perfect? - montgomery de la cruz

Forgive me.

Ashley was standing by her locker, trying to remove the hearts that were glued onto the metal locker. Some freshman had been given the job to decorate so the girl decorated everyone's lockers with superglue, which hadn't been a success with all the jocks that now had hearts on their lockers that they couldn't get off.

Two arms wrapped around her waist and she could feel Justin's breath on her neck. "Do you know what day it is today?", he whispered in her ear before he turned her around.

She shrugged with a small smile on her lips that only grew when she saw that he had a bouquet of red roses in his hand.

"Justin... these are beautiful.", she mumbled before giving him a kiss and putting her arms around his neck.

"These are an apology for not being able to arrive at the dance together.", he whispered as he put his chin on top of her head.

"It's okay, baby. You owe me a dance when you get back though.", she smiled softly.

"I promise, love."

She was so genuinely happy. Monty never did anything like this, the only time he was kind was when he felt like he had gone too far.

"How's Clay doing?", she asked as she rested her head against his shoulder. "He's paranoid and it's getting worse. I mean, just now he was paranoid about the cameras in school, he was talking about the school knowing what 'we' did.", he sighed.

"They're hiding something from us, I swear.", she said with a frown. She pulled away from her boyfriend, looking around the school to see that there were in fact cameras put up.

"Yeah, something's going on.", Justin agreed.

———————————————————————

Ashley walked into the gymnasium on her own. She was wearing a dark red dress that Justin had bought her when they first moved away to New York.

The couple had both agreed that this was the night that she was going to ask Ani and Clay what the fuck they were doing.

She could feel the hungry looks of the football team as she walked past them to get to Zach who was looking pretty drunk.

"Hey, Zach. You alright?", she chuckled as she embraced the tall boy. "I feel amazing right now, you want some?", he asked as he pulled up the bottle of alcohol again.

She shrugged and grabbed the bottle to smell it. Whiskey. She brought it to her lips and let the strong liquid go down her throat.

She shook her head as she swallowed it and gave the bottle back to a laughing Zach. She decided to leave him and walked around by the bleachers.

Clay stormed off with a destined look on his face as he headed outside. Ashley saw that Ani was standing underneath the bleacher, looking after him.

"Hey. I just saw Clay, are you alright?", she asked as she saw Ani's tear filled eyes.

"He just broke up with me.", Ani answered, wiping the tears away. Ashley walked up to crying girl and gave her hug, she was now thinking about the best approach to ask about what her and Clay were hiding.

When Ani had calmed down a bit, she saw her opportunity.

"I have been meaning to ask you something.", she started. "Do you know what happened to Monty? I feel like everyone knows except for Justin and I, and I think that I deserve to know.", she explained.

Ashley's hands had started shaking since she wasn't used to getting good reactions from people when she confronted them about stuff.

"Oh... Ashley. I feel like you should sit down.", Ani said slowly as she tried to get her to move to the front of the bleachers. "No, Ani. Please just tell me.", Ashley begged.

"Alright...", Ani began. "So, after you and Justin left town, Monty got arrested for raping Tyler."

"The police were still asking questions about Bryce's murder and I wanted to protect Jess and Alex."

She quickly looked up at the dark skinned girl. Jessica and Alex were the ones who killed Bryce, they were the ones that did what Ashley had wanted to do since Bryce assaulted her.

"You didn't know?", Ani asked with furrowed eyebrows, afraid that she had said too much. "I- No, I didn't know.", she whispered, looking at Ani to continue talking.

"So... to protect Jess and Alex, I told the police that Monty killed Bryce."

Ashley froze. She felt like the entire gymnasium went quiet and the only thing she could hear was her own breathing. In her mind, everything was moving in slow motion.

She could see Ani's mouth moving but she couldn't hear anything. The noise started coming back when Ani grabbed her shoulders, concern showing in her eyes.

"You framed him?", Ashley asked, her hands shaking profusely. Tears were threatening to spill just from all the anger that she was feeling.

"You need to understand that I was trying to do the right thing.", she tried to explain, looking around to see if someone was looking at their interaction.

"No, you need to understand that he deserved to go to jail for what he did to Tyler but he did not deserve to fucking die.", Tears we're now spilling down Ashley's face and she didn't care enough to wipe them away.

"I know and I am so sorry. I regret what I did every god damn day.", Ani stammered, also crying now. "Please, you're my friend. I need you, Forgive me."

Ani embraced Ashley. And for some reason, Ashley found herself hugging back. Not because she forgave her, but because she had finally gotten the answer that she wanted.

She wasn't angry about the fact that Ani framed Monty, she was angry because he died. She still cared for him, even after his death. She wanted him to pay for what he did to Tyler and she didn't care if he got to be in jail for longer than what he was supposed but she didn't want him to be dead.

Ashley let go of Ani and walked away from her with tears still running down her face.

Justin walked up to her with a smile that immediately dropped when he saw that she was crying.

"Babe, what happened? Are you okay?", he asked with a concerned expression. "Jess and Alex killed Bryce, Ani framed Monty.", she said as she tried to make herself stop crying.

Before Justin could answer, he was interrupted by the other students.

"What the fuck!"

Clay was standing in the middle of the dance floor, covered in blood.

I just finished season 4 and I cried so much :( I actually really liked this season, it's probably my favorite season next to season 2.

How do you guys think Ashley's feeling, y'all think she's gonna snap? She seems a little bit stressed out by the situation...

Don't forget to vote and comment!
-elise