Bully Trials [Remake]

Chapter Three

III: "You Will Pay"

Jacelyn

Like any other day, classrooms resume like normal. No one cried about Ash for over a week, so she really wasn't important in many people's lives. Our whole friend group chows down on the crappy chicken nuggets, tater tots, and whole milk. Everything tastes much better with ketchup.

"The white milk tastes more like water than anything," Heather fusses while staring at her mark carton with scrutiny.

"Get chocolate milk next time," Laura tells her.

"I hate chocolate."

Quick silence. That peace was interrupted by Laura's sudden change of topic. Again with her nervousness. "Are we sure that we are not going to get arrested when the police are investigating Ash's death?"

Give it a rest, it's been a week already.

"What?!" Lola blurts out, cringing at Laura's question. "No!"

"Relax, Laura," Destiny softly orders, "we probably will be arrested by now."

Maddie looks at her phone. Her fingers swiping up and down. "Who knows what they will find on Ash's computer?" She says, not looking at us.

Laura rests her cheek against her hand on the table, not too pleased with our conversation. "Let's move on to something else please."

Heather rolls her eyes at Laura and sighs. "You are the one who brought it up."

Ash is clearly still getting focused on her even after she's dead! Laura better shut the hell up, so she should be forgotten next week. Everyone else at the school has stopped talking about her.

I pick up my phone beside my lunch tray and check if Aaron has sent me messages for the day. "My boyfriend hasn't been texting me," I whine. I actually do miss him.

Heather peeks at my messages. "He hasn't talked to you in two days," she notes.

"Wasn't he talking to you in the hallway yesterday," Laura asks. "Not everything should be taken online."

"But why hasn't he talked to me outside of school?!" I slightly snap at Laura, glaring at her.

Maddie said with a tease, "Hopefully, not cheating on you."

My head snaps to Maddie. "Don't you dare say that again," I warn.

Maddie clicks her tongue before finally looking away from her phone and speaking from one side of her mouth, "It could be a warning sign."

"If he ever cheats on you, I'ma go smash his car," Heather says with a grin.

"He is not getting out alive," Lola says with an evil chuckle.

Destiny takes another bite of her chicken nuggets, daring herself to eat an undressed nugget without the ketchup. She mentions while chewing, "Have you ever heard what happened with Ash's body?"

Yeah, to the incinerator. What happened? Did her body explode? Was it because she went to hell to atone for her suicide? Everyone just stares at Destiny as if she crapped herself.

Maddie clears her throat, probably from the crumbs from the chicken nuggets stuck in her throat. "There was a student whose dad works at the morgue. He was about to clean her body before burning it, but he turned around once he started the furnace, and her body was gone."

I ask, totally skeptical, "Was he high or did the student want attention about Ash's death? Clout chasing is a thing."

"You have a phone. Look it up. It's on the news."