Chapter 3

3

Mrs. Gable pulled up the classroom and hallway footage. The video showed that from the end of school yesterday until this morning, I hadn't been near Riley’s desk once. The only person who spent any significant time there was Riley herself. During the break, she was seen digging through her own drawer.

She had been putting something in and taking it out repeatedly. Mrs. Gable watched the screen in silence for a long time. Finally, she turned to Riley with a stern expression. “Riley, come to my office. Now.”

The news of Riley being hauled to the office spread like wildfire. The people who had been trashing me in the group chat suddenly went quiet. Someone even screenshotted the anonymous post and sent it to me. “Selah, was this Riley’s doing?” they asked.

“Keep that screenshot,” I replied. “Save it to the cloud. Don't delete it.” Then, I made my first entry in my black notebook. “First instance of defamation. Anonymous message. 9:43 PM.” “Evidence: Chat logs saved.”

This time, I wasn't going to let a single thing slide. Riley didn't come back to the classroom to bother me after school. Instead, someone shoved a note into my hand at the stairwell. It only had one sentence: “Friday after school. The gate. Be there.”

It wasn't signed, but I knew that messy handwriting anywhere. She was smart enough to make someone else deliver it so she wouldn't get caught with it. I looked at the note and actually smiled. I took a photo of it and saved it to an encrypted folder.

I named that folder “The Exit Strategy.” The first file was the photo of my torn textbook. The second was the group chat screenshot. The third was this threat.

In my past life, I had nothing but my own trauma. In this life, I was building a case.