Wild And Wicked

Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine|Hours Before

Harlow and Tony had made it to Tape 5, Side A. Harlow was dreading this. She didn't know if she could do it.
"We don't have to listen to this right now." Tony told her. "I need to. " she said stopping his hand from ejecting the tape. She pressed play, Hannah's voice rang through the speakers once more.

Tape Five Side A

I've got a question for you
Justin. Not the one you think, not yet.
What's the best part of high school.
The great friends you make? The romance? No. We all know the best part of highschool.
Is summer break. Its the great reset button. And after everything that happened to me sophomore year.  We couldn't wait to start fresh. To tear the rest of the pages from our journals and forget it all. Except we didn't get very far. At work our usual partner in crime was spending the summer with his grandparents. His temporary replacement was nice enough but was entirely too normal. And we couldn't escape our pasts.
We needed a change. I needed to be someone new. Harlow could attest to that she did as well. Have you ever felt like that? I wasn't going to be invisible anymore. Harlow wasn't going to be in your shadow anymore. We were going to start brand new. We were going to cut away the past and leave it all behind. We were going to work harder. Be smarter. And be stronger. Because you can't change other people. But you can change yourself.

Justin, and Jessica were back at school. Clay confronted Jessica about the tape containing details about her party.

"I heard the tape about your party." He told her as they walked down the hall.

"Seriously Clay don't you get it yet those tapes are bullshit." Jessica said

"I don't think they are." Clay recoiled.

"You need to move on." She said

"Tell me why." He said and stopped walking.

"Move on" she said facing him now.

"No!" He said standing his ground.

"Oh my god. Okay fine come here." She said pulling him into an empty class room.

"Seriously Clay get over it." She said clearly irritated.

"It was you and Harlow they were talking about right?" He asked.

"Because if it was I wanna help. Okay?" He said with genuine concern.
She chuckled a bit.
"We need to do something about it. Tell someone." He added.
"That night did not happen the way they said it did. " she replied
"Then how did it happen" he asked.

"I hooked up with my boyfriend and Harlow got wasted." She said
"With Justin?" He asked
"Yeah with Justin" she replied.

"Cause they said you were completely out of it. They said things happened." He told her.

"If something happened I'd remember it." She said borderline emotional.
"We were both pretty drunk so we basically just passed out after." She told him.

"Justin told you that or you remember?" She asked

"I remember. Okay. So back off." She said walking away.