The day was tough. Taliesin and I had shared a lot of classes together before he'd switched his schedule, and we used to sit next to each other in most of them. 

                Thankfully, the teachers knew his reputation, and were keeping him in seats close to them. I did my best not to pay any attention to him, but it was hard when I kept noticing him watching me.

                I guess it wasn't right to still think of him as my boyfriend, considering we hadn't talked in so long. But we'd also never officially broken up after everything happened. Taliesin had just...disappeared.

                No, that wasn't quite right. In fact, Taliesin had taken the spotlight, rapidly becoming a notorious troublemaker. He'd become a new person, with new friends.

                But he'd disappeared from our lives. He'd stirred up all sorts of trouble and then just left, briefly coming back to kick the hornets' nest before taking off for good. Or, well, I'd thought it had been for good.

                I shut my locker, tucking my lunch into my bag and heading down the hallway. Taliesin would be back in our lunch period, but we wouldn't have to see him. We ate lunch in the student council room, and Taliesin's access had been stripped.

                I made my way to the student council room, swiping my access card and letting myself in. Nadia was already in there, sitting on the couch with her lunch. I dragged a coffee table up to the couch and sat next to her, pulling out my lunch and setting it on the table.

                "Any problems?" she asked.

                "None," I said.

                She slid some papers to me. "I printed those price comparisons for you."

                "You're the best," I said, taking them and setting them safely away from our food.

                The door clicked before opening. Leigh came bounding into the room, holding her lunch in her hands.

                "Man, I have had the longest morning!" she said, sitting on the floor across from us. "I've already had two pop quizzes. Two!"

                "Must be a trend. We're pretty sure Mr. Geary is going to drop one on us this week," I said.

                "Really? At least you guys suspect it. These were out of nowhere. I'm lucky I happened to look over some of my notes yesterday while I was doing homework," Leigh said.

                "I'm sure you did fine," Nadia said. "Just make sure to check your notes from time to time if your teachers are prone to pop quizzes. Remember Mrs. Romero, Gabriel?"

                "Pop quiz every five seconds, I swear," I groaned. "We did so many pop quizzes I'm surprised we ever learned anything to be quizzed on."

                "That was an exhausting class. Leigh, be grateful you never had her as a teacher last year," Nadia said.

                "I remember you guys talking about her before!" Leigh said. "She sounds horrible. I'm bad at remembering enough information to be having pop quizzes all the time."

                The door clicked again and we looked up. But I sank down a little as Kace came in, his expression angry. He shut the door with more force than necessary.

                "You two knew," Kace said, eyes locked on me and Nadia.

                "I assumed you knew too," Nadia said.

                "Knew what?" Leigh asked, looking confused.

                "Taliesin Torres had his schedule switched back to the original classes he had," Kace said, tossing his bag on the ground next to Leigh. "How did you know?"

                "Because the guidance counselors mentioned it at our meeting," I said. "They were hoping that by switching their schedules back, it would help ease their trouble."

                "They switched Taliesin and Kayden back to their old classes," Kace informed Leigh.

                Leigh looked surprised by that. "What?"

                "It doesn't change anything," I said.

                "You're telling me that spending all that time around Taliesin all of a sudden isn't going to change anything?" Kace said, narrowing his eyes at me. "You tried to defend him when he betrayed us, Gabriel. Over and over."

                "I did. That was my mistake," I said. "He was stripped of his student council status and privileges, and we let him deal with his own consequences."

                "I defended him too, Kace. Gabriel and I thought we knew Taliesin," Nadia said. "You can't blame Gabriel for having so much faith in Taliesin. Everything he did was unexpected. No one knew how to react. Sit down and we can talk about this."

                "There's nothing to talk about," I said, despite the fact that there was. There was so much to talk about when it came to Taliesin and what he'd done. "Taliesin is back in our classes, but we just have to keep going on like we did when he wasn't in our classes. No one start a conflict with him. Ignore him if he tries to start one with you."

                "I can't believe they haven't expelled him yet," Kace said angrily. "Hasn't anyone realized he's not changing? He flipped his shit and he's been causing trouble ever since."

                "It's not our decision to make, Kace," Nadia said. "We just have to act mature about everything."

                But Kace had answered his own question. Taliesin used to be a model student, though prone to the occasional questionable decision. No one knew why he'd suddenly become a troublemaker. Why he'd betrayed all his closest friends and fallen in with a bad crowd. Surely the school hadn't expelled him only because he hadn't been trouble up until recently. 

                Leigh fidgeted with her lunch a little. "Doesn't that mean he's got a lot of classes with you two again?"

                "It does. That's okay. Nothing's changed," I said.

                "Maybe that's the problem," Kace said.

                I looked at him, raising an eyebrow. "Excuse me?"

                "You trust Taliesin too much, Gabriel. You're too close to him," Kace said. "You have the most classes with him. That's a lot of time alone with Taliesin."

                "Sorry, I didn't realize the rest of my classmates will suddenly disappear," I said. "Are you saying you don't trust me, Kace?"

                "I'm saying I don't trust you with Taliesin. I'm saying he knows as well as we do that you still have faith in him, and he could use that against you." Kace's anger eased a little, and his expression softened the slightest. "I'm just saying, don't let him take advantage of your past."

                I knew he was right, because my instant reaction was to think that Taliesin would never do that. But I didn't know Taliesin, not anymore. So I just kept my mouth shut.

                "Enough about Taliesin," Nadia said. "He's back to having classes with us, and that's that. Kace, I trust you can control yourself in science."

                "I moved my seat next to Gabriel after Taliesin left. We can keep an eye on each other," Kace said.

                "Let's focus on actual work," I said. "We missed our morning meeting, so we have some catching up to do. Kace, Nadia very kindly printed out some price comparisons for me. I'm going to give them to you and let you write up a report. Leigh, would you be okay setting up a meeting with the class advisor about the theme for the next dance? We have suggestions, and ways to let the seniors vote."

                "You got it, boss," Leigh said, saluting me.

                "Gabriel, it's also lunch time," Nadia said, pushing my lunch towards me. "Eat."

                "It's rude to talk with my mouth full," I said.

                "Then shut up for a few minutes," she said.

                The truth was that I didn't have much of an appetite right now. Nadia surely knew that. Seeing Taliesin again like this, it wasn't easy.

                But my friends were all watching me, so I forced myself to pick at my lunch while Nadia went over price comparisons with Kace. Taliesin had been out of my life long enough; I had to carry on with or without him.

                But I couldn't stop thinking about the way he'd looked at me. Did he not feel guilty at all for what he'd done to us? To me?

                Even now, I could almost picture him leaning against the couch, kneeing me in the back until I'd eat. Then he'd steal part of my lunch and get that little smirk of his when I smacked his hands away. He'd have a snarky comment for everything, but he'd also find solutions to whatever problems we stumbled on. He was good like that. He was a quick thinker.

                "Hellooo!" Leigh dragged the word out as she waved in my face. "Anyone in there?"

                "A very tired old soul is trapped in this teenage body, please allow him his senior nap," I said, pushing her hand away.

                "You weren't even napping. You were just zoning out," Leigh said. "I was asking if we're having a meeting tomorrow morning."

                "Oh, yea, we'll do that since we didn't have one this morning. There are a lot of senior events coming up we need to get ready for. Not to mention, we're in charge of coordinating even more events," I said.

                Our school put a lot of responsibility on the shoulders of each student council. There was one for every class year, and it got progressively more work-heavy with each year. It didn't help that we were short a man during the busiest year of student council duties.

                But the school felt it built us into mature students, and helped us grow our school community. They were right, but it was still damn stressful sometimes.

                "If we're having a morning meeting, then let's call it quits on official matters for right now. We have our tasks, we can go over them tomorrow," Kace said.

                "That's fine," I said, knowing Kace was still angry about the Taliesin thing. It would be good to let him calm down a bit before we actually had to endure class with Taliesin.

                So instead, we talked about classes and schoolwork. Leigh told us about the cats that had interrupted her team's practice the day before, and I focused on her words instead of the dread settling in my stomach.

                When the bell rang, I was absolutely not prepared to go back to class, but I left the room with my friends. Kace and I said bye to the girls and went down the science wing together. Unfortunately, our science class had its lab today, which meant two periods stuck in that room.

                We entered the room and took our seats at our table. I shivered, hating how cold this room always was.

                "I hope we get to do a dissection today," Kace said, far too eagerly.

                "I'm good with not doing that," I said.

                "Come on, it's fascinating," Kace insisted.

                "Yea, I love digging around a dead creature's insides. 'Ma'am, you have a beautiful pyloric sphincter, let me just take that out for a better view'," I said.

                "You're no fun," Kace said.

                "Yes, a fun person loves dissecting marine animals. If I don't go to at least three dissection parties and a toga in college, I'm dropping out immediately," I said.

                "That's the spirit," Kace said, slapping me on the back. "Why stop at three? Up your expectations. Hell, throw your own dissection parties."

                "Who needs drugs and alcohol when you have the pyloric sphincter just waiting to be removed?" I said.

                "I don't have a clue what the context of your conversation is, but I'm glad you remember what a pyloric sphincter is," our teacher said as she passed by our desks.

                "Dissection is already winning them over for me," I said.

                "Told you," Kace said.

                The bell rang and we settled back in our seats. My gaze kept slipping to the door as our teacher took attendance. Why was he late to every class today? Was he trying to piss every teacher off already?

                Our teacher had started her lesson by the time the door opened. Ms. Trela, sighed heavily, looking ready for retirement already.

                "Torres, either you have a pass or you're going to sit down quietly in your seat and we'll pretend this didn't happen one time to avoid the paperwork," she said.

                To my surprise, Taliesin held up a pass. "You're spared paperwork and I'm spared keeping my mouth shut." He dropped the pass on her desk. "Where am I sitting? Someone stole my seat."

                Kace tensed up, but kept his gaze on the board. Taliesin got that little smirk at the sight of Kace's anger, though.

                "You need a partner. Go sit with Alice," Ms. Trela said, waving him away impatiently.

                "I'm sure Alice is great, but I liked the partner I had before," Taliesin said, smirk growing a little. "Any chance I can switch seats?"

                I prayed I wasn't blushing as I pretended to be taking notes. He hadn't said anything in any of the other classes we had together. Was he just trying to rile Kace up? The two had never exactly been best friends, but after everything Taliesin put Kace through before he split, Kace hated him now.

                "Taliesin, go sit with Alice. If you wanted to keep Gabriel as your partner, you shouldn't have switched classes," Ms. Trela said.

                "Touche." Taliesin conceded and started walking back towards the empty seat next to Alice. As he passed us, he caught the edge of Kace's notebook with his hip, nearly knocking it off the desk. He didn't slow his pace though, and Kace grit his teeth, catching his notebook.

                That glimpse of childish behavior reminded me what he'd done to us, though. What he'd become. So I straightened up a little in my seat and kept my focus on Ms. Trela as she taught. Taliesin didn't deserve my attention when he acted like this.

                Our lesson started and we paid attention and took notes. When the bell rang, Ms. Trela sat at her desk and waved us away. We had four minutes in between classes, which gave kids with back to back classes in the same room a chance to stretch their legs and go get a drink or use the bathroom. Several kids left the room, but Kace and I stayed seated, sharing our notebooks with each other.

                "God, your handwriting is atrocious," Kace said.

                "It's just because I was trying to write down as much as I could," I said. "Did you write down that part about the water temperature?"

                "I'll trade you if you wrote down the information on dietary patterns," Kace said.

                "Deal," I said, and we began to copy each other's notes.

                "Hey, Ms. Trela, are we doing a dissection in lab today?" Kace asked.

                "Not today. Instead, we're starting with a survey, and doing a lab after. The two will connect," she said.

                Oh no.

                We did that sometimes. We went around the room, filling out a survey as a tie-in for our lab. It was supposed to make us friendlier with our classmates since we did so many group projects in this class.

                It was too convenient for it to be a coincidence. I'm sure Ms. Trela had added in the survey as a way to reintroduce Taliesin to the class since he'd have to work with us now.

                I took a deep breath. It was just a survey. A few questions, and then I'd be done with him. I thought about him trying to knock Kace's notebook off the table and settled myself. The Taliesin he'd become wasn't the Taliesin I'd loved to be around. A person was their personality in the end. It didn't matter how little he'd changed physically; he was meaner now, and that wasn't okay with me.

                Kids came back into the room just before the bell rang. Ms. Trela stood up and passed our surveys and labs to us.

                "We'll take ten or fifteen minutes for you guys to complete the surveys, and then you'll work with your partner to complete the lab. Whatever isn't finished is homework. You can start your surveys now. Every other pair move forward, starting with the front tables."

                Every other pair got up and moved to the table in front of them. We looked over our surveys quickly before beginning to ask our questions. It was a short survey at least, and we moved along quickly.

                But then Taliesin and Alice sat across from us. Taliesin laid his paper on the desk, sitting right across from me.

                "Eat fish? Nope," he said, checking it off for me. "What about you, Kace? Do you eat fish? It would explain the scent. I have a nice cologne I can recommend."

                Kace narrowed his eyes, but kept his tone even. "No, I don't eat fish. Alice?"

                "I do. This class is making me rethink that," Alice said. "Taliesin, you're the only one we don't have an answer for."

                "Gabe, care to answer that?" Taliesin said.

                "It's your answer, not mine. Stop holding up the group," I said.

                "So impatient. The answer is no. Sorry to make you the black sheep of the group, Alice." Taliesin glanced at me and sighed. "If we're playing this game, it's not fun and I want to move on. So no, I don't eat fish, I don't go fishing, I don't throw trash in water, and I'm educated on fish farming."

                "Good, now we have your answers so you can keep quiet," Kace said.

                "I'll sit here and ponder where that awful stench comes from if it's not dead fish. Sure smells like dead fish," Taliesin said, leaning towards Kace and sniffing the air. "Cologne, man. I'm tellin' you."

                "We don't all bathe in Axe, though I'm not surprised you apply it like a fifth grader considering that you're acting like one," I said. I turned to Alice and offered a smile, since I could tell how uncomfortable she was being stuck with our arguing. "Let's move on with this survey. Sorry to hold you up, Alice."

                "It's fine, Gabriel," she said, looking grateful to move on.

                She worked through the questions with the two of us while Taliesin watched in boredom, drumming his fingers on the table. I could tell how irritated Kace was getting, and apparently so could Taliesin, because he drummed his fingers even louder.

                But then they were moving away from our table, and Kace looked relieved. We finished the rest of our surveys and the class went back to their seats to work on the lab.

                "He wasn't always so immature," Kace grumbled as we started working on our lab. "It's like he went back in time to elementary school."

                "Just ignore him," I said. Actually talking to him made it a lot easier to want to avoid him. He was so different than the Taliesin I remembered.

                But as we worked on our lab, I couldn't stop thinking about his behavior. What had changed? Why was he so different? And why was he suddenly talking to us again?

                I had a bad feeling about all of this. I shook it off though and got to work. Whatever being around Taliesin again meant for us, we'd learn to handle it and shrug him off until the end of the year.