Beyond the Reasons || JUSTIN FOLEY

Five

PRESENT TIME
THE OUTHOUSE
IMOGEN'S POV

"What are you obsessing over?" Justin asked Clay as he walked behind him. Of course I was in the 'outhouse' with the boys, because that's what they prefer to call it. Let's be honest, I'm always in here with them. I did do what I said and turned Clay's room into my makeup room/closet, so that's been nice. But I spend a lot of my time out here with the guys, because their living space is just so nice and cute.

"Homecoming. Like, everyone posted pictures of it." Clay said, which made me roll my eyes. Honestly, I just wanted to forget that Homecoming game ever happened. "Do you guys remember anything. . like from the game or everything that happened after? Anything that might tell us where Bryce went?" Clay asked.

"Oh, you mean besides me getting my chest grabbed by that Hillcrest punk?" I snapped, and Clay looked at me and shook his head.

"And besides that, not really. We talked some shit during the game, but I didn't really see him once shit got crazy." Justin said. We both walked behind Clay and he was looking at other pictures from the Homecoming night, and these ones looked more professional.

"Where'd you get those?" I asked him.

"I got them from Tyler. He had his camera that night." Clay said, continuing to scroll through the pictures. Justin and I both leaned down on both sides of Clay to look at the pictures with him, and as he kept going, I noticed a certain picture and my eyes widened.

"Wait, Clay. . go back and zoom in on that last one." I said, pointing to his computer screen. Clay did what I said and went back to the last picture and zoomed in. Zach was fighting against a Hillcrest guy, slightly in the background, but in the foreground, Bryce looked like he was gearing up to run at Zach.

Bryce is the one who broke Zach's knee?

"That's Zach." Justin said.

"And that's Bryce, tackling him." Clay said.

"But he said it was number 82 who did it, the big-ass defensive end on Hillcrest. When we were helping Zach off the field, he said it was 82." Justin said.

"This morning he told me he didn't know who did it." Clay said, and I raised an eyebrow. So why would Zach lie to both of them, when Tyler clearly captured that Bryce was the one who did it.

"Why would he lie about that?" I asked them, and they both looked at me and shrugged their shoulders.

"I don't know."

―

EMPTY CLASSROOM
IMOGEN'S POV

"I think Chloe's at Sacred Heart, but we don't talk anymore." I said to Clay and Ani, the next day at school, as they sat in front of me. Which Clay should know. He knew that Chloe and I got close after Spring Fling, but then her indecisiveness about Bryce, really drove me and Jessica crazy and we couldn't be around her anymore because she was going to be around him, and we definitely didn't want to be around him.

So we had to cut her off.

"But you two and Jess seemed pretty close after Spring Fling." Clay said.

"Yeah, friends come and go." I said, shrugging my shoulders.

"Really?" Ani asked. She's been here for eight months, and she's helped Jessica and I a lot with becoming President and Vice President and with our little organization that we started but. . something deep inside of me is telling me not to trust this girl. She's too nosy, always wants to know what's going on, always wants to be in everyone's business.