Elizabeth Jensen woke up the next morning to Clay coming into her bedroom. She sat up. "Why the fuck did you wake me up, asshole?"

"Justin's taking a shower." Clay threw the blanket off of Elizabeth. "Will you go into the bathroom and pretend it's you?"

"What? Why can't you do it?"

"I'm waiting for Tony."

Elizabeth raised an eyebrow. "How long is he showering for?"

"Just please do it."

"Okay." Elizabeth nodded as she stood up and made her way into the bathroom.

"Uh, someone's in here." Justin called out to her from within the shower.

"I fucking know, idiot." Elizabeth scoffed as she sat down on the toilet. "I'm pretending to be in the shower so my family doesn't think something strange is happening."

"Oh." Justin chuckled as he peaked his head out of the shower to look at her. "Thanks, Liza."

"Of course." She smiled in return.

"Can you actually get me some more shampoo?"

"Sure." Elizabeth passed him some shampoo from a cabinet.

The door opened suddenly, and Elizabeth jumped into the shower, falling into Justin. "What the fuck?" He exclaimed as he caught her. She placed her hand over his mouth and pointed to outside of the shower.

"Sorry, Eliza." Lainie Jensen sighed as Elizabeth heard her rummaging through some cabinets. "We're out of toilet paper downstairs, so I came up here to grab some." There was a pause. "Don't you think you're showering a bit late if you want to make it to school on time?"

"I'll be okay. Thanks, mom."

"Love you."

"I love you too, mom."

Elizabeth heard her mother leave the bathroom and stepped away from Justin. She finally comprehended that she had fallen onto him while he was naked. "Oh, shit. You're naked."

"Yeah, that's how most people shower." Justin chuckled, running some shampoo through his hair.

"Yeah, uh-" She glanced down his body noticing how skinny he had become. "What happened to you?"

"I was homeless, Eliza." He sighed as he turned away from her. "You shouldn't have expected me to come back with the same body."

Elizabeth's eyes widened. "No, that's not what I-"

"It's fine." Justin nodded, turning back to face her. "You know how much I love our thoughtful discussions, but why are you still in here with me?"

"You're naked, and you're showering, right." Elizabeth nodded, her cheeks heating up from embarrassment. "I'm just gonna leave you to do whatever you were doing."

After Elizabeth got ready, she and Clay were running late to school, so she quickly walked into her brother's bedroom. "We gotta leave." She spoke before pointing out the door.

"You're not staying today?" Justin's eyes widened.

"I have a test." Elizabeth looked down at the ground. She was lying, and he could tell. She just could not trust herself to be with him anymore. She could not help still having feelings for him, but she could never be with him again.

"Tony's gonna be here-"

As if it was on cue, Tony made his way into Clay's bedroom from the window. Justin looked up at Tony and frowned. "Wait, he's my babysitter? What happened to Sherri?"

"Sherri couldn't skip school again." Elizabeth explained to Justin, moving closer towards her brother.

"I thought he wanted nothing to do with me." Justin looked back at Tony cautiously.

"I don't." Tony nodded, crossing his arms over his chest. "So, keep your mouth shut, and don't piss me off."

"Don't piss me off." Justin retorted, scoffing.

"And, if you puke on this leather, I am gonna have to kick your ass."

"Great." Clay nodded, awkwardly smiling. "So, the WebMD detox info and contingency plans are on the desk."

"Don't kill each other." Elizabeth added in.

"Yup, and we gotta go." Clay stood up from his seat next to Justin. "Have fun."

*

After a long day at school, Elizabeth sat on her bed trying to finish her math homework. She had done fairly well during the first couple years of high school, but after everything that happened to her, she has been on a downward curve. She groaned as she looked over all of her notes, but still not understanding a single question. "What the actual fuck." She threw her math notes on the ground and stood up. She made her way over to her drawer, digging out her bottle of vodka.

"Everything okay?" Justin asked as he entered Elizabeth's room slowly. The moment he had heard her being upset, Justin ran to Elizabeth's rescue. He always would.

She stopped rummaging through her drawer as soon as she heard him. "Math sucks, and apparently I suck at it."

"Everyone sucks at math."

Elizabeth shook her head. " I didn't use to."

"Well, then get good at it again."

"It isn't that easy, Justin."

"I don't care anymore. That's the problem." Elizabeth went back to trying to find the bottle of vodka. "I care about absolutely nothing." She smiled as she hand ran across the bottle, and she grabbed onto it. She took off the cap and poured herself a shot.

"You really don't care about anything?"

"Yup. Not a thing."

Justin nodded. "Is that alcohol?" A frown formed across his face.

"Yeah." Elizabeth nodded. "If you're going to lecture me, just know, you aren't the first to try."

"I'm not going to lecture you." Justin shook his head, moving closer to her. "I'm just confused. You used to only drink at parties. And you still would barely drink there."

"Yeah, well, things change." Elizabeth chuckled before taking another sip of the whiskey. "People change."

Justin nodded as he watched her. "They do."

"What does that mean?"

"You're just are different."

"Are you saying you don't like me?"

"What? No!" Justin's eyes widened as he shook his head frantically.

"That's what you're implying." Elizabeth scoffed as she put the bottle down.

"Why do you even care?" Justin frowned as he watched how she moved. "You've moved on, right?"

"When did I say that?"

"With that Zach." Justin looked down at the ground as he spoke.

"I told you we were just friends." She moved a piece of her hair behind her ear. "Yeah, I spent time trying to get over you, but I never actually succeeded."

Justin nodded softly as the two of them stared at each other for a minute. Justin suddenly pressed his lips against Elizabeth's. He, honestly, had no idea what he was doing, but he didn't care anymore. He loved Elizabeth more than he could say and was going to get her back no matter what.

Elizabeth kissed him back before realizing what she was doing and quickly pulling away. "I- uh- I'm- I'm sorry." Justin stammered. He ran his hand through his long curls. "I don't know what I just did that."

"No, it's okay." She smiled softly, taking his hand. "I just- I- uh- I can't."

Justin nodded as he looked down at their hands. "Can I sleep in here tonight?" Justin questioned Elizabeth, motioning to her bed. "With you?"

"I don't know."

"Okay."

*

"I keep to myself mostly. I don't always tell people things. I'm not good with- like- drama." Elizabeth Jensen sat in the courthouse as she listened to Zach Dempsey testify. When he had first got his subpoena, she had promised him that she would be there to support him. Of course, she wouldn't go against her word. "I learned pretty early on not to rock the boat, to stay in my lane. I try not to be a bully. I try not to be a victim. It's a tough line to walk."

"So, this bullying you just mentioned, do you feel pressure to join in once you see it happening?" Dennis, Olivia Baker's lawyer, questioned Zach as he paced in front of him.

"Yes sir." Zach nodded, making eye contact with Elizabeth.

"And what type of bullying do you see?"

"Well, sometimes it's obvious, sometimes it's not." Zach explained to him, playing with his hands. "Sometimes a kid gets roughed up." He looked down, sighing. "A lot of times, though, it's what people say. Especially athletes."

"So, what type of stuff do you say?"

Zach looked down before shaking his head. "We brag about things that we do with girls, like- uh- sexually, even when they're not true." He looked back over at Elizabeth, who had her eyebrows furrowed. "Sometimes that can get around."

Was Zach telling his friends that he and Elizabeth had done things together?

"And who's saying these things?"

"Lots of kids." Elizabeth scoffed, shaking her head, knowing that Zach was trying to protect his 'friends'. He would never say things like that about her. "It's a tough school. It's especially tough on girls. It was for Hannah."

"To your knowledge, neither Mrs. Bradley nor any Liberty faculty took any action once this anonymous note was read aloud?"

"Not to my knowledge, no."

"So, a note expressing interest in suicide was read aloud in class, and faculty members ignored it?"

"Objection. Asked and answered." The lawyer for Liberty High School spoke up from her seat.

"Sustained." The judge answered.

"No further questions, your honor." Dennis made his way back to his seat, leaving Zach playing with his hands and looking awkward.

The lawyer for Liberty stood up, walking towards Zach. "Zach, isn't it true that Hannah also opened up to you to talk about her feelings?"

"Uh- yeah." Zach nodded.

"And did she write a note to you? A note that was not anonymous?"

"Yeah. She wrote me a letter explaining..." Zach paused for a minute before he leaned forward and continued. "About how sad she was feeling. How she felt really alone a lot of the time."

"So, you told no one at Liberty High that Hannah wrote you a note telling you how alone she felt?"

"I didn't know how to." Zach answered the questioned after glancing towards his mother.

"But, isn't it true that you did reach out to her off campus?" Zach stared at the lawyer blankly. "The summer after sophomore year; the summer after the note. Did you have contact with her?"

"Yes."

"And isn't it true that you saw her more than once that summer."

The lawyer was hinting towards Zach's romantic relationship with Hannah that he was not ready to tell the world about. It was very hard for Zach to open up to even Elizabeth, his best friend.

"Uh- yeah- uh- last summer was slow." Zach nodded as his eyes frantically moved to Elizabeth. "Most people were out of town. My best friend, Justin, spent all his time with his new girlfriend, so I went to a lot of movies. I mean, I guess I saw movies I didn't even want to see. I would always go to see her, I guess." Zach smiled as he remembered back to the summer before. "I asked her to watch a movie together, so we went to her house."

"Did her parents ever find out?"

"No, to my knowledge, her parents never found out."

"So, you told no one else about the time you spent with Hannah?" The lawyer furrowed her eyebrows as she spoke.

"I told my friend Eliza, but no one else."

"That is Elizabeth Jensen?" The lawyer asked, and Zach nodded in response. "Then, if she's the only one, is it true that you were ashamed of telling anyone?"

"No. No- I just-" Zach stopped, staring at the table. He sighed as he looked back up at the lawyer. "That was the summer my dad died. I was out of my mind and I needed someone I could talk to."

"Yes, but Zach, didn't you send each other hundreds of text messages?"

"Hundreds?" Zach mumbled on his breath. "I mean, yeah, we texted. I don't know how many times." Zach raised his eyebrows. "We just had things in common to talk about, and things we didn't have to talk about, but we just knew about each other." Zach looked over pictures of the text messages between him and Hannah.

"That must have been exhausting, keeping that a secret." Elizabeth scoffed as the lawyer spoke. Zach had told Elizabeth that exact thing.

"Yeah, I guess I just wanted to keep the friendship ours."

"And in all that time you spent together, all those texts, you and Hannah never became more than friends?" Zach looked down at his hands again, not knowing what to say. "You never told your teammates about her, as you've said they do. Bragged a bit?"

"No. I would never do that." Zach snapped as he glared up at the lawyer.

"Because there was nothing to brag about or because you're not one to do so?"

"Because it wasn't like that." Zach shook his head as he looked down again.

"What was it like, then?" Zach was silent for a minute before the lawyer spoke again. "Mr. Dempsey, did something happen between you and Hannah Baker the summer before she took her life?"

Zach's eyes widened before looking over at Elizabeth, almost as if he was asking for help. She only wished that she could say something to make her stop.

Zach deeply breathed in before speaking. "Yes."

"What?"

"Yes." Zach repeated, more sure of himself. "We- we- uh- we had sex."

"Just once?"

"No. We- um- it was- uh- all summer." Zach stammered out, finally admitting the truth to the people watching. "But, it wasn't just the sex. We really cared for each other. It was amazing. I think. I don't know how Hannah felt about it. I think she did like it, though."

*

After Zach's trial finished, Elizabeth met with him in front of the courthouse. She wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him into a hug. "I'm so proud of you." Elizabeth smiled. "You did so great in there."

"Thanks, Liza." Zach hugged her back. He felt more happy with her than he had felt in a long time. It almost reminded him of his time with Hannah.

He quickly pulled away from the hug, trying to push the thoughts away. "Do you want to hang out tonight to, like, celebrate?" Elizabeth took his hands as she spoke to him.

"Uh- I don't think my mom will ever want me to leave my house again after everything I just said." Zach chuckled, shaking his head.

Part of that was true. The other part was that he didn't want to risk his telling Elizabeth how he felt about her. He had done an amazing job hiding it. He wished he could tell her, but he knew she was still very much in love with Justin Foley.

Rewritten
Word Count - 2447

An: The chapters I had written for season two were all fairly short, so I am going to be combing a lot of them!!

Thank you all for continuing to read this! I love you all so much.

Have a nice day, lovelies 💕