The man stands up from the table and walks to the front of the large desk where the superintendent is at. "I am Anthony Reed; I am the Adams lawyer. I will be representing them along, the other families and the board members; I speak for all their lawyers," The superintendent nods her head, telling him to proceed. He must be good if all of them have him speaking for them. I fiddle with my fingers in my lap and pluck the skin around my nail bed. "Jayda King!" he exclaims. "I can't tell you how happy I am to meet you; you've been the talk of the country for the past week,"

"Oh," Have I been? I've seen myself on the news more than I ever thought was possible, and my face was on some local newspapers. I didn't know that this whole thing was being discussed around the country.

"So, as you know, we are just here today to talk about the events that have taken place at your school over the past year; I want to start from the beginning. Can you tell us how you first heard about AJ Crawford?"

"Uhm," The beginning, "Jessica, she brought him to my attention. We were doing a senior project, Uhm, about mental health and suicide, it was done, but we felt like we needed more,"

"More? Elaborate more,"

"We needed a wow factor; we wanted an A. So she went looking, and she found it,"

"How did she find out about him? If the school hid everything, how did she know about AJ? How did she know where to look?"

"I..." That's a good question. "I don't know," Too bad she isn't here to ask; well, she is, but it's not really her. I don't think.

"Is it true that you recorded a conversation between Jacob Adams without his consent?"

"Yes.. but-"

"And that you and Jessica also planted and recorded a private conversation between Josiah Adams and William Mcclain in Mr.Adams' his home office?"

I ask myself how he knows this, but then I remember that all the information I gathered was made public. "Yes, but we had to. How else were we supposed to prove everything?" I find myself getting irritated by his persistent questions.

"You weren't proving anything; AJ's death wasn't a secret,"

"No, but it was hidden," I correct him. "They tried to hide it and pretend as if nothing happened,"

"No, they tried to keep it under control. Out of respect for Sarah Crawford, they wanted to make sure AJ's death wasn't thrown around like a sport in the media,"

I huff. "Well, if that's the case, why did they pay her off?" Did he forget about that?

"They wanted to help the mother out," he says robotically like he was told to say that.

"Right after their kids bullied him to death, not to mention they admitted to paying the mother money so she would stay silent,"

"And Sarah Crawford gladly accepted,"

"Only because-"

"Moving on," he says over top of me.

He continues asking me questions. All of my answers get shut down or twisted, making it seem like nothing with AJ really happened and that Josiah and the board members didn't do anything wrong. He's actually making it seem like they did what was best for the school, knowing they did only what was best for them.

"You mentioned AJ being bullied. Nowhere in the info you gave reporter Ivy Parker were there actual proof of him being bullied,"

"The photos of everything they said about him on Instagram," I know for sure I sent that in the email. "And Rosita Valentina confirmed that he was,"

"It's funny how now we can't find her," What? Where did she go? "Also, yes, the photos of the messages and tweets" he grabs the printed photos and then hands them to the lady, "As you can see, none of these messages were directed at AJ, no one personally texted him, no one tagged him in anything, we don't even know if we saw these,"

"How about you also show her the pictures of the bruises on his body?" I forcefully say he can't just show one and not the other.

"That is irrelevant evidence,"

My eyebrows scrunch together, and I look over to my mother; she slowly shakes her head while rubbing the top of her eyebrow. She knows that things are turning bad. I'm starting to think that there was no reason for me to do what I did; if all that is going to come from this is public humiliation, what was my purpose?

"Mr.Thomas, could you talk about school now?" The attendant asks him.

"Sure thing," he grabs a folder of the table and skims through it before closing it up. "Your first suicide attempt, why did you do it, why did you try to kill yourself, Ms.King?"

I look at my parents and then back at him; how does he know that. I didn't mention that. I have to answer, so I simply say, "I was going through things at home,"

"So you're saying that you didn't try to commit suicide because of bullying at school?"

"I didn't say that," Now he's putting words into my mouth.

"So you did? Yes or no?"

"No," I growl under my breath but loud enough for everyone to hear. "But I have been bullied at school,"

"How severely were you bullied at school?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, I used to get picked on school," he walks back and forth. "But it was never that serious to me,"

"Well, that was you," He can't compare how he handled bullying to me or anyone else. People cope and handle things in different ways.

"And you," he fires back, "You just stated you tried to kill yourself because of things at home, not school, so one could only guess things at school were not as serious as you have made them seem," a crooked smile plays on his mouth at my silence. "Correct me if I'm wrong; you are now involved with someone who "bullied you," He makes air quotes. "Ryder Adams, their youngest son," he informs the crowd.

"Uh, I..." How the hell does he know this? I glance over to Ryder and then quickly look back at the man before anyone notices. "I wouldn't say involved; we are friends,"

Honestly, I would say friends with benefits, well then again best friends, with benefits, who love each other more than anything. But we definitely aren't together together...yet.

"I took it upon myself to talk to some of the students at Crossland, with their parent's permission; of course, I wanted to make sure that the information you gathered and your own personal statement about what goes on at your school wasn't exaggerated," he says.

"Why would I exaggerate anything?"

"Maybe because Ryder bullied you, and this was a way for you to ruin his family,"

"He isn't like that now," I have forgiven Ryder for everything he has done to me; I could never do anything to purposefully hurt him or his family.

"So are you saying you hold no grudge in your heart about what he has said and done to you in the past," he grabs another folder, "Because I have thirty-five statements from students relaying all the things they have seen him do and say to you. I also found a lot of derogatory statements he made about you online,"

I gaze blankly at him; I know who Ryder used to be, I know what he used to say and do, but I know he isn't like that anymore; well, he sorta is. However, he's different now; still, I find myself becoming angry thinking about the things he has said about me that I don't even know about.

"Do you want to hear?" he asks.

"No," Ryder and I are in a good place now; there's no need to go digging up the past, or for me to get mad at him for saying whatever it is he said about me. That was months ago. "Well, now you know that my statement wasn't exaggerated because he's my friend and I like his family, everything I mentioned in my statement was the truth,"

"Mhm," He questions more about my interactions at school. Still, every time I say something, he just makes it seem as if my bullying wasn't severe enough to raise alarm to the school staff, hence why they never did anything? "Was Jessica bullied?"

"No," She wasn't bullied at all, I don't think. Except for that one time with the note, but besides that, I have never seen her get bullied or picked on. "Wait, yeah, I have; Ashely once messed with her," That was the only time I saw Ashely pick on her. "And Matt used to say things to her," she never really seemed fazed by his remarks.

"Do you think her bullying was severe? Do you think it was a factor in her suicide," Again, I stay silent, so he takes my answer as a no. "Well, now, I'll ask you the question. I would ask her if she was sitting here today? Why did she kill herself?"

All eyes are on me as the crowd, and he waits for an answer; I know the answer, but if I say it, it will be taken out of proportion he will go left field with it, "Could you answer the question please, Jayda?" The superintendent asks.

"She was going through personal things," I respond. Without telling them why exactly she did what she did.

"Personal things like having Ashely Forbes reject her request of being together, in a relationship," His eyes stay on me as he says the words; the room bursts into commotion at the revelation.

"Ms. Forbes wrote a written statement of everything that went down the day Jessica decided to kill herself," he says overtop of the booming commotion. Holding up a sheet of paper, he does a 360 turn showing the crowd the statement, and then he begins reading. "I met Jessica in the driveway of her house; she was on her way to the school to present her project to our principal; I told her I couldn't be with her and that it would be best if we kept our distance, she was mad and angry and crying, she threatened to kill herself if I walked away from her, I did. I never thought she would actually do it. Even back when we were friends and ran in the same crowd, every time we fought or broke up, she would cut herself or say she was going to kill herself, she never did, I didn't think this time would be different, I never would have walked away from her if I knew, I loved her I will always regret not being able to tell her that,"

That explains everything. That's why she was crying and on edge when she arrived at the school that day. She could have just killed herself once Ashely left, but she didn't; our project was like the last thing here for her, and once that was taken away, she had nothing left.

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