Chapter 3
That night, the parents' group chat completely lost its mind. Messages flooded in so fast my phone lagged. Linda dropped all pretense and started smearing me nonstop: [She's just a substitute teacher with no real standing and no backing, so what's with the attitude? Let's be real—she's just some no-name piano school teacher trying to make money through the preschool. She won't even give a few free lessons, and now she's freezing out my daughter. My husband runs the Riverdale piano scene. One word from him and she won't even get to touch a piano here. And she still acts like she's above everyone else?]
She even dug up a curtain-call photo from one of my performances at Golden Hall, photoshopped my face beyond recognition, and added a vicious caption claiming I had a messy private life, only got onstage through shady connections, and had no business being around children.
The second she posted the picture, the group chat exploded. The same parents who had followed her lead earlier jumped in again: [No wonder she has no patience with kids.] [Fire her before she corrupts them.] [With Mr. Carter around, what's there to fear from one substitute teacher?]
May kept feeding the flames too, hinting—and sometimes saying outright—that I was withdrawn, impatient with children, obviously unfit to teach, and even prone to punishing kids in private. Every single word was fabricated slander.
Looking at the filth on my screen, I wasn't even angry. I just found it ridiculous. I scrolled through all that garbage like I was watching a bunch of clowns, then sent a single message: [I've already saved and notarized screenshots of every slanderous post, and I have the classroom surveillance footage backed up. Whoever is lying already knows it. Next, we'll settle this face to face. Everyone spreading lies about me will be held legally responsible.]
After sending that, I left the group chat on the spot and turned to the important performance I had the next afternoon. I'd have to be out of my mind to keep wasting time on people like that.
The next day, because I had to head straight to a performance afterward, I brought everything I needed with me to the preschool. I wanted to finish my resignation as fast as possible and cut myself loose from the whole mess, but the moment I arrived, Linda and James Carter, Principal Sam, and May Miller were already waiting for me outside.
'Honey, that's her—the bitch who hit our daughter!' Linda Carter screamed, pointing right at me. Beside her stood the heavyset man she'd been bragging about—James Carter.
James Carter narrowed his eyes and threw his weight around. 'You're just some pathetic substitute teacher who plays piano. One word from me, and not a single piano shop or school in Riverdale will hire you again. You won't even get to touch a keyboard. And you dared mess with my daughter?'
Linda kept egging him on, insisting I had to be taught a lesson. James gave a cold snort and then threw me two options. "Give my daughter free one-on-one piano lessons for a full year, until she passes Level 10, then kneel and apologize to her in public—or, if you don't cooperate, I'll get your teaching credential revoked and make sure you're finished in the piano world."
I looked at his smug face, held back my temper, and reached into my bag for my resignation letter. Just then, Yvonne suddenly rushed over, snatched my bag away, and dumped everything inside all over the ground. Among it was the treasured handwritten score my father had left me—and she tore it straight in half.
And she still wasn't satisfied. She threw the ripped pages to the ground, stomped on them hard, and grinned smugly. 'That's what you get for not teaching me piano and for scolding me!' In that instant, all the blood in my body rushed straight to my head, and my last shred of composure snapped.
That was the only handwritten score my father had left behind—the most precious thing from my whole journey with the piano, more important to me than life itself. I stared at the ruined pages on the ground, shaking, while Linda sneered, 'Sweetheart, you should've torn up even more of her stuff. Let her know we're not easy to mess with.'
I lifted my head, my gaze ice-cold, and spoke one word at a time. 'Good. Very good. You started this. Whether you can handle the consequences or not, you brought them on yourselves.' After that, I took out my phone and called the police.