Chapter 7: Before

"What the fuck is going on here?" My voice boomed out as I saw Jonah and Manny both bloodied, and somewhat starting to bruise. The people around us began walking out getting away from the scene.

Jonah was being held back by Jack and Corbyn, while Manny was being held by Gabe, and being assisted by Naomi. While Christina was shoving the people to move away, as we wanted the least amount of exposure at school, though we know it probably will still happen.

"Jonah, what the fuck?" Zach exclaimed as he walked over to Naomi's side seeing the huge bruise on Manny's face. "What happened?"

"This- This asshole," he pointed at Manny, "he gave drugs to Ella!" He yelled.

"What?" Zach asked again.

"Is this true, Manny?" I asked looking over at them, while shaking my head.

"You gave my girlfriend drugs? How dare you-" Daniel yelled ready to head straight for the male until I pushed him back.

"Daniel, chill" Corbyn said.

"Is that what you people do?" Addison asked, "Sell drugs at parties? Get people overdosed. Is that it? Do you get some high off of it?"

"No. It's not what we do okay? Yes I had drugs with me, but they weren't for her. I didn't sell her anything, not even a pinch." He exclaimed, "Anges you gotta believe me."

I shook my head and faced away from them trying to process this situation.

"You don't really think she would believe you, right? Over us? Her own kind?" Addison exclaimed.

"I'd sure hope so. She's not like you guys, now matter how much you force it. She knows us for us. Not for the fact that were poor, or that we're here on financial aid. She has a heart-" He exclaimed loudly before he was cut off by a yell.

"Shut up." Jonah yelled, "Who gave you the right to say that? She is one of us. And that's that. And if you mess with any of us again, you'll be dead meat. I will make sure of that," He sighed out angrily.

"Jonah stop." I said.

"Agnes these people gave our friend drugs, that caused her to almost drown in the pool and die. Do you really think that I'd be calm in this situation?!" He then began to yell at me before I glared harshly and he looked away with the same amount of anger. "Would you be calm if you were in my position?"

"She is in your position, and she's reacting this way. I wouldn't count on her understanding

"Nothing will come out of these allegations," I muttered.

"But I saw him-" Jonah started.

"It doesn't matter Jonah. We have to hear it come out of Ella's mouth! We can't keep assuming these types of things. We've been wrong before," I glared at him as I crossed my arms.

"What is that supposed to mean?" Addison asked.

"Wrong before?" Naomi asked quietly

"That was before, but now that we're aware. I saw it with my own eyes for fucks sake." Jonah yelled as he pointed around to Manny.

"Why are you taking their side, anyways?" Christina asked.

"I'm not taking sides!" I exclaimed. "I'm doing what I think is right, that's all���

"Of course. Bravo!" Addison exclaimed as he sarcastically clapped her hands slowly, "What else should we expect? She is, and she will always take the side of liars, of thieves, of druggies. Trying hard to be such a saint, huh, little miss perfect" Addison said.

"You know I don't like that word-" I started,

"Perfect? Isn't that what you're always trying to be though?" She asked me again. "You've been wrong before too, and it cost us a lot, and I'll be damned if I leave the faith of Ella into your grubby hands, as I know it'll turn to shit," She yelled.

"I'm not trying to fix this!" I yelled, "I'm only trying to help Ella-"

"Bullshit!" She yelled, "We all know, even these losers, that you don't give a rats ass about Ella or any single one of us, except Daniel. And you know that's true!"

"Shut up-"

"You know its true-"

"Shut up!" I yelled facing her.

"Make me-"

"Enough." Corbyn exclaimed. "Let's all settle this once we know the truth. We're just wasting our time. Let's go home." He said as he grabbed Christina's hand tightly, making her lose her grip on Addison.

"Where's Ella?" I asked.

"I tucked her in, she's asleep, breathing." Christina said.

"Gabe, Naomi, Manny, I'll take you home." I said as I grabbed my keys out of my pocket.

"Of course," Addison chuckled sarcastically as she walked away towards the entrance.

"We'll get going, take it easy Jonah, Daniel." Christina barely glanced at me as she and Corbyn walked away.

I didn't say a word as I walked out hearing footsteps behind me.

"Zach you got a ride home, or do you want me to drop you off." I asked.

"You can just drop me off," he smiled cheekily. I nodded in return as we all piled into the car.

We sat In a pit of silence, slowly trying to regain our thoughts, our emotions, the events that almost happened again. Seeing someone struggle for breath, someone die for the second time in my life, and for the same reason. The same person, the same situation, and the same emotions flare up, the guilt, the blame, the self-pity, everything that I've spent the last four years trying to kill off, just came back.

I was so lost that I didn't feel the car swerving around until Zach gripped my hands and steadied me,

"Are you okay, Nes?" He asked quietly.

"Yeah, I'm fine," I said, shaking my head slightly in attempts to wake myself up.

"Agnes look," He started, "I'm sorry for what happened earlier. I swear I didn't sell her any drugs. I was just at the wrong place when Jonah saw me. I swear on my life." Manny suddenly said as I kept driving.

"It's fine, as you probably heard, this isn't all too uncommon for us." I chuckled.

"We believe you dude," Zach leaned back and smiled at them, "That should mean something more than you would know."

"How are you so cool about this, when all of your friends were freaking out?" Gabe asked as he leaned from the middle in between Zach and my head.

"I know Ella well. We've been through hell and back with her, with this situation. And it's the same outcome every time, so what makes this any different, right? I said as I turned to the right into the dark road assuming that my GPS was right, and we were headed to their village..

"How'd you even know that she might've been on drugs?" Naomi asked.

"She has quite the history with using," Zach interrupted. "Very extensive,"

"Have you guys-" I cut Naomi off before she could even finish her sentence.

"We all have used it before," I muttered, not really sure if I was more ashamed or proud of the fact.

"Care to share?" Manny asked slightly smiling.

"Well if you must know. We tried it when we were 13-14. There were new students who came to school, and they introduced us to drugs.It was all the same shit, but lives were at stake eventually, and we to face the sunshine." I sighed.

"That's why Jonah and Christina don't like us? Because they think that we'll do the same?" Gabe said.

"We all were unsure at first." I said. "But we learned to adjust, but it is hard to forget something to shitty, that made everything way more difficult than it should've been,"

"Ella was the only one who continued using, behind our backs." Zach continued. "We caught her one day, she almost had an overdose." I sighed as I remembered the events similar to earlier. The images that I wasn't able to shake off my head. Images that stuck.

"Damn that must've been rough," Gabe reached over and rubbed my shoulder slightly before settling back.

"Yeah it was, but we're fine now, so no need to feel pity or whatever" I mumble.

"It's not pity. We care believe it or not," He said loud for us to hear.

Which we did, it was just hard to actually believe, that for the first time in a while we were able to know that someone cares. Not for the connection,or status, but for the sake that were humans.