Chapter 2
Marcus clapped. He was the one who laughed the loudest the second I fell.
I stood quietly on the roof railing, looking down at the empty football field.
Three days after my death.
People in the class chat started changing the group name.
It went from "Jenna the Homewrecker" to "Jenna Memorial." Avatars turned gray, and the chat got eerily quiet.
But some people still joked around like nothing happened.
Amelia Rose was one of the first people to make my video go viral.
"She actually looked back at the camera before she jumped. She totally knew I was filming. But she didn't stop me, did she?"
She giggled while telling her roommates this, treating my death like a trending video.
I clearly remember her standing by the railing that day, recording me with a twisted look of excitement.
Later, she was the one who turned my fall into a meme collage and dropped it into the school's gossip board.
Her caption read: [How many likes for the girl who jumped off a building over a guy?]
The first night, she was completely fine.
But as she walked home the next day, someone took a picture of her.
It ended up on the anonymous campus Reddit with the title: [Isn't this the girl who secretly filmed Jenna before she died?]
The comments flooded in.
[She's totally chasing clout.]
[How is she still smiling?]
[Milking a tragedy for attention?]
At first, she tried to defend herself in the replies, claiming she just forwarded it and meant no harm.
But then she realized new pictures and screenshots were popping up every single day.
A video of her checking tampon prices at the convenience store. A blurry photo of her flirting with a senior. A gif of her sitting in the library wearing a high-slit skirt on the day I died.
She stopped leaving her dorm.
Eventually, she posted a desperate plea for help.
[Can someone please tell me why these people know my every move? I never posted these pictures! Why does it feel like I'm being stalked?]
Nobody replied to her.
Just like nobody replied to my final Snapchat story: [I didn't steal anything, and I didn't sleep with that teacher.]
She tried deleting the threads. The more she deleted, the more popped up.
Her complete breakdown happened on a Friday night.
Someone leaked an audio clip of her laughing while talking about my suicide.
Her voice was plastered all over the internet. "If she actually jumps, I'll clap!"
Sound familiar?
Yes, it was almost the exact same thing Marcus had said.
That was her problem.
She thought she was just watching a show and filming a funny clip.
*****
Nobody expected who the fourth victim would be.
It wasn't Marcus. It wasn't Amelia. It wasn't even the girls who called me a fake bitch in the group chat.
It was Connor Bradley, my homeroom teacher.
He was right down there in the courtyard when I stood on the edge of the roof. Not too far, but not too close.
Close enough to clearly see my trembling legs, but far enough to pretend he didn't.
"She's emotionally unstable. Don't provoke her." His tone was completely flat when he said that, like he was breaking up a minor hallway argument.
But his next sentence was: "Everyone disperse. Stop crowding around."
Nobody dispersed. And he didn't bother saying it a second time.
Later, during the official incident briefing, he summed it up perfectly.
"This was an extreme, isolated case. It had no direct correlation to the school environment."
I remember it clearly. Because the second those words left his mouth, the entire class breathed a collective sigh of relief.
It meant it wasn't their fault.
Connor thought the exact same thing.
His turn came a week later.
He was writing on the whiteboard during class when he suddenly lost his balance. He staggered backward.
A student instinctively reached out to catch him, but he couldn't grab onto anything.
He collapsed next to his desk, his face pale and dripping with sweat.
One of the students called out, "Mr. Bradley, are you okay?"
He stared blankly at the board, his voice incredibly weak. "I just... I felt like the ground completely dropped out from under me."
Nobody understood what he meant. They just assumed he was lightheaded.
But from that day on, he was terrified of standing near the edge of the podium.
He had to press his back against the wall while lecturing.
He gripped the handrails for dear life on the stairs. At every hallway corner, he had to stop and check for a safety guardrail.
The school counselor pulled him in for a chat.
"I keep having this recurring nightmare," Connor admitted. "In the dream, I'm standing in front of the humanities building, watching one of my students fall.
"Everyone is just watching, and so am I.
"But I just... I don't move."
His eyes were bloodshot when he said it.