𝐑𝐈𝐒𝐊 . . . 𝐬𝐜𝐨𝐭𝐭 𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐝

𝟑𝟔. 𝐨𝐟𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐨𝐟𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥

36. officially official

season four, episode zero: pre-season four

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If there was anything that Nessa Dempsey knew about her life thus far, it was that nothing was unexpected, and everyone was connected.

The last year or so of her life had been extremely difficult for a multitude of reasons. Sexual assault, breakups, and more death than she could have ever expected. It seemed like ever since her father had passed away the summer before her junior year, it just kept coming.

However, the death of Montgomery De La Cruz was something that she never saw coming, and it tore her to pieces.

Nessa Dempsey and Montgomery De La Cruz had been best friends since they were in elementary school. She still remembers the day that she was sitting in her third grade classroom and she dropped her sandwich on the ground right before lunch. Eight year old Montgomery picked it up with a smile on his face, and ate it himself while he gave her the sandwich that he had tucked away in the little brown bag in his locker. They were rarely seen without each other since.

Monty was Nessa's first friend, and she took his betrayal extremely hard. There were so many nights that he had come up to her window, bruises and blood on his face and body whenever his dad had hit him so hard that he couldn't imagine going back that night. There were so many times that he let her open up to him, and listened as if he didn't have a care in the world but the issues she was presenting.

Which is why, the more she figured out about the person he was, the more she realized that maybe she didn't know him at all. But then again, how could she not? Her grief for him was full of blurred lines, but one thing remained the same – she was devastated that he was dead.

Everyone understood, at least they tried. There wasn't a person in their dysfunctional and twisted group of friends that tried to fault her or blame her for the complicated feelings that she had surrounding the death of her best friend for almost a decade. But, Nessa guilted herself enough.

She knew who he was, and she knew what he was capable of, and she couldn't stand that she had cried every single night since the day that the news of his death had traveled. The anxiety and the paranoia of the fact that they framed him for Bryce's death ate her alive every single day, and it only got worse when Justin was sent off to rehabilitation for drugs and she couldn't just walk into the Jensen boys' outhouse and talk to him for hours on end.

It had also been a good while since she and Alex had spoken.

Nessa wasn't sure who was to blame for this, but she assumed it was both of them. Together, they held one of the darkest secrets that two ex lovers could possibly hold – the fact that they had killed someone. She missed Alex's friendship, but she couldn't blame him for distancing themselves.

Zach had also been on quite a tear lately, and it was beginning to worry Nessa. He was drinking more and more, and turning into a version of himself that she hadn't quite seen before. She knew that losing his chances of a football scholarship had affected him, and she had tried so hard to be there for him, but he had even pushed her away.

This was the furthest apart that the Dempsey siblings had been in their entire life, and Nessa hated it.

The only silver lining that Nessa could possibly find in the entire trainwreck that was her life, currently, was Scott Reed. She had been spending most, if not all, of her time with Scott ever since Thanksgiving, and when she was with him, all of her worries faded into time.