Evelyn opens the door to Ryder's room, well not his room, his house...pool house. I have asked him several times why he doesn't live in the main house with his parents. He refuses to tell me why.

When we walk into the room Ryder, and Ashley's conversation ceases. I would say it's because of Evelyn's presence, but for some reason, I believe it's because of mine.

Ryder is sitting on the bed with his back against the headboard, Ashely is sitting on the side end of the bed.

"Ashley, dear, it's time for you to go," Evelyn says to her.

She stands from the bed. "I was just leaving," she grabs her phone off the table and then walks past Eveyln and then me; of course, she glances at me and stares into my soul before leaving.

I know she hates that I am here every day with her boyfriend. She probably hates me even more than she has before. Yet she hasn't done anything. Surprising things a school for me have been... I don't even know a word for it. All I can say is things are not what they used to be.

School used to be the biggest stressor in my life, and now it's not. At least not as much as it was before. The two biggest things in my life right now is my home life and my relationship with Caleb. Both of which are stressing me.

"Okay, well, I will leave you kids to it," Evelyn smiles and looks at me and then Ryder. He isn't looking back; his head is buried in his phone. She looks back at me and mouths. Good Luck. She then turns on her heels and walks out of the room.

When the door shuts, I walk over towards his bed. "Hello," I greet him; he doesn't greet me back; he just continues to do whatever it is he is doing on his phone. I sigh and then go over to his desk and place my bookbag on top. I got his work from his teachers; they explained to me what he has to do. Now that I am no longer in Brook's class, we only have one class together, PE.

I grab the folder that I put his work in and then zippin up my bag—not going to lie; it's been hard. Not only do I have to keep up with his work, but I also have to keep up with mine.

"Did you finish the work from Friday?" I ask him. He doesn't respond. Ugh, it's one of those days.

On a good day, I'm usually able to get at least two words out of him. On a really good day, I can get a whole argument from him. That may seem bad, but it's actually a good thing. The fact that he's willing to argue means that he's getting back to his old self.

Today isn't either of those days. Today is how he is most of the time, at least towards me. He doesn't talk to me much anymore; we talked more before everything happened than we do now.

I understand why he doesn't want to speak to me; he got shot, he got shot because of me. He can barely walk because of me. His football career is hanging on a thread because of me. I know he's furious.

Surprisingly, though he has yet to say anything about that night, I haven't brought it up either. I'm scared too.

I look down at the papers in my hand, "Okay, well, we can just start on the work from today. Your teachers didn't give you much they--" I stop talking when the TV comes on; the sound fills the room.

He reaches over and grabs the remote; then he starts flipping through the channel. I close the folder and then walk over to the bed; I snatch the remote out of his hand and then turn the TV off,

"What the fuck are you doing?" he growls.

"You have to get this work done,"

He huffs, "I'm not in the mood,"

"Neither am I, but it has to get done," I toss the folder of work on his lap and then take a seat back at the desk.

...

"Are you okay?" He's been sitting in silence for thirty minutes; I don't know if he needs help or not. If he did need help, I'm positive he wouldn't ask for it.

"I'm fine," he replies.

"Okay," I turn back around in his chair and face the desk, "So Uhm, you mom said that you had a ruff time, in therapy today," my eyes close tightly awaiting his response; it was a risk to bring that up, but the empty silence is killing me.

"Did she?" he questions sarcastically.

I turn around in the chair and face him, "She did,"

He looks up at me, "Hm," is all he says before putting his head back down,

"So did you?" I urge.

"Do you see that wheelchair over there?" he spits.

I look over to my left at the black wheelchair that sits in the corner; he uses that to get around; he has crutches also, but he still doesn't have much strength in his upper body; it's easier if he uses the wheelchair.

He says, "That wheelchair is still here, so yes, yes, I had a difficult time," he then looks back at the paper in his hand.

My phone rings, stopping me from saying something smart back; it's Caleb. Shit. "I'll be right back," I tell the boy who probably doesn't even care; before walking out of the house.

"Hello," The brisk air hits my skin; I should've grabbed my jacket; it's so freaking cold. I have a hoodie on, but it's not enough.

"Where are you?" Caleb asks.

I hesitate before telling him that I am at Ryder's house.

"Why?" he asks, angry.

"We went over this already," He and I have had this conversation several times as to why I have to tutor Ryder. I didn't tell him that I'm tutoring him and coming over here almost every day because I feel guilty, and weirdly, me helping him any way I can make me feel less guilty. Instead, I told him that I was solely doing it for community service.

"I'm sorry, but I don't understand why you have to tutor him; I'm sure there's plenty of other people to do that and plenty of other things you can do,"

"I don't want to do anything else, and I don't want to tutor anyone else," I raise my voice slightly. He doesn't say anything; the phone just goes silent. "Caleb, nothing is going on between Ryder and me," I say, trying to comfort him. Ever since the shooting, he has this twisted idea that somethings going on between him and me. Yes, it's partially my fault. I lied to him.

I looked for Katie when he was against it, and after I told him I wouldn't, I was around Ryder when he told me not to be. I understand why he has a hard time trusting me. Telling him about everything that happened that night was the most painful thing ever. 

"How long are you going to be there?" he asks.

"I don't know, maybe another hour or so,"

"Okay,"

"I love you," I assure him.

"I love you too,"

I hang up the phone and then walk back into the pool house; the TV is back on, the sound is radiating through the room. Ryder has a game controller in his hand. I walk over to his side of the bed, "What are you doing?"

"What does it look like I'm doing?" he replies, not taking his eyes off the TV.

I ignore his smart remark, "We have to finish this work," He continues flicking the controls. "Ryder,"

His head snaps towards me, "What?!" he growls.

I sigh; I honestly don't feel like fighting with him right now. "Nothing, just try to get it done; I'll come past tomorrow... or Friday to pick it up," I turn around to the desk and gather my things quickly. I need to get out of here before I start to cry. He can't see me cry.

...

"He hates me! Even more, than he hated me before," I tell Jessica, who's at the desk typing.

"I'm sure he doesn't hate you,"

I shake my head, "No, he does." I continue flipping through the newspaper article. We are gathering information about suicide rates spiking.

"So uh, Ashely, was there?" she asks.

"Yup,"

She presses her lips together, "So are they still like together?"

"Uh, I don't know. She's there sometimes, not all the time,"

"Does he talk about her?"

I laugh, "He barely talks to me, And on a good day, if we are talking, it's not about Ashely,"

She smiles and then continues scrolling on the computer. She so easily asks me about Ryder and Ashley, but I yet I can never bring myself to ask her what went down with Ashely and why she is no longer a part of the 'elite.'

Jessica comes out and asks, "What year was it that had the highest suicide rates?'

"2018!" I reply.

"How many?"

"Hold on," I flip through the papers on her bed. I wrote it down the other day. Found it. "48,344,"

She types the statistics into the laptop, "Did you find a story to cover?"

"No, not yet." My eyes scan over the paper I got from the library; I was hoping to find one of the suicide stories in here. Online it said that reporters had covered some of the stories and that some were printed in the newspaper. So far, I haven't had any luck.

The room door comes open, and incomes Jessica's little sister, Makayla.

"Jessy, Jessy." She squeals, calling her sister the nickname she'd given her.

Jessica spins around in her chair and says, "Get out!"

The curly head girl pouts, "But I want to play!"

"No."

Makayla sticks her tongue out. Jessica rolls her eyes and turns back around to the desk; Makayla looks at me. "Can you play with me, JJ?"

The first day I meet her and introduced myself to her; she bluntly said that she didn't like my name, but she liked that it started with a J. So she started calling me JJ; she says the name is cuter.

Jessica says she got the name from the blonde girl on criminal minds, and for that, I don't mind her calling me JJ, the JJ on the show was a badass. So I take it as a compliment.

Before I can respond, Jessica says, "No, she can't play; we are working," she stands up from the chair and grabs her sister's arm, pulling her out of the room.

She doesn't like her sister much. Well, let me not say like her. Im sure she does. It is her sister; she loves her. She's her little sister, though, so I would expect Jessica to be annoyed with her all the time. That's how those relationships work.

Jessica slams the door shut and then walks back over to the desk, "Sorry about that,"

"It's fine,"

As soon as she sits, the door comes open again. I thought it would be Makayla, but it's not. It's her mother. Her black hair is pinned into a bun; she has on diamond earrings and a long black sparkly dress. "Jessica, doors open," she says.

"Mother!" Jessica growls.

"That is the rule!"

Jessica grits her teeth.

"Are you two almost finished? We have that gala to go to," she informs her.

Jessica says, "Yes, we are almost done."

"Okay," her mother turns to me and gives me a stiff smile before exiting the room, leaving the door wide open.

...

"Where have you been?" my father asks as soon as I walk through the doors,

I give him a one-word answer, "Out,"

"Out with who?"

I shrug my shoulders and walk up the stairs to my room.

"You can just walk away from me," my father says, entering my room. "Now again; where have you been?"

I take a deep breath, "I was at the Adams house, and then I went to Jessica's house to work on our project,"

"Did you get anything done?"

"Do you really care?"

"Of course I-" before he can finish his lie, his cellphone rings. He stares at it, contemplating if he should answer.

"Answer, you know you have to," It's most likely a work call, an important call he can't miss.

His lips press into a straight line; he swipes his finger and then answers the call while walking out of my room.

...

It's twelve now. I ate dinner, watched two episodes of Euphoria, a show I probably shouldn't watch but can't stop watching because it's so addictive, and then I completed my homework.

I'm getting sleepy now, but I plan on writing in my journal before I go to sleep. I grab the little black book off of my nightstand and then begin to write.

So today was okay. It's been a month, but yet everyone is still on edge. Travis is still MIA; they have yet to find him. I highly doubt they will find him. They did find the gun he shot Ryder with at the end of town, close to where Katie was.

Last I heard, Katie was shipped off to some catholic school to finish high school. I wonder if she still plans on going to Yale for Law. I highly doubt she will; I really don't care. I'm happy she is gone; I'm glad I will never have to see her ever again.

I went to Ryder's today; he was in one of his moods, the one that's worse than all of them. He really has changed. He's always been sarcastic and blunt, but now it's different. He's just so angry, even more, angry than before. It's like he just doesn't care about anything.

He couldn't even stay at the physical therapy facility because of his temper. It was Josiah's idea to put him in there. A week later, the doctors suggested that he go home; they said it would be better if he did therapy at home, and he would progress more being home. To me, they really were saying that he was difficult and they didn't want to deal with him.

So, Evelyn and Josiah brought him home and hired a physical therapy nurse for him; she comes every other day. It's been helping him, I guess.

He couldn't walk at first, but now he can; it's just difficult. He uses the wheelchair mostly, but he does use the crutches sometimes.

I didn't visit him until he came home; I wasn't allowed to visit him at the facility. That was my first time seeing him after that whole hand-holding incident at the hospital.

He wouldn't even talk to me when I first came over; he didn't talk to anyone. He talks to me now, though, only when he has something rude to say or when he's yelling at me about touching his stuff. I can't help it; I just get so bored sitting there in silence. I get fidgety and go through his things.

School was okay. I'm no longer the invisible but yet seen person. I think im one of the Invisibles now. No one really says anything to me or about me anymore, which is super weird.

The boys say stuff about my body here and there; of course, I feel some type of way about it, I always do, but they don't just do it to me; they do it to all the girls. Is it wrong that I feel sorta happy that they do it to other girls and not only me?

Ashely didn't say anything to me today either. She hasn't said anything to me since I returned to school a week after the shooting. Again no one really has. Not even Matt.

I should be happy about this, right? A normal person would be happy that their bully/tortured high school days are over with. I'm far from normal, so of course, I'm not happy. I'm on edge.

I feel as though a bomb will drop and blow my life up again any day now. It's all just a matter of when.

(Caleb Odare- Trevor Jackson *aka Chris from Let it Shine... one of the many underrated Disney movies!

Ashely Forbes- Nicole Peltz *aka Tessa Yeager from Transformers 4:Age of Extinction)