Chapter 38

Amelia's POV

Here we go again.

Those stares, that pretend-we're-not-staring staring—quick side glances thrown over laptop screens, heads turning slowly to angles that stopped just short of obvious.

I'd gotten good at ignoring it. I found my seat, set down my bag, and sat.

Then I noticed it. The girl next to me—the same one who'd scooted her chair a fraction closer to mine just yesterday—was now looking at me with something that could only be called disgust.

She pushed her chair back with a deliberate motion, creating nearly a foot of distance between us, as if I were something dirty she might catch.

I was too numb to guess, so I just asked.

"What did I do to you?"

She snorted through her nose. "That's a question you should be asking poor Brooke."

"Who?"

The girl's expression erupted.

"You used underhanded tactics to push her out and got yourself onto the cheer squad!" she said, voice lowered but not low enough that people around us couldn't hear. "And now you're sitting here pretending you don't even know her name?"

I opened my mouth, then closed it. I could feel the atmosphere around us shift—that particular texture of silence that meant everyone had stopped typing, stopped scrolling, and started listening.

This was worse than the fake transcript rumors. This was contempt, disdain.

And I still had no idea what had actually happened.

Naomi appeared on my left—we'd planned to sit together for this class.

She walked straight toward the girl, glanced at her phone screen, then looked at me, brow furrowed.

"It's Tiffany and Madison," she said quietly.

"Who?" I asked numbly.

She looked somewhat helpless. "They didn't tell you their names? Our roommates."

The post was on the Vanderbilt campus forum. Without me asking, Naomi pulled it up and tilted her phone toward me.

Someone claiming they'd "finally figured it out"—who the girl was who'd rushed onto the field during the game.

The post included a photo of my cheer uniform, the one stained with blood, the one I'd brought back to the dorm and soaked for twenty minutes without success before going out to buy detergent to continue the rescue operation.

I'd been out of the room for maybe ten minutes. Tiffany and Madison had both been there.

The photo was crystal clear. Whoever took it held the camera steady. They knew what they were looking for.

The post itself was just meant to reveal the secret.

They were probably pleased with themselves for accidentally discovering an answer the whole campus had been searching for.

But quickly, the hundreds of comments below steered the whole thing in another vicious direction.

I'd rushed onto the field looking for Samuel, someone dug up, and Samuel and I happened to be from the same high school. Clearly we'd known each other for a long time.

And I'd walked into cheer tryouts, then successfully made the squad under circumstances where everyone knew I was a fraud with nothing real to show—getting into a cheer squad that half the girls on campus couldn't get into!

Wasn't that a bit too convenient? Maybe someone had opened a back door for her. Maybe a certain quarterback owed her a favor.

I looked at the comments section. All sugar-coated knives—"not saying anything but..." and "idk just seems sus lol" and various variations, all with the same core message: she doesn't belong here.

A few people pointed out that secretly photographing a roommate's belongings was an invasion of privacy. Immediately followed by: "ok but why are you defending her tho," and that was the end of that. No one wanted to hear it.

Then I scrolled down and found the second post.

From Brooke herself—the girl who'd pushed through the crowd on tryout day to stand at Cassidy's table, who'd argued her case in the crowd, pointing at me and talking nonstop to anyone who would listen, telling them my results were fake and demanding I prove myself.

That day, her arguments had been loud, and in the end she'd still lost.

Now she had another stage.

She'd posted her version of that day: how she'd done everything she was supposed to do, how she'd raised concerns through proper channels, how she'd spoken up when no one else dared—and I'd still gotten in, under circumstances that remained unexplainable to this day. She wrote about being mocked afterward, about someone stabbing her with a single sentence—saying she wasn't qualified.

That person was me.

The comment section spoke with one voice.

"omg poor Brooke. who says that to someone's face??"

"honestly Brooke deserved that spot way more. this is so unfair"

"so she pulled strings to get in AND had the audacity to talk down to the girl she beat out. make it make sense."

"wait so her and Samuel went to the same high school?? and then she just happened to run onto the field for him?? that's not a coincidence that's a whole strategy."

Near the end of the post, someone had even dug up video clips from tryout day—specifically capturing the moment Joseph walked down the hallway, specifically capturing the moment he looked at the floor instead of at me, then carefully and clearly said "we're not close."

"wait wait wait — Aria literally said on record that the Grey family and the Montgomerys are close, so Joseph 100% knows who she is. and he looked her dead in the face and said 'we're not close.' bro said I don't know her with his chest"

"Joseph is genuinely one of the most well-mannered guys on this campus. if even HE can't stand her that really tells you everything."

"she really thought running onto the field was cute. it's giving desperate."

More followed below, the language getting uglier and uglier.

I put the phone down.

My reputation had been climbing bit by bit. That forum video, that A+, that game—yesterday, I'd just started to feel like maybe the ground beneath my feet was finally solidifying.

But now, the ground had turned into an island again.

There was an empty space in my chest, not entirely anger, not entirely sadness—for a moment I had no idea what I was thinking.

Only ringing in my ears, making me dizzy.

I held on for a few seconds, then thought:

Evelyn is going to be upset.

She'd put in so much effort. Pulling me into the tryouts, carefully filming that video from just the right angle, all that carefully managed public opinion—she'd really put so much thought into it.

And now a few secretly released photos and one post from Brooke twisting the truth had negated all her efforts.

"Get out."

The voice came from across the classroom.

I looked up.

A girl near the back row stood up. "You're not welcome here!"

"Get out!"