Take Over

Chapter Nineteen

The last week of school had come. It was Monday and Simon and I had arrived to school in a nervous state. The Take Over was going to officially begin in two more days and the school was going to be in a big hype about it.

Simon took my hand as we walked into the school together. Our classmates were abuzz, extra loud and the hallways seemed to be more crowded than usual.

My classes were hard to get through because none of the students listened or paid any attention to the teachers. I texted Simon all day and he said his classes were the same. The teachers didn't seem to catch on to anything though, which made me wonder if Mr. Warren had ever said anything to the teachers.

Tuesday wasn't much better. If anything, our classmates were worse than they were the day before.

Simon and I sat together at a table all to ourselves during lunch. The cafeteria was louder than I usually was and I was just about ready to lose my mind. Right when I was going to ask Simon to move outside with me, he nudged me.

"What?" I asked.

He didn't respond. He simply nodded his head toward our old table. Jay, Darren, and Bella were staring at us, Jay waving us over.

"Uh... should we go over?" I asked.

"I'm curious," Simon replied standing up.

I took his lead and followed him to our old friends.

"Hi, guys!" Bella greeted with a friendly smile once we made it over there. I smiled back at her. I missed her, but I wasn't going to open right back up again.

"What do you guys want?" Simon asked folding his arms together.

"We wanted to talk to you and..." Jay looked around the table. "Ask for your help."

I raised an eyebrow. "Our help? Why do you need our help?"

"Yeah, and where's Brad? Does he want our help too?" Simon asked.

I scanned the table and then gazed at our surroundings. I didn't see Brad anywhere. I hadn't even noticed he wasn't there.

"Brad's not here because I mentioned to him how we should ask you guys for help," Jay explained. "He got angry and stormed off."

"The plan is going to start tomorrow. So today is really our last chance to make things right." Darren added. He looked at me. "We thought you might have some ideas to help us stop it."

"You're joking." Simon deadpanned. "You decide to make things right now? You're too late. And honestly, I don't think it's fair of you to drag Roxie and me back into it. We've already tried to stop it and you've made this year hell for us."

Jay nodded somberly. "You have an excellent point and I admit it's not fair of us to ask this of you. But we really have no idea what else to do. We can't go against Brad."

"Why not?" I asked.

Jay shrugged. Darren turned the other way. Bella stood up.

"We need your help keeping things under control. Brad's too proud to bad out of his own plan and, as his friends, we want to be there for him." She explained holding up a hand when Simon was about to defend us. "I'm not trying to insult you and say you weren't a good friend to him, but you've missed a lot and you have no idea what Brad – or any of us – have been going through."

"We've missed a lot because you guys shunned us out!" Simon snapped.

Bella glared at him. "I didn't say we did no wrong. But what's done is done. We're running out of time and out of ideas."

I turned my gaze to the ground. I had never heard Bella speak like this before. She brought up some good points too.

Darren stood up. "We're sorry, guys. We shouldn't have made you outcasts. We were going along with Brad though, just like the two of you used to do. We went over our heads and it might be too late, but at least we're realizing it now."

"We're asking for your help because we trust you guys," Jay added.

"That's sweet and all, but you should be talking to Brad about this. He should be able to take control of his own army." Simon sneered.

"We tried!" Jay snapped. "Brad won't listen to us. If we back out of the plan then Brad is on his own to deal with the entire school."

"That's his own fault." Simon retorted.

"That may be but it wouldn't be fair of us to ditch him last minute. At the very least, we should try to help keep things under control rather than run away." Bella replied.

I put a hand on Simon's shoulder before he could say anything else. "We'll help."

Simon flatlined. "We will...?"

"We've been saying this whole time we don't want things to get out of control. They're finally agreeing with us to make things right. We should be the bigger person and help." I explained.

"I'm sick of being the bigger person," Simon muttered.

I sighed. "So am I. One last time.'

"I already made the mistake of getting myself into this mess. It was hard to dig myself out of that hole." Simon said.

"Well, we're trying to dig ourselves out of that hole too," Darren said. "We need you to show us how you did it."

"What do you want us to do about it?" I asked.

"Tomorrow and Thursday shouldn't be too bad. As long as people don't do their homework and don't show us to school, there's not much for us to control." Jay explained. "Friday is going to be tough."

"We're sure everyone has their own little plans about what to do on Friday," Bella added.

"Yeah," Darren agreed. "We were planning on just sitting back, relaxing, and hanging out inside the school, but we've heard people talking about throwing a huge party and such. Brad doesn't agree with any of it, but he won't admit it to the rest of the school."

"Brad held another meeting and mentioned he doesn't think it's a good idea to go along with the plan since Mr. Warren was suspicious. Everyone got pissed and said they were going to do the plan with or without him." Jay explained.

"So Brad said he'd still do it. He puts on a tough guy front, but he's freaking out." Bella said directly to me. I wasn't sure what she expected me to do about that. I certainly wasn't going to help Brad get through this tough time.

"Will you come to school on Friday and help us?" Darren asked.

"What about Brad?" Simon wondered aloud.

The three of them looked at each other. Then they shrugged. I sighed.

"I really don't think there's anything else we can do about this. It's all on Brad now." Simon said. "The first step is that you guys need to convince him to let us help and to also try to back out of the plan."

Jay rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah, I doubt that will happen..."

"The three of you should go to the principal and explain the whole truth," Simon added.

Neither one of them replied.

Simon sighed pulling me away from the table. "Well, apparently none of you really want to stop it then."