Beyond the Reasons || JUSTIN FOLEY

Twenty-Six

PRESENT TIME
JUNIOR YEAR
OUTSIDE LIBERTY HIGH SCHOOL
TAPE 5, SIDE A
IMOGEN'S POV

[A/N: Hey guys, I know I put it at the beginning of the story, but I do want to put in a trigger warning for this chapter. If you've seen/read 13 RW, you know that tape 9 deals with Jessica's assault, so if sexual assault is something that triggers you, I suggest you don't read the flashback chapters that go with this tape, because we know what happens at Jessica's party. I'll also give you a trigger warning in the actual flashback chapters before it happens. I love you and if anyone ever needs to talk, my messages are always open]

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"I've got a question for you, Justin. Not the one you think. Not yet. What's the best part of high school? The great friends you make? The romance? No. We both know the best part of high school is summer break. It's the great reset button. And after everything that happened to me sophomore year. . I couldn't wait to start fresh. To tear the rest of the pages from my journal and forget it all. Except I didn't get very far. At work, my usual partner in crime was spending the summer with his grandparents. A trip his sister seemed to talk herself out of, because she was here. His temporary replacement was nice enough, but entirely too normal."

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I remember that. It was literally four months ago.

I begged my parents to let me stay in Crestmont. I was in an amazing place with all of my friends, and Justin and I were also in an amazing place and I didn't want to leave them that summer. I appealed to my dad first, I told him I thought of everything, of course I love my grandparents, but it was my first time spending summer with my friends and everything actually felt right, and I missed summer before sophomore year because of rehab.

Then after I appealed to my dad, he cracked through my mom, and that summer, I ended up staying with Jessica and her family, and that's how Jess and I became really close again, because well, when you end up living with someone for the summer.

It'll either make you or break you.

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"And I couldn't escape my past. I needed a change. I needed to be someone new. Have you ever felt like that? I wasn't going to be invisible anymore. I was going to start brand new. I was going to cut away the past. . and leave it all behind. I was going to work harder. Be smarter. And be stronger. Because you can't change other people, but you can change yourself."

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"So now, not only is she trying to punish me by trying to take away my captain's spot, she's giving all of my stunts to this 80-pound freshman. Go ahead. You really think that she can be as good of a flyer as I am? Or lift Melanie Opstad's fatass into pyramid formation?" I said, and Zach and Sheri started to laugh, as did Jess and then we were approached by Justin and Bryce.

"She is fucking fat! I mean really, good luck!" Jess said, and we all laughed again.

"Your coach is such a bitch." Bryce said while laughing, and he wasn't wrong. She is a bitch.

"She's actually pretty cool as long as people show up to practice." Sheri said, and that actually felt like a sort of dig at me and Jess so the both of us turned to her.

"Ooh." Bryce and Zach said, and I rolled my eyes.

"It's cheerleading, not saving lives." I said, and then I pulled my water bottle out of the pocket of my bag, it was a pink water bottle and you couldn't see anything that was inside. "Anyone down for a little pick me up?" I asked, taking a long sip of the liquor I had inside and then I shook my head and laughed a little.