You're Different - Scott Reed

The Big Day, The End

43

"Hey, you sure you okay?" Scott asked Izabela as she got into the passenger seat of his car.

"Yeah, I'm okay." she smiled at him grabbing his free hand as he drove down to her apartment.

"You know I know you fell in love with him." Scott stated plainly.

"w-what?" she questioned looking over at her boyfriend in the driver's seat.

"Izabela, being best friends with someone is one thing but the way you talk about him, the way you look when anyone else talks about him is love and more than friendship love, Bells" he spoke not taking his eyes off the road.

"Scotty..."

"I'm not mad, we broke up. It was bound to happen. I think what bothers me is that it took for him to die for us to get back together."

"Scotty, truthfully you never know, if he was alive we would have tried but you never know..." she spoke with her eyes scanning his face. "Did you um... do you want to not be with me?"

"Bells, of course, I want to be with you. It just might take a little work to get past the fact that you fell in love with Montgomery de la Cruz" he chuckled. "But I love you, I'm in love with you and what's love without a little bit of work."

"Scott Reed, I love you. You know that right?"

"Yeah I know babe." he smiled finally looking over at the girl.

"Good, don't ever forget that." she smiled kissing the boy.

"This is it, babe, graduation is around the corner." he smiled looking at his girlfriend.

"Yeah I know, we'll get through it" she returned the smile quickly.

* time skip, 1 month later * 

"Fellow seniors, it was shocking to be asked to speak after Jessica and Clay but the administration wanted me to address my last 2 years here at Liberty as a late entering student with 2 brothers, 2 best friends, and a boyfriend who were once jocks here." she giggled.

"It wasn't always the easiest 2 years of my life. Some of you may know my brothers and I moved to Evergreen after my mom died. I thought it was the worst moment in my life, Liberty has proven to me that you can have multiple worse moments in life." she smiled lightly looking out at the crowd.

"Over this last year, I lost my best friend, not that everyone was a fan of him but some of us." She looked over at the football team. "Felt it more than others. I contemplated finishing my senior year online, away from people or going to Boston with my brothers to finish but about a week before we came back, I changed my mind. I had to come back to Liberty even if it was alone." she wiped a tear that had escaped her eye.

"It is painful to lose someone that you care about in your life that you thought would be around forever. You know he once told me he wasn't going to let me care about him or love him." she chuckled. "Little did he know that I don't like being told what I can and cannot do. Did I take a risk caring for Montgomery de la Cruz, yeah? Yeah, I did but, I not once have ever regretted letting him in my life. He became my best friend and my person" she smiled looking out in the crowd

"I guess I thought I need to be up here today for the both of us, for him. Something you guys didn't know about him was that he, despite every single horrible thing he said and did because he did some pretty messed up stuff during his time here at Liberty, he managed to make some of us laugh, to make us cheer and scream for him on the football field, and to have some of the best times of our lives. Some of you hear the name Montgomery De la Cruz and cringe, same with Bryce Walker and Justin Foley but in the end they and all of those we have lost meant something to someone. They were somebody's something. Bryce was a son and friend to some, Justin was a brother, a son, a boyfriend, and Monty well Monty was my best friend, my person and I will never let his memory die. Hannah Baker although I never knew her was a daughter, a friend, a love." She looked out at the crowd as she listed everyone they had lost. 

"Despite every awful thing they did during their time here on earth, they all deserved to be here with us celebrating. So as some of you may also be doing, I am celebrating not only for me but for Montgomery De la Cruz because he should be here. When I walk across the stage today it will be for him too. When I pack up and leave for Alabama in the fall it will be for him too. When I graduate college it will be for him too. Everything, every accomplishment will be for me and for him too. He would've been graduating today with a 2.5 GPA so not for nothing but I want to give myself a round of applause because you guys knew how much of a pain in the ass Monty was and how hard it was to get him to do school work but I did it." she laughed with the crowd.

"I just want to thank my brothers, my best friend, and my boyfriend for being my support system and my backbone through it all." she said throwing kisses in their directions.

"Today fellow seniors, we walk across this stage to celebrate a huge accomplishment, we did it. We lived through 4 of the worse years of our lives." she laughed. 

"And now as we go on to live the rest of it, I will leave you with this: Never judge a book by its cover, always read the pages first. Cliche I know but the person sitting next to you right now may be bravely faced and smiling but you never know what they're going home to. Thank you for listening to my rant, this is the end. This is letting go. All we can do now is live with the living and remember the dead. Peace out Liberty, I won't miss you. " she laughed 

"For Monty!" one of the football players yelled in the crowd.

"For Monty." she smiled before stepping down from the podium.

Scott smiled at her from behind her seat as she took her seat once more.

She looked to the side and she saw Montgomery standing there.

"I love you, Princess, forever. Thank you for everything. I'll always be looking over you, live with the living" he spoke to her before blowing her a kiss and walking away, disappearing.

Through it all she had found some closure, she knew she would be off to UofA with Scott next fall with her brothers and Jeff not too far away. It wasn't ideal to lose her best friend senior year but she made the best out of it as she could. 

High school was over, off to new beginnings.

You guys! Thank you so much for all the support of the last year. I did not expect this book to get so much attention and I appreciate you all for sticking around. 

I am working on a Monty book next if you guys are interested it should be up by the time I post this last chapter, if not it's coming within the next couple of days :).

Much love, stay safe. Thank you again for all the support 

 -B ❤️