄𝙁𝙏𝙔 𝙁𝙄𝙑𝙀 ─── 𝖲𝖤𝖠𝖲𝖮𝖭 𝟰
❝ 𝗪𝗘𝗟𝗖𝗢𝗠𝗘 𝗛𝗢𝗠𝗘, 𝖩𝖴𝖲𝖳𝖨𝖭 ❞
❪ 𝙒𝙄𝙉𝙏𝙀𝙍 𝘽𝙍𝙀𝘼𝙆 ❫

𝟱𝟱. ╱ ✷      ❝ 𝖺𝗁,   𝗂𝖿   𝗂   𝗐𝖺𝗌   𝗴𝗮𝘆,   𝗌𝗁𝖾'𝖽    𝖻𝖾   𝗍𝗁𝖾 𝘁𝗼𝗽 𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗼𝗻 𝗈𝗇 𝗆𝗒 𝗅𝗂𝗌𝗍. ❞
▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁

          "𝙄𝙏 𝘾𝙊𝙈𝙀𝙎 down to one question. Will you survive high school? Will I survive? 'Cause I know too many people who didn't. I've been having these . . . bad dreams. Like every night. It's pretty messed up, but I'm good at hiding shit, so. . . I don't think my parents have noticed. If Riley was home, she would have noticed."

Clay sits at the table in the kitchen with his parents, pushing around the scrambled eggs on the plate in front of him.

"Clay, honey, um, you sure you don't want to come with us to the facility today?" Lainie looks across the table at her son, her head tilted to the side. "Might be fun."

"When is anything called a facility ever fun?" Clay chuckled dryly.

"Justin might like to see you." Matt tries to convince his son.

"I'll see him at home. . . at the party." He looks back down, "Plus, I wanna be here when Riley gets home."

"Clay, your, um, first-semester grades came in yesterday."

Clay looks up at him mom, "How do you have my grades?"

"The school email. As always." She smiled at him.

"Oh. Right." He sighed, "I didn't. . . I didn't do too well on my finals."

"Which is understandable." Matt says to his son, coffee mug in hand.

"We're going to talk to the school."

He looked at them with wide eyes, "No!"

"We're going to talk to them about some allowances for what you've been though, but. . . ," Lainie sighed, ". . . Clay, you need to be thinking about college. Have you finished your apps? We just want you to feel like she can come to us for anything, but if you don't feel like you can come to us for anything, then I think we need to start thinking about starting up again with Dr. Ellman."

Clay can't focus on anything as his mother's voice becomes disoriented before a loud crash breaks him out of his spell, jumping at the sound of glass breaking.

"Shit!" Matt turns to look at his wife and son with an apologetic look on his face, "Sorry."

"So, Clay, what do you think?"

"About what?" He stutters out, looking at her in confusion.

"About seeing Dr. Ellman."

Clay closes his eyes, shaking his head as he thinks over his mother's words, "Um, I don't know." He stands up, taking his plate over to the sink, looking up to see a familiar blonde getting out of her car, "Riley's home early."

He turns around, quickly rushing towards the front door and throwing it up, bouncing down the stairs of the home, "Riley!"

"Hey!" She spins around, letting out a grunt as Clay crashes into her and wraps his arms around her small frame, "Oh, you never hug me like this. Are you okay?"

"She always notices."

"Yeah, I'm okay." He nodded.

"Here's the thing, I'm basically okay. I mean as okay as you can be a month out from being in jail for murder. But then a friend needed me, and it was like I was alive again."

"I'm just happy that your home."

"Yeah, me too."

˗ˏˋ 𖤐 ˎˊ˗

          "𝙒𝙃𝙔 𝘿𝙊 I take care of my friends? Because they need me."

"Riley!"

"Jessica!"

The two girls run into each other's embrace, hugging each other tightly and swaying to the side as the two of them talked over each other, their words mixing together as Ani watched with an amused smile on her face.

"Your hair looks so good short!" Jessica reaches up to touch the blondes now shoulder length hair, a smile on her face.

"Thank you, thank you." Riley smiles softy, bringing her hand up to run her fingers through her hair. "After all the shit we've been through the last couple of months, I thought I needed to change things ups a bit."

"How were thinks with Scott?" Jessica asked.

"Oh, they were great!" She smiles wieldy at the mention of her fiancé, "We got a little bit of wedding planning done, but we also had a nice little winter getaway. It was nice."

Jessica smirked, "And the sex?"

"That was the best part." Riley says and the two girls laugh.

"It's good to have you home, Riley." Ani smiles at the blonde, who just nods in her direction, making the smile fall from her lips.

"Okay!" Riley clapped her hands together, smiling at Jessica, "What do we have to do to get ready for Justin's welcome home party?"

"I need help hanging the banner."

"It's nothing in particular. It's just high school nowadays. You can never let your guard down because it never fucking ends. And friends have to rely on each other, or bad shit might happen."

˗ˏˋ 𖤐 ˎˊ˗

          "𝗜𝗧 𝗦𝗠𝗘𝗟𝗟𝗦 like an ass wore shoes in here." Jessica scrunched her face up as she picked up the dirty dishes around the outhouse, "Like, ass shoes on a dead animal. Is Clay alright?"

Riley snorts at the girls remark from where she was picking clothes off of Clay's bed so that she could remake it, "That's because I usually clean this place, but I've been gone so. . . okay, ewe, no. Those clothes are wet."

"Yeah. . . yeah, he's fine." Ani answers Jessica's question about Clay being alright, Riley rolling her eyes slightly at the girl. "Stellar."

A month had come and gone, but yet the Jensen girl still did not like Ani one bit, and she didn't' think that was going to change any time soon. Not even if she was forced to like the girl. Or not even because the Achola girl and her cousin were "dating", or whatever it was they called themselves doing.

"Do you love him, or are you just taking care of him?" Jessica asked.

Ani makes a face as she looks over at Jessica, "Uh, don't we take care of the people that we love? I mean, he's been going through a lot."

"So, you haven't told him about Oakland." Riley doesn't turn to look at her as she uses a pair of dirty tongs to pick the clothes up from Clay's bed to put in the dirty clothes.

"How? How do you know about that?"

"We tell each other everything." Jessica shrugged, "Even things we know about other people. Especially our boyfriends."

"Yeah, I've learned too much about Justin." Riley shivers, "Somethings I wish that I didn't learn."

Jessica laughed.

"Um. . . ," Ani sighed, "Not yet. I was meant to tell him today, but we don't move until after Christmas, so—,"

"You've known for a week, and you knew once you told him, he'd go all Clay cray." Jessica says before pausing, "Clazy."

Riley snaps her fingers, pointing at her female best friend, "Oh, that's a good one! But Clay Cray sounds so much better."

"You're right."

"Okay, no." Ani shakes her head at the two girls, "Look, honestly, I was gonna tell him just now, but. . . well, he had to take care of something."

"What, something about Justin?"

"No. All's good there. He's still due home at four, so breathe."

˗ˏˋ 𖤐 ˎˊ˗

          "𝙋𝙀𝙊𝙋𝙇𝙀 𝙃𝘼𝙑𝙀 been relying on me, so I gotta, like, be strong and stuff. And the dreams, and the anxiety and stuff, makes me not strong. I can't tell my friends anything about what I'm going through because they count on me to be solid."

"Car's coming. Justin's here." Jessica gets excited, ushering everyone to stand up under the banner, "Come on, everyone, under the banner. Let's go."

"Oooh, I love it when you're bossy." Riley smirked.

"Yeah? Maybe I'll just have to break up with him and you breakup with Scott. We can run away and live happily together." Jessica playfully flirted with the blonde, making sure to slap her ass as she did so.

"Hey! Hands off!" Riley giggled, standing behind Charlie and wrapping her arms around his neck as she stood on her tiptoes to see over his shoulders, "How you been, Charlie Brown?"

Charlie laughs, "Luke was right, you do make nicknames out of people's names."

"Nah, only you football players." She playfully kisses his check as the door comes open and it's only Clay and Tyler to walk through the door.

"Um. . . hi."

"Fuck's sake." Jessica curses, "Where's the cake?"

"Um. . . ," Clay looks back at Tyler for a moment, "I still need to get it."

"Alright, stand down." Jessica tells the others under the banner.

"Things have been weird lately. We got busy with finals, the winter break. We haven't exactly been hanging out."

"He's here!" Jessica stands up as she hears another car coming, "Everyone under the damn banner. Come one."

"Twenty bucks that it's Zach." Riley whispers to Charlie, the blonde boy shaking her hand as if to say "your on".

"Welcome, home!"

"Oh, I'm home!" Zach mocks the group, walking in, "No, I'm just kidding. It's for Justin, I know. I know."

"How the hell did you know it was him?" Charlie asked, slapping a twenty into her hand.

Riley smirked, sliding the folded-up bill into her back pocket, "He texted me when he was turning down the road."

"You're late." Jessica tells him, moving closer to the Dempsey boy.

"I know."

"Are you. . . are you drunk?" Riley squints up at the taller boy.

"I, uh. . . may have pre-gamed. Yes." Zach smiled, moving around the two girls, "You look good with short hair."

"Oh my, God."

"Thanks. . . I guess."

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Jessica asked him, following him towards, "This is a dry party for a sober person. Hey, get some mouthwash or something. Come on."

"Oh, cookies!" Zach reaches for one.

"Chili powder, secret ingredient!" Charlie calls out.

"Oh, so fucking good!" Zach has a mouthful of the cookie as Jessica leads him to the bathroom.

"We're here!" Lainie calls out to the teens as she and Justin walk into the outhouse, everyone clapping for the boy.

"Hey, um. . . welcome home." Clay is the first one to walk over to Justin, giving the boy a hug.

"Thanks."

"Welcome home, Justin." Riley smiled, wrapping her arms around his neck.

Justin grinned, pressing a sloppy kiss to her cheek, "Welcome home, Riley. Nice hair, short looks good. Best hairstyle yet. Prefer it over the pink hair in eighth grade."

"Hey! We said we were never going to talk about that again!"

"I lied."

"Hope you kids brought you appetites." Matt sits down six boxes of pizza from the table, "Dig in!"

"He seems great, right?" Lainie smiled towards her son and niece as Justin hugs Jessica, greeting everyone else that came for the party.

˗ˏˋ 𖤐 ˎˊ˗

          "𝗛𝗘'𝗦 𝗗𝗢𝗜𝗡𝗚 fine." Clay whispers to Ani, the two of them sitting on the couch. "Let's just talk about it later, okay?"

"Are we screwed or not?" Ani asked him.

"I don't think so, but if people see us whispering, I don't want to freak everybody out."

"I wanna know the truth and I want to know the truth now." Riley whispers harshly as she and Tony turn towards the two on the couch.

"What the fuck is up with Tyler?" Tony asked in a whisper. "Jesus, what?"

˗ˏˋ 𖤐 ˎˊ˗

          "𝗦𝗢 𝗧𝗛𝗔𝗧'𝗦 why we had Charlie take Tyler home." Ani says after explaining everything to everyone, minus Charlie, Tyler and the two parents who had left to leave the teens to themselves, "Look. . . I don't think we have much to worry about. Honestly."

"How do we know he told you the truth about what happened with the copes?" Tony asked, sitting on the back of the couch next to Riley.

Clay shrugged, "Why would he lie?"

"To save himself."

"Yeah, so I got him home safe." Charlie walks back into the outhouse, "He seemed pretty calm."

"How the fuck is he calm?" Riley shakes her head.

"Tyler doesn't want the truth to come out any more than we do." Ani says, looking at everyone, "He did the best he could with the cops. All things considered."

"Okay, let's say he's telling the truth. Just because he thinks he fooled the cops doesn't mean that he actually did. What if they're watching him now?" Tony asked.

"What if they're watching all of us?" Jessica questioned next.

"Yeah, that's what I don't get." Charlie spoke up, "Even if the cops didn't believe Tyler about the guns, how does that lead them to us or anything about Bryce?"

"Tyler knows about Bryce. Tyler's in trouble for the guns." Tony tells them, "Tyler turns all of us in to save himself."

"He'd never do that." Clay denied, defending Tyler since he wasn't there to defend himself.

"Are you sure?" Riley asked. "I trust Tyler, I do, but I don't trust him enough not to turn us in. Do you know how long we would go to prison for this shit? I'm the one that decided to frame Monty. Me."

"Tyler called Clay when he needed help. I think we could trust him." Charlie also defends Tyler.

"Thanks, cookies, but it's not that fucking simple." Jessica tells him. "Some of us are accessories after the fact to murder."

"Hey, I helped Riley plant evidence." Charlie defended himself next, Riley nodding in agreement with him, "I'm an accessory. We all are."

"Not me." Alex spoke up.

"Alex, you know Tyler wouldn't want to hurt you, right? Or any of us."

"With all due respect, you don't know him well enough to say that."

"Actually, I feel like I do. I mean, us three, we've been hanging out, like, every night." Charlie motions to Alex, talking about him, Alex and Tyler, "He's our friend."

"I believe Tyler." Alex says shrugging.

"So does that mean that we do nothing?" Asked Jessica.

"There's nothing we can do." Zach spoke up from where he was laying on the couch, turning his head to look at them, "So I say fuck it. Just let it play out. It's out of our hands."

"Jesus, Zach, dry out."

Zach raises his hand, flipping the girl off.

"Alex, you can talk to your dad." Tony looks at him, "Get a feel for whether or not the cops actually bought Tyler's story."

"I could try."

"You guys, stop." Clay said, "We can't suddenly be going around asking questions."

"Clay's right, we have to act normal."

"Okay, everyone just needs to stay calm, keep their shit together, and do not do anything stupid. Okay?" Clay tells them, "Look, Ani and I, we'll handle this."

Riley scoffed, standing up from her seat behind Tony. "Yeah, because I really trust Ani."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Ani looks at the blonde, an offended look on her face.

"Exactly what I said." Riley sends a blank look the girl's way before she taps Zach on the leg, "Come on. You're drunk so I'm driving you home. Keys."

Zach groaned, rolling to his side to dig his keys out of his pocket, handing them over to Riley, "I don't need a babysitter. I got here perfectly fine on my own."

"Yeah, I'm sure. Up, let's go." She pulls him off the couch, pushing him towards the door as she looks over at Tony, "Tony, can you follow us and drive me back here?"

"Yeah, course."

"I wanted people to listen to me. Ever since Hannah and the tapes, I wanted people to wake up and pay attention. Well, I guess I have their attention now."

˗ˏˋ 𖤐 ˎˊ˗

           "𝗛𝗢𝗟𝗬 𝗦𝗛𝗜𝗧!" Justin exclaims after the three teenagers open their presents, all of them sitting on the floor, "Sorry, but these are the brand-new ones!"

Lainie giggled at the boy's excitement, "Pre-loaded with all the hot apps. I had a Mac Genius help me."

"Merry Christmas." Matt smiled.

"Thank you, guys." Justin smiled, "Merry Christmas."

"You guys really went all-out." Clay looks up at his parents as Riley was too busy trying to keep her eyes open.

"Well, it was Justin's first holiday with us, so. . . ,"

"And now we're broke, so that's it till college." Lainie joked with a laugh.

"Actually, there is one more. . . thing." Matt grunts as he moved to grab another wrapped present.

"Honey, we were on a budget."

"Oh, I know, this is just a little surprise." He hands the wrapped present to Justin, "Go on."

"Yeah, open it so that I can crawl back into my bed." Riley yawned, laying her head on Clay's shoulder.

Justin unwraps the present, holding a framed photo of the five of them. It was taken during Thanksgiving and the family of five were sat on the steps of the home. Justin and Clay were on the bottom step, behind them was Lainie and Riley, the teenage girls' arms wrapped around her cousin's neck, and on the stop above them was Matt, his hand on her shoulder.

"Oh, is this the picture we took on Thanksgiving?" Clay asked, leaning forward just a bit to see it since Riley was leaning into him.

"Yeah, it turned out pretty good, right?" Matt asked with a smile. "Given everything."

"Uh, I love it." Justin chuckled.

"As requested, a picture of the five of us." Lainie pats her son's knee.

"Well, let's go find a place to put it." Matt takes the picture from his hands, everyone standing up to move towards the living room.

"The truth is, this kind of thing has been happening for a while. It started after Hannah died, off and on, but then in the van on the way to county jail, it was like this weight crushing me."

"Hey, you okay?" Justin moved back towards Clay, noticing the sick look on his face, Riley following behind him with a look of concern on her face.

"Yeah, no, I'm fine. I, um. . . I think I just stood up too fast."

"Are you sure?" Riley asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine."

"It's like I can't breathe, like my heart's gonna beat out of my chest, like. . . I'm gonna die."

˗ˏˋ 𖤐 ˎˊ˗

          "𝗦𝗢 𝗬𝗢𝗨 just talked, mostly, in rehab?" Clay leans on the table in the outhouse, Riley laying across Justin's bed and Justin standing in the bathroom, getting ready for bed.

"Yeah, I mean, after all the puking and the night sweats." Justin says, Riley making a face at the thought of puking, having seen Justin go through it when Clay and Tony had brought him back to Evergreen for the trials.

"Yeah, I remember it well." Clay chuckled.

Justin comes out of the bathroom, "Yeah, we mostly just. . . did a lot of talking. And like. . . projects and hikes."

Riley pouts, "I didn't go on hikes when I was in rehab."

Justin laughs.

Clay sighed, "Did you. . . talk about Bryce?"

"Yeah, I mean, I. . . I had to." Justin says, "Just not about that. Just about the. . . the kind of person he was. . . to me, and him being gone, so. . . ,"

Clay nodded his head, turning around as Justin walks towards his bed, "So, the. . . talking, it. . . helped?"

"I think so." Justin shrugged, "I hope so." He looked at Riley, "Are you sleeping in here?"

"Duh, your first night back you think we're not about to have a fucking slumber party?" Riley rolled her eyes, rolling herself over, and pulling Justin's covers up to her neck. "Besides, Lainie doesn't come in here in the middle of the night asking if you want a late-night snack and girl time."

"She does that?" Clay chuckled.

"When she doesn't get a pillow to the face for disturbing me."

˗ˏˋ 𖤐 ˎˊ˗

          "𝗕𝗔𝗖𝗞 𝗧𝗢 hell we go." Riley mumbled, standing between Justin and Clay as the three walked towards the entrance of school, "I miss my fiancé."

"You really like saying that don't you?" Clay looks down at his cousin with a grin.

"I do, I really do."

"Hey." Jessica and Ani greet the three, Ani and Clay intertwining their fingers together.

"Hey."

"Awkward." Riley whispers to herself, earning a nudge from Justin.

"So, everything still good?" Jessica asked, tucking her hair behind her ear, "With Tyler?"

"Yeah. I spoke to him every day over break." Clay says to the group with him, "Story hasn't changed.

"What does Alex say?" Riley asked, "Does his dad think that. . . what the hell?"

"What the actual fuck?" Jessica asked as the five of them made their way into the school, police officers searching through bags and patting kids down.

"Don't lose your shit." Clay tells the Davis girl.

"Well, I haven't list it yet, have I?"

"Have your backpacks off."

Riley sits her bag down in one of the grey bins, the police officer picking it up and using a metal detector to go over it.

"Backpack on the table."

"Knock yourself out." Jessica sits her stuff on the table, the police officer using the metal detector to scan over her body, going off.

"Please step aside for a screening."

"It's probably the metal wire in my bra."

"We'll see." He tells her, "Step aside for a pat-down."

"I sure as shit hope you have a female officer to do it, cause you and your boys aren't putting that anywhere near my body." Jessica tells him.

"Young lady, step aside now."

"Whatever." Jessica rolls her eyes, grabbing her back and walking away from the officer.

"Hey! Get back here!" He calls after her, only getting her middle finger in the air.

Riley chuckled, "Ah, if I was gay, she'd be the top person on my list."

˗ˏˋ 𖤐 ˎˊ˗

          "𝙃𝙊𝙒'𝙎 𝙏𝙃𝙀 first day of school so far?"

Riley's phone is propped up in her locker, Scott on a FaceTime call with her as she grabbed everything that she would need for her first couple of classes. "Well, uh, the school now has metal detectors installed, so that's fun."

"What? Why?" The confusion is clear on Scott's face as he moves around his dorm, grabbing a clean shirt from the pile of clothes to put on.

"I'm not really sure." She shrugged, "But the cops did talk to Tyler almost two weeks ago because a fisherman found his guns in the river."

"Are you fucking serious? Riley!"

Riley sighs, "I'm not really sure. Clay drove him to the station, he went in by himself and when he came out, he told Clay that everything was okay. Tony and I think something's up, but everyone wants to put their trust into Tyler. I just hope none of this comes back to bit us in the ass."

"Yeah, you and me both." He sighed as his door came open. "Dude, you take too long of a shower."

"Hey! It's not my fault that I like rinse and repeat more than once." Eddie's voice carries out before he's walking in front of where Scott has his phone set up, glancing at it for a second before he looks back, a girl on his face, "Riles! What's up, mama?! How high school treating you?"

"It's the first day back and class hasn't even started, so I guess we'll see." Riley grinned at the boy, "Nice tat."

"Oh, yeah, you like that?" Eddie steps back, flexing his muscles as he makes the blonde laugh, "See, Reed? That's how you make your girl smile."

"Shut up." Scott pushes him out of the way, picking his phone up, "I'll let you get to class. Call me and let me know how it goes when you get home. And keep me updated with Tyler, please."

"Yeah, I will."

"Okay, I love you!"

"I love you!" She blows a kiss towards the screen, calling out a quick 'love you' to Eddie before hanging up.

˗ˏˋ 𖤐 ˎˊ˗

          "𝙏𝙃𝙀 𝙁𝙐𝙏𝙐𝙍𝙀 fair. They changed it from college fair because there's this new thing that not all kids should go to college, and they threw in, like, clubs and firemen just so no one felt left out. Look, it's all a fucking joke. This planet has no future."

"I really hate this place." Riley sighed, looking around her, "It's no fun when Jeff's not here to make fun of the shit with me."

Tyler laughed, "Don't you want to plan your future ahead?"

"My future is graduating and getting the hell out of Evergreen, Ty. That and trying to figure out if I want a red or sage green at my wedding."

Tyler nodded his head with a smile, "I think sage green would be nice, maybe with a little lilac or beige."

Riley looks at him and laughs, "Lilac or beige?"

"Yeah, it fits your whole. . . aesthetic."

"I might have to bring you in to help me plan because Scott's mom has no idea what she's doing." Riley grinned before her eyes caught the back of someone, "Hey, I'll see you later, okay? Stay out of trouble!"

"Maybe you should stay out of trouble!"

"Oh, ha ha, you're so funny, Down!" She playfully rolls her eyes, racing towards the back of the lunchroom, "Estela!"

The girls spun around, grinning at the blonde as she wrapped her arms around the blonde's slim waist, "Riley!"

"Welcome to your first day of hell! You'll need all of the luck in the world for the next four years." Riley joked with the De La Cruz girl, "What are you doing over here?"

"Oh, I'm joining." Estela smiled, looking over at Jessica who smiled back at the girl, "Anyway, I'm gonna go look around some more."

"Okay, text me if you need anything during the day." Riley tells her before Estela walked away, "What the hell?"

"I don't . . . you seem pretty close with her." Jessica looks up at the blonde.

Riley frowned as she nodded her head, "Yeah. . . after his funeral, I decided to keep checking up on her just to make sure everything was okay. The guilt, it uh, it eats at me every now and again."

˗ˏˋ 𖤐 ˎˊ˗

          "𝗪𝗛𝗘𝗥𝗘 𝗔𝗥𝗘 all the nerds?" Justin sat down next to Clay behind the table for the robotics club, Riley sitting down on his lap. "I thought you guys were saving the future."

"You know what? I may or may not have been telling people that there, in fact, is no future, so. . . what's that?" Clay asked, looking at the rolled-up paper in Justin's hand.

"Uh. . . It's. . . Dr. Singh. Guess she heard that there's an admissions officer that was interested in?"

"At Occidental?" Riley raised an eyebrow, "I told you all the sports you played would pay off!"

Justin nodded his head, "They liked my essay. I guess if you have, like, life circumstances and a good story or whatever."

"Huh, maybe I should talk about the death of my parents, the deaths of Jeff, Hannah, Monty and Bryce and my overdose. Maybe that'll get me in somewhere top notch." Riley joked, wiggling her eyebrows.

"Anyway, it's not like I'm gonna get in, so. . . don't worry."

"Why would I worry?" Clay turns his head to look at his adoptive brother, "You should go if you can, it's a great school."

˗ˏˋ 𖤐 ˎˊ˗

          "𝗬𝗢𝗨 𝗘𝗫𝗣𝗘𝗖𝗧 us to believe to believe you got that from an accident in gym class?" Matt asked his son who was sporting a black eye.

"I have really bad hand-eye coordination. You know this." Clay doesn't look up from the bowl in front of him.

"Justin, Riley, were either of you present for this sports-related injury?" Lainie looks to the other two teenagers.

"Don't look at me, I took gym last year." Riley holds her hands up in surrender.

Justin looks up at the two adults in front of him, letting out a sigh, "He got in a fight."

"Dude!"

"Who did you get in a fight with?"

"No one."

"A few guys on the football team." Justin says, Clay looking over at him in disbelief.

"Why?"

"It was nothing, stupid. It didn't mean anything."

"Really? Nothing?" Justin drops his spoon, "Since when do you start the fight?"

Clay turns his head to look at Justin for a few minutes before shaking his head and getting up, leaving the other four alone.

˗ˏˋ 𖤐 ˎˊ˗

           "𝗟𝗨𝗞𝗘, 𝗗𝗜𝗘𝗚𝗢, I'm pretty sure Taylor was a part of it." Riley holds a pillow to her chest as she talks to Scott, "Has a nasty black eye. I'm worried about him. It's been hell for all of us, but Clay. . . he's taken the most of it."

"Riley, babe, I'm sure that he's going to be fine, alright?" Scott gives his fiancé a soft smile, "I love you, but you worry too much about people. Clay is going to be okay."

"Yeah, he'll be fine."

"Yeah, I'm so not fine."