Chapter 2

A chill ran through me, quickly followed by a wave of disgust.

"Fine, Ethan," I said, nodding and wiping all emotion from my face. "Since you can't tell right from wrong, you're no longer my friend."

With that, I turned away from him and looked at Vivian, who was cowering behind him.

I crooked my finger at her, grinning like a villain. "Vivian, right? You say you saw something. Where's your proof? A photo? A video? Come on, show me. Let me see which bald guy is supposed to be my sugar daddy."

Vivian flinched under my glare, instinctively shrinking further behind Ethan. "I... I don't have anything. I just saw it."

"Oh, you saw it?" I drawled. "Just your word against everything? Do you know what that's called? Slander. At best, you'll have to apologize. At worst, we can take this to the police."

I pulled out my phone, pretending to dial.

"Don't... Don't do anything crazy!" Vivian panicked, her voice trembling with tears. "I... I'm just a student."

"Just because you're a student, you think you can spread rumors? Didn't school teach you to be responsible for what you say?" I stared her down. "You have two choices.

"First, right now, in front of the whole class, bow and apologize, admit you getting it wrong and made a mistake. Second, I'll call the police and let them handle it."

"I..." Vivian's face went completely pale, and she shot Ethan a desperate look.

Ethan finally couldn't take it anymore. He grabbed my wrist. "That's enough, Emma. Give her a break. She already knows she was wrong. Do you really have to go so far?"

I looked at his hand gripping mine, and then at the expression on his face, like he was saying, "How could you be so cruel?" My stomach turned.

I yanked my hand free, my eyes cold as ice. "Ethan, the moment you chose to blindly defend Vivian, there's no more mercy beetween us."

"You and her." I pointed at both of them, "You two are birds of a feather in my eyes.

"From now on, don't show up around me again.

"Otherwise, every time I see you, you're getting a beating."

With that, I grabbed my workbook from the desk and walked out.

Behind me, I could feel Ethan's conflicted stare and Vivian's sniffling. The whole class sucked in a breath in shock.

I didn't look back.

Some people and some things just weren't worth it.

*****

I thought that was the end of it. It turned out that it was just the beginning.

During the first class that afternoon, someone shoved a so-called "blood letter" into my desk.

Written in red ink, the handwriting was all over the place, and the words were downright nasty.

It basically called me an arrogant bully who picked on the weak, said I acted like I was above everyone just because I was smart, and claimed a vicious woman like me deserved to be kept by some sugar daddy with a bald head.

At the end, the writer drew an ugly pig with my name scribbled beside it, like it was some kind of insult.

The classmate sitting next to me, Ryan Shaw, a six-foot-tall jock, was fuming. "Emma, who did this crap? That's messed up. Want me to help you find out who it was?"

I crumpled the letter into a ball and tossed it into the trash, my face unreadable. "No need. Just some clown."

I didn't even have to think about who did it.

Who else could it be but Vivian, the queen of fake innocence?

She didn't have the guts to face me, so she started pulling these dirty tricks.

I ignored it, but things were far from over.

Soon enough, a post popped up on the school forum.

The title was explosive: [Digging Up the True Color of Our School's Top Student—What Lies Beneath That Innocent Persona!]

The main post was anonymous, and it gave a juicy, over-the-top version of what happened this morning.

In the post, I was made out to be some overbearing, vicious girl who was jealous of the transfer student's looks and beat up classmates for no reason.

And Vivian was described as the sweet, innocent, poor girl who got bullied for "telling the truth".

There was even a photo attached. It caught the moment I raised my hand, about to hit Ethan.

The angle was sneaky. It made me look like a total villain, while Ethan and Vivian came off as a poor couple being tormented by the school bully.

The comments were all trashing me.

[Damn, is this for real? Emma always seemed so aloof. I didn't expect her to be this violent.]

[You never really know someone. Just because she gets good grades doesn't mean she's got good character.]

[Poor transfer girl, just got here and already getting bullied.]

[Ethan is such a good guy. The way he stands up for Vivian is so manly.]

[Does Emma have a thing for Ethan? Maybe she hates him because she actually has feelings for him.]

[Absolutely. She's just jealous, for sure.]

I scrolled through the comments and nearly cracked up.

Honestly, these netizens had such wild imaginations. They should start writing novels.

Ryan was so pissed that his face turned red, and he started arguing in the comments. [You guys have no clue! Vivian was the one who started the rumors. Emma was pushed into this.]

But his defense got drowned out by the flood of trolls.

Instead, some people dug up his private info online and called him my simp.

"Alright, let it go," I said, giving his shoulder a pat. "Don't waste your breath on idiots."

"But Emma, the stuff they're saying is way out of line," Ryan protested with indignation written all over his face.

"Let them run their mouths all they want," I said, picking up my pen and diving back into my practice problems. "Midterms are around the corner.

"If you've got time to waste on this, might as well knock out a couple more questions."