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Chapter 5

The Day After

Will walked down the hallway keeping his head down. He knew if he looked up he would see people looking at him with either a sympathetic or a disgusted look, it depended on what they believed. Ever since that day Will has always been the talk of the town, even more than the friend group. He thought after a while it would die down but no, it didn't. He didn't understand why. Everywhere he went he heard people whispering things. It was already bad enough she was gone, he didn't want reminders everyday.

He stopped at his locker and put in the code in the lock. "Hey Will." A voice came up to him.

Will looked up and saw a girl he knew as Jennifer, but as her friends call her, Jenny. She was a shorter girl with blonde hair and blue eyes. Will had only talked to her a few times, but whenever he did she was always nice and spoke gently to him. "Hey Jennifer." He said looking for his science book.

"How are you doing?" Jennifer asked with sad eyes. Pitiful eyes. The same one she gives him every time he looks her way. He didn't know this until their first conversation after El—you know—but she and El talked a few times. It surprised him at first because one El was really shy, and two he thought El only talked to the party. But he understood after a while, Jennifer is like a friend to everyone.

"Fine." Will said trying not to show that he was annoyed. He hated that question. It was like everyone was just wanting him to spill his feeling and all that on the floor for everyone to know. He hated how people kept asking him that even though he's been the exact same all year.

Jennifer nodded her head and made her lips in a straight line, anyone who really knew her would know that she is trying to think of something to say. "Everyone was thinking about you yesterday."

"Yeah, I'm sure they were." Will laughed not amused to the slightest. He knew people would be thinking of him at school, but it would either be "poor Will" or "Will did it". He honestly just wanted to be invisible like last year. He wanted Troy and his goon to bully him and his friends again, because at least back then people forgot about him.

Jennifer's eyebrows came together like she was trying to figure out a difficult math problem. "What's so funny about that?"

"Nothing!" Will snapped. "Nothing about this is funny or even a little bit entertaining! It seems like everyone just gets a sick thrill trying to figure out what happened! Well guess what! What happened happened and nothing and no one could change that! I lost my sister, and she's not coming back! I wouldn't expect you of all people to understand, since you have a full, perfect family that's all Kumbaya!"

Will knew he had to shut up, but the thing was he opened his mouth. And he can't shut it now. "I am tired of hearing everybody ask if I'm okay. I'm not and I never will be! So just-just stay out of my life and I will stay out of yours."

Will slammed his locker and made his way out of the hallway, where everyone was looking at him in shock. Will has always been quiet, he tries to be polite to others, and no one has ever yelled at Jennifer. She was left in shock as she ran over the conversation a million times trying to figure out where it went wrong.

Will breathing became more ragged the more he walked. He didn't know where he was going but he knew he had to go somewhere. The bell blared through the mostly empty halls, leaving a few students running to their classes late. Will made the split second decision to not go to class, but to instead go to the bathroom and skip first hour.

The group immediately noticed Will's absence, and because stories moved fast in school, they knew what happened in the hallway. The group just sat there, listening to the different point of views of their classmates. They all looked at each other as students talked over each other about what happened.

"I knew he would eventually snap." Dustin said in a hushed voice so only the group could hear him.

"I think we all expected it to happened." Lucas said shaking his head, silently judging the other classmates. He wasn't going to say anything to them like he normally would, he didn't want their names to be thrown around more.

"Yeah, I'm just surprised it didn't happen sooner." Max said pinching the bridge of her nose. "I'm even more surprised it was with Jennifer."

"Should I call them?" Mike asked looking at the group for answers. They all nodded knowing what was going to happen.

Wait, maybe I should go back and catch you up on a detail I missed.

In the middle of summer break the party had thought that it was a good idea to go to the mall. It was a hot day outside and they wanted to do something. They originally thought it would have been a good idea to go to the pool, but Max and Billy got into a fight and Max didn't want to go to the pool where Billy worked. So, instead they went to the mall to watch a movie.

After the movie, they decided to go get some ice cream for the walk back to their houses and that is when they met Robin. Robin was nice but a little sarcastic to them. So, obviously, they liked her. She went on break and talked to them like she didn't know what happened to them just a few months prior. Of course she did, you couldn't walk around town and not know at least a little about them, but they became friends and she always listened and got them out of trouble when they needed to be.

With Robin, came Steve. Yes, Steve "the hair" Harrington, the same one that broke up with Nancy shortly before El's disappearance. Surprisingly, he was the same way towards them as Robin. Except, he tried to keep them out of trouble instead of helping them out of it. So Robin was kind of the fun aunt who would probably end up in jail with them. And Steve would be the mom bailing the out of jail.

Now, back to the story.

The group all nodded at him as Mike raised his hand to be excused and to go call Robin and Steve.

We are definitely needing help today.

Authors note
I am so sorry I haven't been updating that much these past few weeks. I suddenly got a life for about three weeks, but now I'm back to doing absolutely nothing. I can start writing again!  More updates come soon!!!