You're Different - Scott Reed

38

Weeks had passed. Monty was feeling a lot better about his new decisions and his future. Isabela had finally spoken to Scott, they were on better terms, not together but on speaking terms.  

"princess!" she heard down the hall causing her to turn her head to see where the holler came from.

She made eye contact with him across the school making her giggle.

"I got a C+ on my chem quiz!" He showed her somewhat secretively.

"That's so good Mont! You've been doing so much better." she smiled up at him as she closed her locker 

"Because of you, you spend all day trying to get my dumbass to learn this shit." He laughed "Thank you," he said more sternly. 

"Stop thanking me, you can thank me when we finish moving you into your dorm at the University of Alabama." She shoved his shoulder playfully. 

"I haven't even heard back yet." he dropped his head

"No-No!  You will hear back Monty! You're going to get in. You've been bringing all your grades up and you're back on the team and not on probation! You'll be there in no time living a great life!"

"Wish you could go with me." He bumped shoulders with her.

"Yeah I know but I don't know what I want to do. I could go back to New York or to California, I've always wanted to go to California."

"Or to Alabama..."

"or to Alabama, I just don't know. That's a big decision."

"I'll see you after school yeah?" He asked as he began to go towards his class.

She chuckled and nodded and continued on her way to her class. 

She was thinking about what she wanted to do after Liberty. 

Did she want to leave her brothers and Jeff or did she want to go with Monty or did she want to go back to New York?

College was a big decision and she knew she couldn't make that decision alone.

- 

It was now the end of the day, nighttime.

She had taken a shower and washed her hair. She felt like a new person like these last couple of weeks had been building up on her skin. 

She sat in front of her large mirror combing through her hair so she could braid it.

*knock, knock, knock

She turned her head to her door to see Jeff.

"Hey J" she motioned for him to come in.

He took a seat on the edge of her bed looking at her. Oddly.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" she questioned looking up at him through the mirror.

"Have you been on your phone this last hour? At all?"

"No, I just turned on some music it's over there" she pointed across the room where her phone sat on her desk by the speaker. "Why? What happened? My nudes got leaked? she joked.

"Um, it's Monty..." He said pulling out his phone to show her. "He got arrested today." 

"Wait! What?! There's no way, he was supposed to come over. Why?"

"They're saying that he sexually assaulted Tyler Down last year..." 

She looked at Jeff confused, she didn't want to believe it but he was Monty.

He had been struggling with his sexuality and those frustrations could have led him to do such an action. 

She didn't want to try and justify his actions because they were wrong, he shouldn't have done it but he was going through so much that nobody knew about it. 

He was working on improving himself, he was better. 

She was so sad he was locked in that place and she wished she could go back and have him not do whatever he did to Tyler so he could just continue to work on himself and do so much better. 

Her phone vibrated on her desk and she stood up to go answer it.

"Hello?"

"You have a collect call...do you accept the charges?"

"Yes, I do..." she waited for the phone to ring only to be met with silence. "Monty?... Montgomery are you okay?"

"I'm fine princess, I'm so sorry.I- I... I'm a failure I shouldn't have wasted your time."

"Hey no! I'm gonna go see you as soon as possible okay?"

"They're saying I killed Bryce... I didn't I swear I could never do that."

"I believe you, I know you could never."

"Listen, I have to go but I love you, Princess, no matter what okay?"

"I love you too Mon, always."

They hung up the phone and walked over to sit next to Jeff. She placed her head on his shoulder and sobbed. He wrapped his arms around her and let her cry. He knew how much Monty meant to her even if he was kind of a bad person. He was still a person. 

He found himself kind of sad too. He had known Monty his whole life. They played every sport together and they basically grew up together and now he was locked away for God knows how long.