Its Not Living (If Its Not With You)

10

1 week later

It was everyone's favourite time of the month. The day the monthly edition of Lost-N-Found was published, and everyone picked up a copy.

Clay and Hannah walked in through the doors of the school, having another debate about The 1975 and laughing.

Everyone started laughing at them.

"Yo, Jensen, did she give you head too?", Justin Foley shouted at Clay.

Hannah snapped a magazine out of a students hands who was also laughing. She rolled it up and hit her on the head with it.

She grabbed Clay's hand as students wolf whistled and she dragged him to an empty classroom.

"What are they talking about, Han?", Clay asked her as she frantically searched through the magazine.

Right in the middle, it was the picture of Hannah and Clay kissing and her bending down to pick up the flashlight. Looking at the actual photo, it looked very questionable.

Clay walked over to her a looked at the magazine. He pursed his lips.

"Fucking twerps.", Clay muttered with anger.

"I thought we had all the photos!"

"Well, Tyler lied, and I'm going talking to him right now.", Clay declared as he started walking out of the room.

Hannah knew there was no point in trying to stop him, so she just sat in her seat as she waited for class to start.

She rolled up her sleeves and looked at the cuts she made over the last few weeks. She rolled them back down and sobbed for a while on her own.

In the hall

Tyler was at his locker, looking around him at what was going on. He was certain he had given Clay every photo.

He felt his heart pound out of his chest when he saw Clay approaching him, with his hands balled into fists.

"C-Clay-"

Clay slammed him into the locker with his arm.

"Why the fuck did you give Ryan that picture?!", he half whispered, half yelled.

"I-I didn't. It must've fell and someone picked it up.", Tyler said, terrified.

"You're absolutely sure?", Clag asked suspiciously, slowly removing his arm from the photographers chest.

"P-positive."

Clay took his arm away from Tyler's chest.

"I'm going to talk to Ryan. After all, he's our publisher.", Clay said to him, giving him a death stare before heading over to Ryan.

"What the fuck, Ryan?", Clay asked him bitterly.

Ryan looked out from his locker, with the same arrogant expression he always had.

"Good morning to you too, Clay.", he said, unbothered.

"Why did you publish that photograph? I thought a strict rule in your magazine was that it couldn't be embarrassing.", Clay said, growing angrier with each word.

Ryan sighed and closed his locker.

"It is, but, if you want to know the truth, I was threatened to put it in.", he stated honestly.

"W-who threatened you?", Clay asked frantically.

"Montgomery De Le Cruz.", Ryan simply said before walking away.

Just before Clay could decide on a way to beat the shit out of Monty, the bell rang.

He went into the classroom and sat down beside Hannah, who looked like she had been crying a bit.

"Hannah? Are you OK?", Clay asked worriedly.

"I'm fine, Clay. Did you talk to the guys?", Hannah asked, looking down.

"Yes. Turns out one of the photos fell and Mr De Le Cruz picked it up and threatened Mr Ryan in some way.", he whispered to her.

She nodded her head.

Mrs Bradley came into the classroom and she started the class.

"Good morning, class. Today, we're going to start off by looking into our Class Discussion Bag.", she said, heading over to the bag on the racks and picking it up. She brought out a note.

"'Mrs Bradley's ankles are hot.'", she read, making everyone laugh.

"I don't know if its appropriate to objectify, but I'll take it.", Mrs Bradley said. She reached in again.

"'I want to kill myself. I have a great boyfriend but he seems oblivious to how I feel. I'm also self harming. Just wanted to get that off my chest.'"

There was a pause. Everyone looked up at the teacher.

"OK, this is really serious. I would urge this person to talk to their boyfriend, and if they want to call it, the national suicide hotline is 1800-27-"

"I think this persons just looking for attention.", Pratters said.

Everyone turned around to him.

"I mean, self harm is an attention seeking behavior."

"Seriously, Pratters?"

"What the hell, man."

"I agree with Pratters for once.", Courtney said.

Hannah put her head down, unable to listen to the class talking about her note.

Lunchtime

Hannah sat at a table, playing with her lunch. People were still tormenting her about the photo, and Clay was nowhere to be seen.

Then, she heard punching and yelling from outside. She rushed over to the window. She saw Clay, who had tackled him, repeatedly punching Montgomery. She rushed outside.

"Stay the fuck away from us!", Clay yelled at the boy, who was unable to speak.

"CLAY, STOP IT!"

Clay looked behind him and saw Hannah, who was crying. He got off of Montgomery after giving him one last slap, but by then, Hannah was gone.

"Hannah!"

He ran back inside, but she wasn't there. He looked around the school. Then, it hit him.

Hannah was the one who wrote the note.

He got a sickening feeling and he grabbed his bike and cycled right out the school gates. He looked all over town for her, before finding her looking over the bridge at the lake. She was still crying. Clay panicked.

"HANNAH, STOP!"

She turned around to face him. He ran up to her.

"I know now that you wrote the note! I should've been helping you instead of beating everyone up! I have issues and all, but that's not an excuse! I've been a complete dick lately, and I'm so sorry. I'm your boyfriend, and while I was beating everyone, you were suffering! I've never said this before, and I should've, but I love you, Hannah.", he said in between sobs.

Hannah felt her heart stop at the last sentence.

"I love you so fucking much. And if you died, I'd have to die too. I don't blame you if you don't feel the same way. Please, don't do this. Let's skip the rest of the day, we can go back to the music room and we can talk this through. Whatever you wa-"

"Oh, shut up, Helmet.", Hannah interrupted, before crashing her lips against his. After she pulled away, she smiled.

"I love you too, you idiot. I'm sorry I didn't tell you about this sooner. Now, let's go home, and we'll talk about all this shit there.", she said softly. Clay smiled at her and nodded.

They got on the bike, and they cycled back to Hannah's house.