Taliesin and I didn't speak in math, and he didn't follow me out of the room. I didn't go to my locker after class; I headed down to Kace's locker.

                He looked up as I approached and got to his feet, shutting his locker. "I know, Gabriel."

                "Then tell me what that was about earlier," I said.

                "I was the one who figured out he was sabotaging us," Kace said, running a hand through his hair. "He's never forgiven me for ruining his plans."

                "There's more," I said.

                "He was my friend, but I never liked him as much as you guys did. I thought he could be an asshole at times. I didn't like the way he ran things. Sure, it's just the student council. But I knew he'd work the same when he got a real job. He pressured people, and he did it with a smile. He was good at getting what he wanted, and a person like that is a person to be wary of," he said.

                I bit my lip, because I knew he was right. I'd always overlooked Taliesin's methods. If he put some pressure on a staff member to get us what we wanted, I'd look the other way. As long as he wasn't hurting anyone, I'd figured it was okay.

                "You guys let him do it. You trusted him. I didn't. That's why I figured out it was him causing all that trouble. He could've gotten you in a lot of trouble. He could've gotten you suspended, or even expelled." Kace shook his head angrily. "He's not a good person, Gabriel. He never was. I'm begging you to trust me on that."

                He was hiding something. I was so tired of people hiding things from me.

                "I'm going to find Nadia," I said, walking away and ignoring him as he called after me.

                Nadia was at her locker and she did a double-take of my expression. "Bad day?"

                "Do you know anything that went down between Kace and Taliesin?" I asked.

                She shook her head. "No. I'd assumed something happened between the two of them. But I guess I just assumed Taliesin was the worst to Kace because Kace was the one who told us what Taliesin was doing."

                "That's what I thought too. But I think there was something more going on, and Kace won't tell me what it was," I said.

                "Kace isn't usually the type to keep secrets. If he's not telling you, he must have a good reason," she said. "Taliesin on the other hand..."

                "He's always been a stubborn idiot," I said in frustration. I sighed heavily, slumping against the locker next to Nadia's. "Nadia, did we let him go too far back when he was still in the council?"

                "No," she said, and the surety of her voice eased me. "He was good at twisting arms- metaphorically back then, much more literally now. But we never let him take it too far. You were always good at bringing him back to his senses. There was a line we wouldn't let him cross and he knew it. It kept him in check."

                "When did it start?" I said quietly. "It was so sudden."

                "We keep saying that, but it wasn't. Not really. I've thought about it a lot, especially recently. I talked to Leigh about it. She noticed, too. He was always so good with her. You know how forgetful she can be. But he started getting so impatient it made her scared to screw up. It was a small change at first, but it got worse. She never said anything about it because she assumed he was just going through something and it would pass. He got angrier and angrier, but we ignored it when it started because he passed it off as lack of sleep or stress from the work building up. It wasn't sudden, Gabriel. We just didn't pay attention to it until it was too late." She crossed her arms. "I was his friend, and I blame myself for ignoring the obvious. But he's still responsible for himself."

                She put a hand on my back and we went down to my locker. I grabbed my stuff and we left the school together, heading towards the parking lot.

                "Gabriel!"

                Taliesin caught up to us, looking a little out of breath. "Shit, you're fucking hard to find sometimes, you know that?"

                "What do you want?" I asked, really not in the mood for this right now.

                "Come get a drink with me." He glanced at Nadia. "You can come too, Nadia."

                "I have to get home," she said.

                He shrugged. "Your loss. Gabe?"

                "What do you want from me, Taliesin?" I said, hearing the exhaustion in my voice.

                He stiffened a little. "Whatever you'll give me."

                "Fine, yea, a drink," I said. "I'll talk to you later, Nadia."

                "Bye Gabriel." Nadia shot Taliesin a look before heading the rest of the way to the parking lot.

                "She's scary," he said. "Same place as last time. You remember how to get there?"

                "Yea, I remember. I'll meet you there," I said.

                We left to go to our cars. I drove to the coffee shop, parking next to Taliesin's car when I got there.

                We went inside together and ordered. Taliesin claimed us a table in the far corner of the shop once we had our drinks and donuts, and we sat across from each other.

                Taliesin sipped his drink, his brows furrowed. I waited for him to find the words he wanted to say.

                "You guys never turned me in," he said. "You cleared up the issue with the school and kicked me out of the student council. You could've had me expelled."

                "We were all hurt by what you did. I'm the one who handled the issue, though. I thought you'd come back," I said.

                He nodded. "But I didn't."

                "No, you didn't."

                "Always had too much faith in me," he mumbled, and gave a dry laugh. He met my eyes. "I didn't feel bad at the time. I didn't feel bad for a while after, either. I do now, not that it changes anything. I jeopardized your future and didn't give a shit that I'd done it. Can you believe you ever loved me?"

                "Yes, I can," I said simply, and he looked surprised at that. "When we were freshman, you're the one everyone wanted to run for student council president. But you convinced me to do it. You said I'd be better at it. You say I have too much faith in you, but you had too much faith in me, too. The right thing to do would've been to report you and replace you. I didn't do either of those things. I was supposed to be the leader, and I wasn't."

                "We're a mess," he mumbled. He sighed heavily, leaning back in his seat. "You want honesty?"

                "That's all I ever wanted from you, Taliesin. You gave me everything, but never the whole truth," I said.

                "Yea, never been good at that. Think I get it from my mom," he said. "Fine, honesty. After you guys washed your hands of me, I buddied up to that guy in the junior council. You remember Angus? He used to be the junior class vice president. We'd worked together before, so I used that connection to slip into their group. I sabotaged them, too. Different methods so it wouldn't be obvious to the staff. The in-fighting led to them being disbanded, and I rigged the election to get Marshall and his friends in because I knew they'd listen to me. You already suspected all of that, but now I'm confirming it. You could tell the principal."

                "It wouldn't change anything now," I said. "Why, Taliesin? Why did you do all that shit?"

                A bitter expression passed over his face. "Only Kace noticed what I was doing."

                "Hey," I said, my voice quiet. "I know I didn't pay attention to you. If I so much as yawned, you were there with coffee. Meanwhile, I didn't even notice you changing."

                "Shit, no, that's not what I meant," he said, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Fuck, no, I'm not trying to start a pity party for myself. I'm almost an adult, and I'm responsible for what I did."

                "You can own up to what you did and still be hurt none of us noticed you were struggling," I said, dropping my gaze. He couldn't blame us for what he'd done. But he could be mad we hadn't noticed the change in his behavior. Hadn't reached out to him. "We were bad friends to you, Taliesin. I was bad to you."

                "No," Taliesin said sternly. He stopped and scrubbed at his eyes, letting out a dry laugh. "This isn't what I wanted. Yea, I went through some shit. Yea, I was mad at the time that you were too wrapped up in your work to notice. But if I wanted your help, I should've asked for it."

                I reached across the table, putting my hand on his. I looked down in surprise as I felt the scars on his knuckles, scars that hadn't been there before. Taliesin watched me examine his hand.

                I forced myself to meet his eyes. "We need to talk, Taliesin. Or we might as well walk away now. I want to give you a chance to fix things. I have things I need to fix too."

                He looked back down at our hands. Mine was just resting lightly over his, not locking our fingers together like we always used to.

                "You want the truth?" he said, that bitter expression back. "I hated you. I hated you, and Nadia, and Leigh." He paused and shook his head a little. "Maybe 'hate' is the wrong word. I was furious, I think. It felt like none of you cared. It doesn't justify what I did. It's just what I felt when I did it."

                I squeezed his hand, but didn't apologize. He was right; words wouldn't mean anything. Apologizing now for ignoring him back then wouldn't change anything.

                "This is not how I planned this to go," he said after a moment.

                "How did you plan it to go, then?" I said.

                "I don't know. We drink some tea, eat some donuts, tease each other, I slip in a comment about how nice my ass looks in these jeans, maybe invite you to the gym again," he said.

                There was still something he wasn't telling me, but he was giving me more honesty than he ever used to. Didn't that have to count for something?

                Taliesin pulled his hand away from mine slowly. "I don't want to be who I am."

                "Tal?" I said.

                "You have your faults, Gabe. That didn't give me a right to hurt you," Taliesin said. "I was blaming everyone else for my own issues. I don't want to be that anymore. A man's got to own up."

                His phone buzzed, breaking the somber mood. He took it out and slid his finger across the screen, holding it up to his ear after checking the ID.

                "I'm at the coffee shop. I just forgot to text you," he said, listening as a voice on the other end spoke. "Yea, sure, I'll head home. Nah, didn't spoil my appetite too much. See you." He hung up and shrugged helplessly. "Mom. Thinks I'm out picking fights when I forget to tell her when I'll be home late. I've got to head home. She made dinner."

                We got up and threw our stuff out. We walked to the parking lot together and I caught his hand as he headed for his car.

                "Gabe, I really have to go. You know how my mom gets," Taliesin said, but he didn't try to pull away from me.

                I looked at him, hating how thin he looked, how sickly. Hating the messy stubble on his face and the shadows under his eyes. Hating that I hadn't seen the start of it all. Hating that he was right; how he felt back then didn't justify what he'd done.

                "I'm paying attention now," I said. Maybe it was too late to start, but I needed him to know I was going to be better. Not just for him either. My friends all deserved better. I reached out, cupping his cheek in my palm. "You should shave. You're a mess, Taliesin."

                He put his hand over mine, stepping closer to me. My heart thumped against my chest as I looked at him. We used to be so close. How could we use to lie so open next to each other with so much hidden between us?

                I leaned forward a little, and Taliesin pulled away. The expression on his face made my heart sink.

                "I'm not here to seduce you," he said quietly. "Where's the fun in kissing my way back into your good faith?" He turned towards his car, but his shoulders were slouched in defeat. "I'm not a good man, Gabe. I never was. If you're paying attention now, you'll finally get that. What you do with that information is your choice."

                He got in his car and I headed back to mine, nothing left to be said between us for the moment. Maybe he wasn't a good man.

                He could be mean, I knew that. His temper was a vicious, untamed thing. He liked to feel in control of a situation, and to be in control, sometimes that meant putting others down. He could keep secrets, and even if it wasn't for malicious intent, he knew it bothered others but still did it.

                He wasn't a good man. What I did with that information was my choice.

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A.N.- Bruh my bad I forgot about this story so uhhh here's that update