By the end of the day, I'd adjusted to Taliesin constantly watching me in classes. His rude attitude helped my resolve in ignoring him.

                It didn't keep my mind from whispering that he could just be putting on a show, that the old Taliesin was still in there. I wasn't sure I'd ever stop wondering what had happened to make him change.

                "Survive the day?" Nadia asked as she came up to my locker.

                "He missed math class, so I got a break from him," I said. "Kace isn't too happy though."

                "He'll manage. This'll all die down soon enough," Nadia said. "Want to come over and do homework at my house? My mom made garlic knots last night."

                "That's a hell yea from me," I said. "I'll never say no to garlic knots."

                "I figured. Let's go," she said.

                I shut my locker and followed Nadia out of the school. We got in our cars and drove to her house, getting out and going inside together.

                Nadia grabbed a bowl of garlic knots, heated them up, and brought them with us up to her bedroom. We settled ourselves on her bed with our homework and the garlic knots between us.

                "Hey, be honest Gabriel, are you really doing alright seeing him again?" she asked.

                It was no secret just how close Taliesin and I had always been, even before we'd started dating. We'd been fast friends as little kids. My parents used to call Taliesin my shadow because it was so rare to see me without him.

                "He's not the Taliesin I grew up with," I said.

                Nadia looked down at her homework. "Something happened. But you already know that."

                "He looks...tired," I said. I'd noticed the heavy bags under Taliesin's eyes. "You didn't see the way he treated Kace, though. I want no part of that. There's no excuse for treating your friends that way."

                "Let's do our work. Talking about Taliesin doesn't help us graduate," she said.

                The two of us got to work on our homework, snacking on garlic knots and occasionally holding a light conversation to break up the silence. As it got later, I left Nadia's house and went back to my own for dinner, my homework finished.

                "Hey, Gabriel," dad greeted as I walked into the house. "Mom said you were at Nadia's doing homework."

                "Yea, but I came home for dinner. Mom said she was making something new," I said.

                "How is school going?" dad asked, following me into the dining room. "Are you staying on top of everything?"

                "Oh, yea, I'm doing fine. It's getting pretty busy soon for the student council, but we're doing a lot of prep work to make sure it's not overwhelming," I assured.

                "Good. Take a seat, it'll be out soon. We already set the table," dad said.

                I sat down at the table, checking the time. I'd have to go to bed early so I could be up early. There was a lot of work to do, and I didn't want to fall behind. I'd pull as much of Taliesin's weight in the student council as I could now that he was gone.

                My parents came into the kitchen a few minutes later and set down dinner. My parents asked me about school, my friends, and my responsibilities. I didn't mention Taliesin and neither did they; it had been an off-limits topic for a while.

                After I ate, I went upstairs and finished up some work for the student council before going to bed. I'd been so tired lately. If I hadn't done my homework with Nadia, I probably would've taken even longer to do it, working out problems she could easily get the answer to. We balanced each other well when it came to our schoolwork, so we tried to do it together whenever things got busy so it would get done faster.

                But my alarm seemed to be going off right after I shut my eyes, starting another busy day. I got up, showered, brushed my teeth, and got dressed before heading downstairs. My parents were moving around the kitchen getting their own breakfasts, but mom slid me some toast and scrambled eggs.

                "Gabriel Giovanni Rizzo, a granola bar is NOT breakfast!" she said sternly. "Don't think I haven't noticed you leaving the house with that as your only meal. Breakfast is important."

                "Sorry, sorry. I don't have a lot of time in the mornings," I said, taking the plate of food. "Thanks for the eggs."

                "If you don't have time to take care of your body, you need to make time. Nothing else matters if you're not well," she said, shaking her head. "You stress me out."

                "I'm eating!" I said, shoving a forkful of eggs into my mouth.

                My phone buzzed and I pulled it out of my pocket. Nadia's name flashed on the screen so I swallowed my food and answered.

                "Hi Nadia," I said. "What's up?"

                "I just got a surprise call," she said, her voice that neutral tone it took on when she was delivering bad news. "The junior class student council wants to have a meeting with us this morning. A half hour before classes start."

                "What? Why?" I said, narrowing my eyes a little. This was no coincidence. Taliesin had just come back to his original classes yesterday, and today the junior class student council wants to meet with us?

                "I have to call their president back with an answer," she said.

                "I suppose we'll hear them out. Tell them we'll meet in their room," I said.

                "Got it. I'll call Kace and Leigh," she said and hung up.

                I hurriedly ate my breakfast despite the bad feeling settling in my stomach. I grabbed my things, called out a goodbye to my parents, and left the house.

                I had a feeling I knew what they wanted to meet with us about, but they had to know our answer. This was a waste of time.

                Still, I parked at school and went inside, going to our student council room and letting myself in. I paced in front of the couch for a few minutes, thinking over everything they might say to us and what my answers would be.

                It was a few minutes before the door opened and Nadia came in. I stopped my pacing, straightening up as I faced her.

                "We play this carefully," she said, crossing her arms. "Our stance hasn't changed, if this is about what I think it is."

                "I've already thought about how to handle it," I said.

                The door opened and Leigh and Kace entered. Leigh frowned at me as she shut the door.

                "Do you think this is about...?" she said, trailing off at the end.

                "Most likely. It's a waste of time, but they'll keep bothering us for a meeting, so we might as well get it over with. Let's head down there. Keep this factual. Emotions aren't involved in our stance," I said, leading them out of the room.

                We crossed to the junior hallway, making our way to their student council room. It was housed in a smaller office area that had been cleared out and reworked to fit the student council body. When we reached it, the door was closed, so I knocked.

                A girl answered and stepped aside to let us in. I wasn't even surprised to see Taliesin leaning against the wall, arms crossed over his chest as he watched us enter.

                "This is business, I take it?" I said.

                "Of course," the junior student council president said from his spot in the corner of the room, standing up.

                "Then he can't be here. He's not student council," I said, nodding to Taliesin and making sure my words were firm.

                "I know how to take a hint," Taliesin said, pushing off the wall. "No students allowed to have input in the student council decisions."

                "You had plenty of input. You gave it up on your own," Nadia said, holding the door open for him.

                Taliesin calmly left the room and Nadia shut the door. I had no doubt Taliesin would stick around to eavesdrop, but there wasn't much I could do about that without looking paranoid.

                "Please, take a seat," their president, Marshall, said. He sat at the table in the center of the room, his council joining him. We sat on the opposite side.

                "What do you need, Marshall?" I asked.

                "Yesterday, we received reports from several students about the bathroom in the science wing smelling strongly of weed," Marshall started.

                I held up my hand. "Marshall, you know that's not our business. As the student council for our respective years, we plan fundraisers and events, we coordinate guests and fieldtrips, and we pick out themes and set up events. We don't handle problem students. That's the actual faculty's job."

                "Gabriel is right. We have no authority to handle problem students," Nadia said. "There's nothing we can do, and you know it."

                "We're in charge of our classes. This problem has only been growing," Marshall argued. He looked to his vice president. "Jordan, tell them what you heard."

                "Students are buying and selling drugs in the bathrooms, the parking lot, and the fields behind the school," Jordan said.

                "Then present this information to the principal. There is nothing you or I can do about it," I said. "We represent the students. We don't punish them."

                "Maybe we should," Marshall said.

                I raised an eyebrow. "You see no problems with giving students the ability to punish other students? You don't see an abuse of power situation in the future?" I stood up, gesturing at my group to do the same. "If this is all you wanted to talk about, we're done here. I've already told you our stance on this. It's never changing. Go bring the situation to the principal."

                "We have. He's not doing anything about it," Jordan said. "He just told security to be more vigilant. If he truly addresses the problem, that means admitting there is a problem. He doesn't want parents switching their kids to the private school."

                "Gabriel."

                I turned to face the girl sitting at the end of the table. She had a sly smile on her face, a glint in her eyes. It was strange to see her without Taliesin at her side.

                "You said students having the ability to punish other students will lead to an abuse of power situation," she said.

                "You think it won't?" I said.

                "Oh, I think it could. But what if instead of punishing the students involved, we just turn them in. Our two councils work together to investigate and write up a report to turn in to the principal. With hardcore evidence, he'll have to take action. And being spared the work, I'm sure he'll be much more cooperative," she offered.

                "That's not our job, Kaya. You guys can do whatever you want. We're not getting involved," I said.

                "This is better suited to the trained staff," Kace said. "We'd be over stepping our boundaries if we started investigating students. We'd hate to have students doubt us."

                Marshall's mouth twitched at the dig, but he didn't say anything as we left the room. Like I'd expected, Taliesin was leaning on the lockers next to the door, not at all ashamed to be caught listening in on us.

                "Still afraid to take action," he said, shaking his head and catching the door before it could close.

                "There's no action we can take. We have no authority in the matter," I said. "This isn't news to you, and it isn't news to them. New faces, same limits."

                With that, I walked away, my friends following me. We headed back for our own student council room, but my thoughts strayed back to Marshall's expression when we'd left.

                The previous junior class student council had crumbled partway through the year, and a new one had to be elected. There were still questions over whether the election for the new council members had been rigged.

                There were still questions over what had been the downfall of the old council.

                It wasn't random that they fell apart at the same time Taliesin betrayed us. Our group had struggled to avoid being disbanded. He didn't get his way with us, and he didn't get his way with them, so he caused a cave-in and built his own home out of the rubble.

                "The drug problem is growing in town," Kace said as we entered our room. "My parents said two people overdosed in drug stores last week. One in the bathroom, one in the parking lot."

                "And the police are working on it. Besides, it's not heroin that's a problem in the high school. It's mostly weed and prescription pills," I said, sitting on the couch. "There's nothing we can do about that. The most we can do is bring in a guest speaker to talk about the issue. It's not that I don't want to help, but our hands are tied. We're representatives, not enforcement."

                "It's not your fault, Gabriel," Nadia said. "Let the junior class do whatever they want. The principal will step in if they take it too far."

                "He's been pretty passive towards them," I said.

                "It's not our problem," Kace said. "Don't stress about it. We'll just keep our focus, and not worry about them."

                I checked the time and sighed. "We don't have time for our meeting this morning."

                "We'll do it at lunch," Leigh said. She offered me a bright smile. "Don't stress about it, Gabriel. At least you got that out of the way early."

                "I doubt it's out of the way, but we can at least write it off for now," I said.

                Still, I didn't like this. Were they going to push for more authority? Surely they'd never get it, right? The idea of students being able to punish other students was horrible. It left too many possibilities for abuse of power. We'd have to keep an eye on them to make sure they didn't try to get more power than they deserved.

                The bell rang and the four of us got up, grabbing our things and heading to class. I tried to wipe the meeting out of my mind, but something about it wasn't sitting right with me. Still, there were other things to focus on, so I pushed aside that bad feeling and carried on with my morning.