Homeroom 23

Chapter Seventeen: Scholarship

Getting revenge for people can most certainly be difficult. Especially when the first step to said revenge is talking to someone you're not particularly fond of. We had three options; confront Xavier, confront Matt, or confront them both. None of those options seemed entirely ideal—but sometimes it's best to go with the lesser of evils, which in this case was most definitely Matt.

Me and Daniel reluctantly headed back in the direction of Matt's room, (me being the more reluctant of the two of us) and knocked on his door yet again waiting for a response. When he answered the door we weren't exactly greeted with the warmest of welcomes.

"Dude, what the hell do you guys want? No trying to be rude or anything, but you already took my alcohol. What do you want next? My dignity?"

"We need to collect a few more items before we get to that." I deadpanned. "One such being the reason for this bottle being different from the other one." I looked over to Daniel as que for him to lift up the bottle we had found n Xaviers room. "That was the bottle Brandon made Ava's drink out of the night of the party." I explained to him, "and when we looked at the drink inside, it looked like it had been tampered with." All of the sudden Matt turned deathly pale as he looked around the hallway to make sure no one was around. Me and Daniel exchanged a glance that silently told one another I find this just as suspicious as you do, as Matt began frantically tossling his hair, appearing to be almost on the verge of tears.

"You can't tell anyone." He whispered in a hushed tone, "I'm being serious, you can't tell anyone." I was starting to feel a little scared of whatever he was going to say. If it was even half as bad as he was making it sound, me and Daniel were going to be in for a treat.

"We can't promise we won't tell anyone," Daniel began, and I saw Matt instantly get stiffer. "I mean if it's something really bad—" I cut him off immediately.

"If you need us to keep a secret we will," I said quickly, disregarding what Daniel had just said while giving him a stink eye. "You should tell us though, because we'll be able to find out eventually one way or another." That was definitely a lie, but Matt had no way of knowing that. He only looked back and forth between me and my co-detective before finally giving in and looking down at his feet to evade our eye contact.

"I did do something to the drink..." Matt finally admitted, in a much quieter and lower tone. "I thought no one would notice, and that it was in few enough drinks that no one would even care—" At that his voice broke and I was convinced he was going to start crying. I had no idea what the extent of what he was confessing to was, but judging by the guilty way he was acting it was safe to assume at least 3 counts of first degree murder.

"It's okay," Daniel said, in an attempt to comfort Matt. "Go on, what did you do to the drink?"

"I...I...I can't say it." I was on the verge of giving up by this point, but because this was our only lead at the moment I held onto hope.

"Come on Matt, we won't tell a single soul. It will make you feel better to get it off your chest I'm sure."

"I can't...I can't do it."

"These are the words of quitters, Matt!" Daniel began yelling, "don't be a quitter! Be a winner! Tell us, tell us, tell us, tell us..." As he continued chanting 'tell us' I wondered if we were kind of peer pressuring Matt in a way, but then I remembered that we were pressuring him into admitting a crime, which is a good thing. I think.

Eventually, Matt's composure began to crack and he finally confessed. "I mixed water in the __! I did! Please don't hate me, it's just that the stuff is really expensive and...and..." Me and Daniel froze immediately. Water? Water? Is he being serious? That's not a crime. We were expecting something devious, somethin heinous, not water!