Just finish up the questions, and then you can leave. "When did you become co-captain?"

"2010,"

I write that down. Okay, now hint around AJ. "If you were co-captain, that means that it was a captain; what was his name?"

His jaw clenches, and he sits up a little straighter; he puts the jay in his mouth and inhales another breath. He holds it for about five seconds and then releases it into the air in my direction; the familiar smell goes up my nose, causing me to desire it in my body. Though I am not actually smoking, I wouldn't be surprised if I get high just from being in the room with it. Clouds are already forming around us.

"AJ," he answers.

I nod; okay, he openly admitted that. "Were you two close?"

"Best friends," he says and gives me a quick sarcastic smile.

If he wants to joke around, I guess I will too. "Best friends? Really? Well, I guess you took his death really hard. Imagine your best friend committing suicide," He narrows his eyes and takes a deep breath; I'm not supposed to know it was suicide. It was supposed to think what everyone else does, that it was just a regular death or that it never happened.

"Imagine your best friend committing suicide and then the friend keeping it a secret. Everyone keeping it hidden, trying to make something tragic that happened disappear,"

He sucks in a breath and says, "Well, it's a good thing that's not the case," His phone rings on the table; he looks at the number and then says, "If you would excuse me for a second," He takes the phone and walks into the bathroom closing the door behind him.

It's working; I should have answers in no time. When I look down, I spot a balled-up piece of paper on the floor next to my shoe. I bend over, picking it up, and slowly opening it, careful not to make too much noise. There's a name and a number.

Rosita Valentina

570-866-0218

The bathroom door opens up; I don't have time to ball the paper back up and stick it in my pocket, so instead, I put it between my legs.

"Because I have something to do later, I think it would be best if we speed this up," he comes out and says. "So how about you stop hitting around shit and ask what you really want to know,"

I lean forward and place my hands on the table, "Why did he kill himself?"

"Why are you so sure he did?" he counters.

"I have a blog post that says he did," This time, his body freezes; he wasn't expecting me to say that, "I guess whoever paid off everyone to stay silent forgot about one," I smile and lean my head to the side.

He says, "You think you know everything, you think you have it all figured out, but you don't, you don't know anything," he spits.

"You know what I think,"

"Enlighten me,"

I take a deep breath, "I think you had something to do with AJ killing himself; maybe you bullied him because he was captain and you were co-captain," that's a stupid fucking thing to do, but it happens.

Jealousy is humankind's deadliest disease.

"Or maybe you just bullied him for no reason," Which also happens a lot. "I think you bullied him so bad that he ended up killing himself. He was the town's star lacrosse player; his death would have been bad publicity for the school, not only for the school but for one of the most prominent families in the town," The Adams Family.

I pause and then say in a euphoric tone, "Son of a successful realtor and world-renowned dancer and musician, who is now a teacher at the country's biggest performing arts school, has been charged in death of AJ Crawford,"

His fistball tightly, "You can't get charged for bullying,"

"You're right; bullying in itself is not a crime." Though it should be, especially if it leads to someone's death, in my opinion, that should be grounds to charge the defendant with murder.

"But bullying makes up the predicate acts for stalking or aggravated stalking. In some cause, you can even be charged with manslaughter, even though you didn't lay a finger on the person,"

"Looks like someone has been learning from their mother," He knows my mother? "It's funny because she said the exact same thing ten years ago,"

"What?" My phone rings; I flip it over to see Ryder calling; I send the call to voicemail and then look back at Jacob. What is he talking about? What does my mother have to do with this? The phone rings again, and I again send it to voicemail.

He smiles and then runs his hand through his hair. He takes an aggravated sigh, "It's such a good thing that was ten years ago; no one is even thinking about him anymore,"

"I am; it doesn't matter if it was ten years ago if I spoke up and said something about this, surely someone will look into it,"

He laughs and shakes his head, "As I said before, you don't know anything; whatever you think is going on is not what's actually going on; it's deeper than what you think," he stands up from the table.

My phone rings for the third time, and for a third time, I send it to voicemail. While he is turned around, I stick the paper in my jacket pocket and then stand up also, "Just tell me the truth, I won't say anything to anyone, just tell me what happened, and what my mother has to do with this,"

He turns around, "Not going to happen,"

"Well, I guess I will send the little information I have to a reporter," Ivy Parker maybe, she's the only reporter I know, maybe she will believe me.

"You won't,"

"I will," I swear I will do it. I don't have that much information; most of the evidence I have is circumstantial. But it could be something I'll have to ask my mother, along with asking her other things.

He walks over closer to me. I take two steps back, "Maybe you should stop thinking about me and thinking about Ryder,"

"What does he have to do with this?"

"You won't just be ruining me, you'll be ruining my family; he's apart of that; if your theory is right, and I'm not saying it is, we will be left with nothing, and so will he,"

He makes a good point.

"I know you care about him, so ask yourself, is digging up something that happened almost a decade ago worth him losing everything?" He pauses and then says, "He's already been through enough," with a smirk.

Before I can open my mouth to speak, there's a banging at the door; though it's closed, I already know who it is.

He moves away from me and goes to open the door; the light shines through the darkroom, brightening up the messy place.

Ryder is at the door; I knew it was him; in a weird way, we are connected like that; I can sense his presence anywhere. I swear I can see fumes leaving his ears.

"Didn't expect to see you today," Jacob says; Ryder walks around him and over to me.

"Come on," he says low and grabs my hand.

"Wait," I try to pull back, but he just continues pulling me forward. I really want to go, but I still have questions, so many questions, more than I had than when I came in.

"If she wants to say let her stay," Jacob tries to reach for me; Ryder lets my hand go and then punches him in his face.

"Ryder!"

"Stay away from her," he growls.

Jacob covers his face with his hand. Ryder grabs my hand again and pulls me out of the room while slamming the door behind us. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"I..."

"You what? I told you to stay away from him!" he shouts, staring me down. "Why don't you ever listen?"

"I wouldn't be here if it wasn't important,"

"And what was so fucking important that you had to come here, to his fucking hotel room?!"

I look down, "I can't tell you,"

"You can't or you won't?" he asks. I stay silent; he doesn't press any further; he just sighs and says, "Get in the car,"

...

His car always smells like mint. The smell in here reminds me of the faint hint of mint I tasted as his tongue entered my mouth. My body shivered just at the taste. The kiss was smooth and soft, delicate mostly. I've thought about our kiss every day since it happened; I can't get it out of my head.

The car slows down as he pulls to the side of the road. "If this friend thing is going to work, you have to be honest with me," he tells me.

I stop looking out the window and then look at him, "Who said I wanted to be friends with you again?" It didn't go so well last time we tried that. "Just because you apologized doesn't mean we can try the friend thing again,"

His jaw clenches, and his grip around the steering wheel tightens. I burst into laughter; he looks over to me, "I'm just kidding Ryder, we can be friends again, but you only get one more chance!"

"Okay,"

"Okay," I look back out the window and say, "I'll be honest with you when you are honest with me?" before turning back to face him.

"What do you mean?" he asks, confused. "I'm not hiding anything from you," Hearing him say that makes my heart flutter.

"You're brother,"

"You never asked,"

"I'm talking about you not telling me about him; I'm referring to what happened between you two? What did he do to you?" Jacob said he showed him what to do to get to the top. What did he show him? What advice do you give someone to teach them how to ruin people's lives?

His eyes darken, and his body becomes still. Within his eyes, I can see him fighting with himself, wanting to tell me about the weight he carries around on his shoulders. He's asking himself if he can show this vulnerable side of him to me.

His hand is on his knee. I place my hand on top of his and say, "You can tell me," I say softly.

Something in his eyes flicks, and he pulls his hand away. "There's nothing to tell," he says coldly. He starts the car back up and pulls off.

Once arriving at my house, he stops the car right in front. My mom and dad's cars aren't here; I guess they are still at work, typical. "Thanks for the ride," I tell Ryder.

"Mhm," He keeps looking straight ahead.

I wait for him to say something more, but he doesn't. He just keeps looking ahead, "Well, okay then, I'll see you Monday," He unlocks the car door, and I get out. Soon as the door shuts, he speeds off down the street.

It's killing me not knowing why he and his brother hate each other. Ryder is always so tense and angry; with his brother around, he still is angry, but he slightly seems afraid. It's like Jacob is holding something over his head, something that would most likely help me understand why he is the way he is.

Ryder POV

My fist continuously pounds on the door. Jacob finally opens the door. I push him back into the room, "Why the fuck was she here?" I ask. Since she wouldn't tell me, I'll have to get answers from him. He stands back, looking me up and down, "Did you fucking hear me?" The side of his face looks slightly swollen.

"I heard you; answer this for me first; are you still an 'elite'?"

"What?"

"You heard what I fucking said?!"

"That's none of your business," What the hell did Jayda tell him?

He laughs, "You're not, are you?" he spits. "I did all that fucking work making you-"

"You!" I shout. "You made me you,"

"And what so wrong with that?" he laughs and steps forward. "It got your ass through high school, was having all the power really all that bad?" His sharp eyes search mine, "You hate me because I made you tuff,"

By making me 'tuff,' he means beating the shit out of me when I was little, whenever I refused to do the shit he wanted me to do.

"I can live with you hating me, but I can't live with you throwing all that I taught you away for some bitch,"

I step forward, "Don't call her that!"

A smile creeps at the side of his mouth, "You're in love with her, aren't you?"

"No,"

"Yes, the fuck you are, you don't think I saw you eyeing her the whole time at the Christmas party, you looked like a lost fucking puppy, and then the way you charged in her, like her night in shining armor," he laughs and takes in a breath.,

"How many times did I tell you, love makes you weak?" he slaps the side of my head.

I turn away and ball my fist. Flashbacks of him doing this to me when I was younger invade my mind; my body freezes just as it did when I was a kid; he was much bigger than me then, I rarely ever fought back, the times I did, of course, he won, he was ten times my size. Plus, if I fought back, I would get my ass beat more.

He taught me how to fight by beating me up continuously, every day of my life. It was a sport to him. My parents were never around to stop him; no one was. Sometimes when he would fight me, I wouldn't fight back. I didn't feel like fighting him anymore, so I just laid there and let him beat the crap out of me.

"It's pathetic," he says and then pushes me back into the wall. "You're giving up everything for her,"

"I'm not," and that's the truth; I am not doing this for her.

"Then what?" he throws his hands in the air, "No matter what you do, it won't take away what you have done,"

"What you made me do!" I step forward.

He pushes me back, "I didn't make you do shit; once I left, you could have been who you really wanted to be, but you didn't, you followed in my footsteps; you did everything I did, everything I taught you to do,"

He's right, I did. Instead of becoming my own person, I become the person I despise the most... him. That's why when I look into the mirror, I hate the person I see.

"I did it better, of course, but at least you tried," he shrugs. "You swore you would never become me, and yet you did,"

"And now you wish you could become me, you wish you could change, you wish someone out here would a damn about you, oh wait, you did have someone who cared, Rosita, but you fucked that all the way--"

His fist collides with my jaw; I stumble back; before I have a chance to hit him back, he tackles me to the ground pinning me there. "Don't you talk about her!" he yells; while pulling my shirt. I smell the alcohol coming off of his breath. "You don't know shit,"

"I know she left you because you were a dick to her; she fucking loved you, and you treated her like shit, repeatedly!"

His eyes ignite with anger while his lips press into a straight line at the truth. I was young, but I remember all the shit he did to her; I was there when he treated her like property when he hurt her over and over again. He and Rosita were together, but yet at every party he threw, he was with a different girl.

Whenever she found out, they would get into a huge argument; he would say he was sorry she would forgive him, and then the whole thing repeated itself a week later. Other times they just argued. Alot. Sometimes they would fix whatever problem they had with sex. Or they avoided the truth about their relationship with sex.

At the end of the day, they were in a toxic ass relationship, and that's that. No amount of sex changed that.

I say, "You fucked her over one too many times, and she left you,"

Before I know it, his fist connects with my jaw, again and again, and again. I don't fight back; my body freezes as I embrace the pain. Like I did as a child, I just lay here, giving up. If I'm being honest, sometimes I didn't fight back because I felt like I deserved it; I was young, maybe I didn't deserve it. But I sure as hell do now.

~~~

(Poor baby... buy guys as someone who has been in an emotionally/toxic relationship (it was never really a relationship what to was doesn't even have a name lol), I hate when books romanticize it like people think it's so cute for boys to be overly aggressive and controlling and it' not... it's traumatizing, and then people wanna chalk it up to "Love conquers all" and "she must really love him if she sticking around" like no!!!!!! it's a phycological thing, I promise you it isn't love.

Anyway, that's my take on them, what about you? Did you guys like this chapter? It was hard for me to write this, not writing-wise but emotional wise.

Also finding a good (I hate calling it good cause it's awful) but finding a 'good' traumatizing plot for Ryder was so difficult, you guys know how I like to take the cliche plots and rip them to shreds lol and do the complete opposite. But yeah every plot for the 'broken boy' I feel like has been used and I didn't want to use the most known ones, because they are so overused, so I really had to get my creative juices flowing for this one.)