Chapter 46 Chapter Twenty of Grade Me Harder
Ava’s POV
Serena didn’t know she’d been invited.
The look on her face when she saw the crowd, the cameras, the admin, and Wolfe standing at my side was priceless. She paused in the doorway. Hesitated.
But she couldn’t turn away—now that everyone had already noticed her presence.
She walked in anyway, heels sharp against the marble floor, like it was just another PR event where she could control the narrative. She sat near the front with her back straight and lips pressed into a thin line. Not a crack in her demeanor.
Good.
Let’s see how long that mask holds.
I stepped up to the podium.
“I called this formal press conference to address the allegations pinned on me and Professor Wolfe,” I said. “You want answers. You want to know if the rumors are true. If the professor standing next to me is a predator. A monster. If I am the victim or not?”
“Today, we’ll give you the answers. But you might not like them.”
I clicked play.
\[SLIDE 1 – The IP Trail\]
A glowing digital footprint appeared, showing Reddit posts from the username C.Ross, all traced to a dorm IP—Serena’s dorm.
The posts were vicious.
“He stares too long. You can tell he wants to touch them.”
“He got away once. Not this time.”
I turned to the crowd. “These posts were created from a device connected to the campus Wi-Fi in Dorm A2. Registered to Serena Cross.”
Serena didn’t flinch. She even smiled.
“I’m sorry,” she said sweetly. “Are we really pretending it’s illegal to post anonymous concerns about a teacher with a history?”. Her voice was sugary, “I never mentioned his name. If you assumed it was Professor Wolfe, maybe ask yourself why that’s who came to mind.”
The people in attendance turned, speaking to each other in a hushed tone. She turned the blame outward. Smooth.
But she blinked. Twice. And touched her scar.
Wolfe saw it too.
The room was already shifting, quiet murmurs, chairs creaking, all eyes flicking between us. Serena stood tall, arms folded, her smile thin and practiced.
“Anything else?” she asked, faux sweet. “Or is this just another attempt to distract from your own misconduct?”
“I’m just trying to understand,” I said slowly. “How someone gets admitted to a top university… with no traceable history before four years ago.”
Serena’s gaze sharpened. “What are you implying?”
I shrugged. “That something doesn’t add up.”
She gave a humorless laugh. “You’re really spiraling, aren’t you? What’s next? Alien conspiracy? You’re funny.”
I clicked the remote.
\[SLIDE 2 – Archived Facebook Profile: Bianca Alvarez\]
The projection changed.
There it was.
A deleted account.
Username: bianca.a.lvz
Same birthdate.
Same email address from Serena’s school records.
The profile picture: a younger Serena. Barefaced. Vulnerable. Same jawline. Same scar tucked under the collarbone.
Serena's smile faltered, barely a millimeter.
“You lied,” I said, voice quiet and clear. “You built your future on a false name.”
“You’ve lost it,” Serena snapped. “What next, forged birth certificate? You think some dusty social media profile is enough to accuse me of academic fraud?”
She turned toward the crowd, gesturing grandly. “She’s grasping at straws—throwing wild accusations to cover up her own mess.”
A reporter in the front row stood up and cleared his throat, “This is all very… theatrical,” he said, loud enough for his microphone to catch. “But none of this changes the fact that Professor Wolfe has a history of inappropriate behavior toward students. We shouldn’t allow wild deflections to take the focus off what really matters.”
I ignored him.
Instead, I turned calmly to the woman seated behind me—A quiet, gray-haired administrative assistant from the Registrar’s Office.
“Ma'am,” I smiled. “Could you bring up Serena’s full student file, please? Specifically, the email linked to her enrollment.”
Serena blinked. “You can’t— That’s confidential—”
“It’s not, actually,” I cut in smoothly. “You waived privacy when you signed the hearing consent forms. Clause 2C. ‘All academic records may be reviewed when academic misconduct is in question.”
The woman stood up and left, returning close to fifteen minutes later, clutching a brown folder. She handed it to me in full view of the panel and audience.
I opened it slowly and took a photo of it, connecting my phone to the large screen, exposing her details.
“Serena Cross,” I read aloud. “Enrolled under the email: [email protected].”
The room exploded in whispers.
“That’s the same—”
“She changed her name to apply!”
“Oh my God…”
“She's so fake. Oh my God!”
Serena’s face went pale. Her lips parted. No words came out.
I held up the open file beside the projected slide. The name. The email. The matching scar in the photo. Everything aligned.
“I don’t need a theory,” I said. “I have documentation. You didn’t just lie. You built your entire academic life on a false identity. That account isn’t some old profile, Serena. It’s who you really are.”
Before my eyes, I saw tears slip down Serena’s pale cheeks. Her hand trembled as it brushed softly over her scar, her body shaking with quiet sobs. The room sat in stunned silence.
She stood up, wiping her tears hastily, and bowed her head. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, her voice cracking. “I know what I did was wrong. I take full responsibility. But I had no choice. The truth is… my real name is Bianca Arvalez, and when I was just 16 years old, I was raped. I was a minor.”
She paused, placing a hand over her heart as if gathering the strength to go on. “It wasn’t just once. It happened over and over. He didn’t just violate me physically—he hurt me in every way. I suffered… for years. But thanks to my parents, we gathered enough evidence, and he was sentenced to life in prison.”
Her voice faltered for a moment, but she quickly composed herself. “But I forgave him. Because I believed everyone deserved mercy. I begged my dad to let him serve only three years. I believed I was the bigger person.”
She took a deep breath, and I could see the weight of those words. “After that, things changed. People looked at me with pity. Others mocked me. I wanted to leave it all behind—so I built a new life, a new identity. I enrolled here under a different name, hoping to be someone else, someone free from the past.”
She looked up then, her eyes fierce. “But then, I found out the man who caused all of this—he was here. He was the one, pretending to be a saint, hiding behind the title of ‘professor.’ And one day, I overheard him in his office… with another student. I had to expose him, I couldn't let him destroy another person's life. I couldn’t believe I ever showed mercy to someone like him. Some things never change, do they?”
“Ava Max said she consented to it.. Does that mean that you had sex with him cause he was one of the top officials deciding on the stellar student award?”
Just like that, everyone turned their full support to Serena.