After Lao and Felipe had left to open their "secret boxes" that apparently only the two of them could open together, the rest of the group was just awkwardly lingering around the opened time capsule. Elena guessed that no one really had anything else to talk about. Everyone saw what they came to see and that was that. Yet at the same time, no one wanted to say goodbye. Perhaps they were all reflecting upon the past in their own heads.

Elena tossed the rock that she'd put in the time capsule back and forth between her palms. She couldn't believe that she came all this way to just find out that the only thing she put in there was a rock. Much less one that Markus had given her when they were younger. She'd felt so embarrassed when he flashed that satisfied smirk of his when he saw her take it out of the capsule. Her crush on him was an old story, it made her do things that she regretted.

"Well, aside from Lao and Felipe's little skirmish, I guess everything else in here was anticlimactic huh?" Ryan's voice cut through the silence, surprising Elena once again. He used to be a shy and reserved kid, in a way he still was, but he wasn't afraid to speak up anymore.

"They've always had a thing for each other," Markus shrugged, blowing a piece of his dark bangs out of his eye, "I wouldn't be surprised if they're all over each other behind that tree."

"Markus! Have more belief in your friends, I'm sure they're doing nothing of the sort," Adam defended. Elena winced at his voice. They'd tormented Adam so much as a child, and looking back on it she'd realized that it was a form of bullying. She was both surprised and relieved to find him at the reunion, happier than ever. She couldn't ever imagine being teased by all the kids in the school every day, being called fat, accused of having an insane mother and a non-existent father. She gritted her teeth every time she thought of it. Especially Markus. He was the worse to Adam, always shoving him out of the way and calling him a loser. But worse was Elena, who had looked up to and listened to Markus. He was her idol back then, her crush. So naturally, she joined in on the teasing too. And Elena could never forget the broken look on Adam's face when she and Markus snagged the flowers he had picked for his sickly mother out of his hands and trampled all over them.

In truth, Elena had come to the reunion hoping to see Adam. She wanted to know that he was OK and that the things she, Markus, and the rest of the class had done didn't break him. She also wanted to apologize to him. But everytime he smiled at the others, her stomach lurched and she didn't have the will to ruin his perfectly good class reunion. She was weak.

"I dunno, it's taking them a bit long," Markus flipped the one dollar coin that he had retrieved from the time box, "What else could they be doing?"

"He has a point," Lizzie spoke up. Elena noticed that the girl was subconsciously opening and closing the hair clip in her hand with her fingers. Was she worried? "How about we go check it out and make sure they're not doing anything...well, anything that would make parents frown upon this reunion." Elena couldn't help but snicker at this statement. She couldn't believe that Lizzie, that bland gossip girl back in elementary school, could grow up to be a class president, much less a person that cared what adults thought of her. Thankfully for the dark haired girl, Lizzie took the snicker as a dirty thought and dismissed it.

"I'll check," Markus volunteered, stepping on his skateboard and rushing over towards Lao and Felipe. Elena figured that he thought he was so cool with those tattoos and skating "skills." She wondered if Lizzie thought Markus to be ridiculous as well.

"Let's follow him," she suggested to the others and they all ran to catch up with Markus.

"We're not lovebirds," Elena heard Felipe and Lao sigh of exasperation and she could've sworn that Lizzie let out her own sigh of relief.

"We were just sharing what was in our boxes," Lao explained, a bit flustered. The girl's nervous actions made Elena wonder if anything really happened behind that tree. Perhaps Lao had changed, her demeanor was much different from the rambunctious girl that Elena remembered in her childhood. Yet some things never really changed at all; Lao was still head over heels for Felipe, who was too dense to realize it. Literally anyone could tell.

"Why can't you share it with everyone?" Adam asked, curiously. He stared at the diary in Felipe's hand, clearly interested.

"Come on, man, it's private stuff," Felipe stuffed the book into his pocket, "I can't just go flaunting it to the world."

Adam furrowed his eyebrows, "Yet Lao gets to see it?"

"He said it's private stuff, idiot," Markus punched Adam in the shoulder.

"Hey, that hurt-"

"So don't go pressing any further in personal matters, okay?" Markus stared down at Adam, and it was pretty intimidating. Imagine a guy, a foot taller than you with wicked tattoos running down his arms, staring down at you with a skateboard under an arm. Yeah, pretty intimidating if Elena had anything to say about it.

"Hey, guys, now let's not squabble," Lizzie murmured, but Markus and Adam ignored her, Felipe seemed bored out of his mind, and Lao was still in a daze. Ryan was the only one that paid any attention to her, but he didn't speak up. The scene was too familiar. An act of aggression. Careless attitudes towards it. No one acting. Everyone thinking for themselves.

It was then that Elena broke. She started laughing hysterically, bringing everyone's attention to her. She brought her hands to her forehead, cackling, and wiped the tears from her eyes. At this point, she couldn't tell she was crying: frustration, anger, absurdity? A mix of all three? "You guys haven't changed one bit," she shrieked, letting herself lay on the grass. What a joke. She'd tried to convince herself that things had changed, that they had all grown. But it was the opposite really. The capsule froze them in time. Time only had started to continue today.

"What do you mean?" Lizzie questioned, her voice tinkling with an undertone of emotions that Elena didn't recognize in her former peer. "All of us here have changed." Her voice was icy, as if denying some sort of accusation that she didn't want to approach. Elena stood herself up and glared into Lizzie's eyes.

"None of you have changed one bit," she repeated, stronger this time, "Nothing has changed one bit." She gestured over to Markus, "Mr. Tattoos over here is still the same edgelord as ever. I bet he's still getting plenty of detention slips over at his new high school. Yet despite his obvious power and skills for skating, he still decides to pick on someone kinder and innocent just to feel better for whatever tragic backstory he holds." Everyone turned to Markus, who showed physical signs of discomfort. He stopped touching Adam, who muttered that it was okay and it had been a joke, no big deal.

Elena looked at Adam, then passed him to Lao and Felipe. She didn't want to hurt him anymore than she'd already had, "Then there's Lao and Felipe. Always in their own world, not paying attention to those around them. They tease each other and everyone and don't have a care in the world. I doubt they even know what they want to do in life, which is why they're both back here moping and meeting each other again because no one else would ever find them interesting." Elena wasn't sure where these words were coming from, but they spilled out, each more filled with poison than the last. "But wait! They're wrong because there are others that like them. Others that they've overlooked or simply have forgotten about. Unrequited love, such a pity." She broke down into another fit of laughter while Lizzie and Adam averted their gazes to anywhere but Lao and Felipe. Lao was shaking and Felipe took her hand in his, an attempt to comfort her, Elena guessed.

"What are you trying to accomplish, Elena?" Lizzie asked, staring at her, "You don't have to attack people like this!"

"Attack people? If anything, I'm helping you," Elena spat, "We're all here for a reason, aren't we? There's something that keeps us tied to this place, tied to the past. Maybe regrets, lost love or crushes, redemption. Not everyone who helped make the time capsule came here, can't you see that? Eddie, Natashia, Mary...they all have better things to do!"

"So you came here to scream about how we all have miserable lives?" Lizzie retorted, her chest heaving up and down in anger. Her eyebrows scrunched up and her ears flickered with emotion, "Unlike you, I've become the president of my class! I've made a difference and I devoted my time to organize a reunion like this so that everyone could have a day off and enjoy their time! I have plenty of accomplishments, I have need for regrets or redemption!"

"But you do," Elena smirked, "Do I have to spell it out for you? Stop this facade of heroic class president! We all know you organized this reunion so that you could see Felipe. We all know you missed your opportunity to confess your love to him before he left. That look on your face the day you found out he left without telling you was priceless."

Felipe gaped at Lizzie, who opened her mouth to find that she couldn't find any words to say. The poor girl glanced at her crush, saw the shocked expression on his face, and crumpled to the ground, wrapping her arms around herself, sobbing.

"What the hell, Elena," Markus pushed past Adam and stood in front of her grabbing her shoulders and shaking her violently, "What the hell are you trying to accomplish?"

Elena pursed her lips, "Why did you come back, Markus? Were you forced into submission at your school that you had to find people you could force to serve at your feet?"

He scowled at her, and let her go, "That's not true-"

"I'll take my leave now," Elena stepped back from the group, observing the chaos that she had created. Lizzie was sobbing on the ground, but Ryan had squatted close to her, muttering words of comfort. Felipe stared blankly at Lizzie while holding Lao's hand. Markus still held eye contact with Elena, but she noticed that Adam seemed to want to talk with him. She turned around and sprinted all the way back to the house, shoving her way through the back doors and slamming the bathroom door behind her. She turned on the faucet sink and started sobbing, hating the pitiful view that stared back at her in the mirror.

It wasn't fair. No matter how much she tried, she couldn't shake this burning hatred growing in the pit of her stomach. She had hurt everyone, told them things they never wanted to hear. She'd failed at apologizing to Adam for hurting him, she'd failed at making amends with everyone else. But she really sobbed at the fact that everyone else had someone to talk to them, someone else that they could share their experiences, their memories, their pain, and their faults with.

Elena wished that someone would rub the unspeakable truth right back in her face.