Don't Tell

Did somebody say 'Murder?'

"My god, what did you do! What did you do?" Tyler ran her hands through her hair, pacing up and down. Tears ran down her face, dark smudges from her eyeliner were left in their wake. The dress she wore hung limply on her shoulders, the light purple fabric torn in various places.

Turning around, Ash glared at Tyler. "What the hell are you trying to say?" She asked in disbelief, her hands balled into fists at the side of her. "You," she began, taking a few shaky breaths as she slowly walked towards her, "none of us had anything to do with this."

Her silk black dress trailed on the floor behind her as she continued to walk towards her. Raising her hand, she grabbed Tyler's dress by the torn shoulder and pulled her closer, the whole time her gaze never left the floor.
"You don't have a right to try and pin this on us." Ash snarled in her face.

"Ashley!" Isaac spoke for the first time since it all happened, startling them. Ash dropped her hand from Tyler's dress.
"The both of you." Moving backwards, he eyed them up and down, his eyes full of disappointment. "Arguing, yelling, blaming each other," he sighed, running his shaky hands through his blonde hair and then down his face.
"That isn't going to help anyone or anything."

"Before anything else, we need to find him. He ran away remember?" He paused. Raising his hand, he pointed his forefinger down.
"And... we need to deal with that." Looking down, they both followed the direction Isaac's finger was pointing in. After what felt like an eternity, they came to face the ground... and the motionless body lying upon it.

*8 WEEKS EARLIER*

Wind whipped around Isaac, harder and harder the faster he peddled. A new school year had rolled around once again, setting the usual schedule back into play. He'd spent the last hour bustling about his house, searching for everything he needed for his first day back. Everything he'd been meaning to sort out the night before.

Out of his entire year, he was ranked third on how well they did on their end of year exams. But if it ever came down to the school ranking them on how organised they were, he'd probably be around the one-hundred and ninety-four mark.

Ramming his bike up the curb, he came to an extremely noisy stop next to the bike locks. Death glares shot his way from every direction, everyone within a close radious agitated at the disruption. Ignoring all the glares and the occasional comment on how he 'can't even afford a decent bike,' Isaac jumped off the bike seat and proceeded to chain it to one of the poles.

"Hey Isaac," an all too familiar voice called over to him. Begrudgingly, he turned around to face Joe standing only a few metres away, Naomi clinging to his arm like her life depended on it.
"Joe, so good to see you," Isaac retorted, his voice dripping with sarcasm. Snorting, Joe turned his head slightly and whispered something into Naomi's ear, causing her to erupt into a fit of overly exaggerated giggles.

Bending down to pick up his backpack, Isaac spoke before either of them had a chance to.
"Yanno, this conversation has been great, but," swinging his bag onto his back, he motioned towards a still giggling Naomi, "I have more important things to do than listen to your lap dog do what I can only assume to be an imitation of a starving pig." Forcing a smile onto his face, he waved and turned his back on them.

As the new year closed in on him, Isaac had started to recall everything he would be going back to. That including Joe. And everytime he popped into his head, he thought about him dying. Hundreds of ways flashed through his mind, countless times a day. It was nothing new; it always tended to happen, especially when something was done or said by Joe. But this time, the thoughts had increasingly become more graphic. It was almost as though it was an urge instead of a thought. He'd dismissed the idea that anything was wrong weeks ago, believing everybody who had troubles with another person had thoughts like this. 'It's normal,' he'd tell himself, day in and day out.

Ignoring the heckling from Joe and his 'posse' in an attempt to defend Naomi, he walked on shaky feet towards the main entrance of the school. Luckily, none of them decided to follow him. But just as he reached the doors, a sharp tug on his jumper had him stumbling backwards. After a few seconds of flailing backwards, Isaac finally managed to grab onto the wall and regain his balance.

"What the hell are you doing?" He yelled before spinning around to face a small girl clutching her stomach, wheezing with laughter.
"Lizzie!" Moaning, he shoved her back slightly, a grin beginning to break through his frown.
"I could have died," he screeched, causing her to laugh even harder.
"S...stop... please." She wheeezed, her whole body shaking.

A few more moments passed before they both managed to maintain their laughter. Lizzie sighed and finally straightened herself up, a smile still across her face. Locks of her wavey hair draped across her face, her piercing blue eyes shone even more than usual in the morning sun. Freckles scattered across her cheeks and nose. She was, in every sense, beautiful. Isaac's charming and beautiful best friend. She was the one person he told everything to. Every detail of his life. Just like he knew every detail of hers.

Shrill chimes from the first bell rang out, snapping Isaac out of his little trance.
"Well," Lizzie began, the smile now gone, "we best get going to the hall. We don't wanna be late to the assembly, eh." Winking, she skipped ahead, opened the door and rushed straight to the stairs, soon disappearing in the swarm of students.

****
"It's that time of year again," Mr Anderson boomed as Isaac slipped into the hall, taking his seat next to Lizzie.
"Four of you will be picked to be president of the school and it's activities for this year, working alongside some of the teachers." He paused and motioned over to one of the teachers, forcing them to join him.

"You all know Mr Ellison...." leaning over, Isaac nudged Lizzie, catching her attention.
"What'd I miss?" He whispered. Rolling her eyes, she moved closer.
"Just the usual shit. They're about to announce the 'presidents.'" She whispered back.

Moving away from her, he leaned back in his seat, letting his imagination take charge. He'd never been elected before. Not many people had. So he tended to zone out during the assembly, briefly acknowledging who went up and stood on stage, their smugness clouding the room.

5 minutes passed, four students went up. It was the exact same ritual, year after year. Not many people cared for the election. Well, people acted as though they didn't care; if they were later elected, their views automatically changed from careless student to pretentious asshole.

Eventually, the sound of hundreds of students applauding dragged Isaac back to reality. Standing up, craning his neck to see past the already standing students, he desperately searched the crowd to spot who had been chosen.

Of course, he spotted Ash. She had been picked every year since joining the school. Nobody even doubted the possibility of her being there. Beside her stood Joe, Ash's partner in crime. They'd apparently been best friends since birth, even though everybody knew Joe lived in Australia for the first few years of his life. He had also been elected for the past few years. Behind them, seemingly standing smaller than the two, was Tyler. The timid red-head Isaac had sat next to in physics the year before. Them three he recognised, much to his dismay.

But the other... the fourth, was unfamiliar. She stood their, her shoulders slouched as all attention was on them. It was almost as though she was attempting to shield her face from sight. Clearly she didn't want to be up there. Something nobody in the school had felt before.

So... I guess I'm starting a new story eh. Mainly because one of my friends was being a salty moffo. Yo, go check her out aceofpage. So yeah, I hopefully intend to keep this going for a long time. Much longer than my other one. If you're actually reading it, don't get your hopes up. I'm not very good at following things through lmao. Ps-don't judge the writing. I'm already aware it's terrible lmao (re-published)