What's Enough?

Chapter 116

Thomas walks up beside me while I am searching my locker for my homework. "Hey," he says.

"Hi,"

"Look about yesterday-"

"Don't worry about it; we all have our opinions," Found it. I grab the paper and close my locker shut.

"It wasn't an opinion," he says back.

"What?" I say aggressive; yesterday at the table, he seemed to mean what he said; I couldn't say anything back because Violet hoped in. But nothing is keeping me from speaking my mind now.

"He deserved what he got!" he says the words as if I should believe them also.

"How can you say something like that?" Just when I thought Thomas was actually a decent person.

"How can I not say something like that?" he replies. "How can someone not think it? He's a horrible person."

"He's not a 'horrible' person!" We all make mistakes. Just because he made a few doesn't make him a bad person.

There are no good guys.

He literally laughs and says, "Are you defending him?" in a shocked tone. "Do you not remember all the horrible things he's said to you? Did you forget when he beat me up for no reason... like literally just attacked me? Or how about the time when he laughed while his best friend made disgusting remarks to you, or when his girlfriend sat around and said horrible things to you? How-"

"Okay!" I shout, stopping him from continuing, "Of course I remember all those things; he isn't like that anymore," I say, not knowing for sure. I have no idea if he's like that anymore. He's not at school to do all the horrible things he has done in the past, so I don't know. I have no idea what he would do if he were here. I may not know that, but I do remember how he was changing before everything happened. I remember the glimpse of light I saw in him before the darkness consumed him again. "People change,"

"And some pay for their actions. Him being gone wouldn't have been such a bad thing," he says candidly. "He's been gone a month, and yet things have changed drastically" I don't contradict his statement because it's true. "People like us don't have to be afraid to come to school anymore. I actually don't dread coming here. Out of the four years, eight months, 700 plus days I have been at this school, this month has by far been the best,"

"You know he's coming back, right?" he's talking like this is going to be forever. Ryder will come back to school, and things will be... well, I don't know how they will be.

"I know he is... we all know this sorta peace won't last forever. Things will go back to exactly how they were," he says. "Well, somethings," he adds, looking me up and down.

I narrow my eyes, "Meaning?"

"Meaning no one is blind. We all know you go to see him almost every day, and it's more than just because you are tutoring him. You two are friends,"

Friends? I'm sure Ryder doesn't think I'm his friend; I don't think he's mine either... he's just Ryder; do we have to put a label on what we have?

"So what?" I ask, not understanding the problem.

"You already gave up your friends for him," he states, referring to me drawing back from him, Liam, Violet, and James. I didn't give them up for Ryder; I don't know why I stopped hanging with them. I just did. "You got closer to him and farther from us. So we all know where you will stand when he returns, we know who you'll be,"

I roll my eyes, "And who will I be, Thomas?"

"One of the Elite,"

...