Why us? - Montgomery De La Cruz

Tapes

Ella had almost shat herself that morning when Scott had sent her a message from across the breakfast table, at first she was confused, why couldn't he just talk to her, after all her, Monty and Scott were all sitting at the same table eating rice bubbles.

Ella's eyebrows had furrowed when she got the message and she sent him a quick look, he looked pale and his jaw was clenched tightly, making her even more confused. Ella opened the message and in the message was a link, quickly she touched the link and her eyes widened and she quickly turned her phone off as she had read the name of the videos. She felt sick to the stomach and she felt like she was about to pass out

the title was burned into her brain like a bad movie 'Hannahs Tapes #Justiceforhannah'

The person who had uploaded them decided to do it anonymously, but it was most likely done by one of the people on the tapes or someone close to one of the people on the tapes

Ella quickly kept eating her cereal and hopped that Montgomery hadn't noticed anything and luckily for her, he didn't 

As Ella walked down the halls of school she couldn't help but feel like everyone was watching her she felt her phone vibrate in her pocket so she pulled it out and it was a message from zach saying that all of them 'the people on the tapes' were going to meet up.

She quickly shoved her phone in her pocket and smiled up and Montgomery as he placed a quick kiss on her cheek "is it just me or is everyone looking at you more than usual today?" he asked her in confusion, and it definitely wasn't just him who was thinking that.

Scott had moved protectively in front of the girl and glared at whoever stared at her, making them quickly look away and it didn't take long till monty had also started to do that

"Hey guys" Bryce said with a chuckle as he wrapped his arms around Monty and Ellas shoulders and pulled them in but ella scoffed and pushed his arm off her shoulder. Ella noticed that Zach had also joined them and from the look on his face she could tell that he knew about the tapes being released and he hadn't slept at all. Ella had blanked out and stopped listening to their conversation and felt everything in the world around her go in slow motion, she had no idea what to do

everyone was looking at her and she could tell what all of them were feeling, they felt sorry for her, their eyes were full of pity. pity. she didn't deserve pity, she was a monster, a god awful monster who had killed a girl. She was a murderer.

 She was cut out of her trance as she felt scotts gaze on her, he gave her a small smile which she wanted to return but she couldn't, because his eyes were just like everyone else, swirling in pity for the girl who had killed her best friend

"yeah the ribbon cutting" Bryce said, and ella had no idea what they were talking about but she didn't really care either, she was sure that whatever they were talking about, there were more important issues going on

"so like, with a giant pair of scissors and all that?" Scott asks bryce

"how the fuck else do you cut a ribbon scotty?" Bryce asks and chucks his arm over scotts shoulders now and Monty, Bryce and Scott laugh but as ella listened she couldn't help but notice how scotts laugh had sounded, it was different to how it usually was, it wasn't happy, instead it was empty and sounded forced

"what? i don't know, I've never been to something like this" scott says

"Youll do fine scotty" Ella tells the boy to try and calm his nerves which obviously worked as he seemed less tense then before

"its not that big of a deal, but just make sure that you guys all bring your appetites, my dad promised food trucks" Bryce says to reassure him and looks at all of them

"hey you are coming today right?" Bryce asked Zach and noticed that he had been watching ella the whole time

"what, yeah no. Totally" Zach said and quickly looked away from the girl

"yeah alright" Bryce says but then they all notice the word 'rapist' written in big writing all over bryces locker

"hey who the fuck did this, hey get the fuck back here" Montgomery yells out to the people who had ran off when they saw them coming their way

"hey relax, its fine, it'll come off" Bryce says calmly and Scott and Ella send each other worried looks 

Bryce unlocked his locker quickly and got his stuff out that he would be needing for the first two periods of the day "just  a stupid fucking prank right?" he says and then slams his locker shut

"dude that's pretty fucked up" Scott says quickly to bryce "should we do something"

And from that moment Ella was concerned. Concern that Scott Reed would turn out to be just like all of the other dirty, disrespectful inhuman boys who stormed around the school like they owned it and doing whatever the hell they wanted and worst of all, she was worried that she would end up on bryces side and she knew that if that happened the school really would go to shit, scott was one of the only good ones left in the school, he reminded her of Jeff

"what would we do?" Bryce asks him

"its messed up" Scott says and they keep walking and Ella keeps quiet and tries to ignore zachs eyes which were boring into the back of her head

"I'm not worried about it" Bryce says and from the outside Bryce looked completely calm, but for ella who had know him since their first year at school, she knew that the boy was completely shitting himself on the inside

"You wanna call it rape, call it rape" they suddenly hear bryces voice over the schools speakers and Ella noticed the shared look between Monty and Bryce before they all started running to try and find where it was coming from "she wanted me. me. She was practically begging me to fuck her. If that's rape, then every girl at this school--"

they finally found the classroom that was streaming it and they ran in and the kids that were surrounding a computer quickly moved out of the way

"where the fuck did you get that?" Bryce yells angrily

"what the hell was that, was that you?" Scott asked and at that moment he knew that his beliefs of Bryce being a rapist were confirmed and he felt sick to his stomach and as he looked over at Ella who had a scared look on her face, he knew that he had to do whatever he could to make sure that bryce never laid a finger on her

"yeah it was me" Bryce says and ella stumbled back a bit as Bryce stormed toward the door that she was next to and Montgomery, Scott and Zach all noticed this and stood forward protectively even though Bryce didn't have any intention of going near her at that moment he just wanted to look out the door

"what do you want us to do? do you want me to go after them?" Scott asked and Ella sent him a look and he walked over to her and leaned down towards her ear

"for me to look after you, i need to keep close to him" scott whispers quickly and she glares at him

"i don't need protecting" she whispers back and he looked at her for a moment before Montgomery pulled her into his arms and wrapped his arms around her from behind

"how the fuck did this happen?" Bryce asked Zach angrily 

"someone posted the tapes online" Zach tells Bryce and Ella was shocked, she had no idea that bryce had known about the tapes  "last night"

"someone?" Bryce asks and it was obvious that he was accusing Zach

"anonymously" Zach fires back 

"that's fucked up" scott says

"yeah what are you going to do" Montgomery asks and Ella felt disgusted with the boys in the room, all of them. They had just heard Bryce admit to raping hannah and now they wanted to know how they could help bryce hide it

"umm" bryce stuttered out and paced the classroom nervously "uh, i , i i just--- i need to think for a minute, i should call my dad"