Chapter 3
Not all of them were insulting me, but not a single one defended me either.
I handed the phone back. "Thanks for showing me."
Evelyn studied my face. "You aren't mad?"
I met her gaze. "Does being mad actually do anything?"
She didn't say anything.
"Do you know how to track an IP address?" I asked.
She blinked in surprise.
I had seen the books on her desk: Python, cybersecurity, data analytics.
She pushed up her glasses. "What exactly are you trying to do?"
"Help me find out who posted those pictures," I said.
"And if I do?"
"Gather evidence."
She looked at me for a long moment, then gave a single nod.
That night, Evelyn sent me a text.
[Traced the IP from the forum post. It's from Riverbend. The guy used a VPN, but he forgot to turn it on once.
[That specific ping came from right near Riverbend High.]
[What about that burner account in the class group chat?] I asked.
[Registered with a burner phone number. The area code traces back to Riverbend.]
I stared at the screen. The evidence wasn't rock solid yet, but I was definitely on the right track.
I sent her another message. [Can you look someone up for me?]
[Who?] Evelyn replied.
[His name is Adrian Monroe. He's a junior at Riverbend High.]
Evelyn: [What exactly am I looking for?]
[Anything and everything you can find.]
Evelyn spent that entire night digging through every corner of Adrian's digital footprint: Twitter, Reddit, Instagram.
Finally, she sent me a screenshot.
It was from a Riverbend High subreddit. A post from a year ago.
The title was gut-wrenching: [Please just stop posting them.]
The username was "ClaraWannaDie".
The post was brief. [I'm Clara Blackwood from the freshman class. Adrian keeps posting pictures of me. Really ugly ones.
[I begged him to stop, but he won't. The teachers don't care. I don't want to go to school anymore. I don't even want to be alive. Please just stop.]
The comments underneath were brutal.
[Lol, don't be so sensitive.]
[Adrian is just messing around. Why take it so seriously?]
[If you're ugly, why blame someone else for taking a picture?]
The timestamp on that last post was exactly one year ago.
After that, Clara vanished from the internet. Never posted again.
I stared at the glowing screen. Clara wanna die? How was she doing now?
Evelyn's next text popped up. [Found her private Twitter account. She's alive.
[She transferred to a school in Seashire. But her tweets say she's been seeing a therapist.]
I opened the link to her profile.
Her most recent tweet was from three days ago. [Had the nightmares again tonight. Dreaming about the photos.]
Adrian.
So it wasn't just me. You did this to someone else.
That girl almost ended her life.
Did you know that? Did you even care?
I locked my phone and sat on my bed.
Outside my window, the Fairhaven night was quiet.
It felt different from the nights in Riverbend, but the darkness was exactly the same.
Adrian. Did you think I would break like Clara did?
I won't.
I won't beg you. I won't cry.
I will never say I was done. I was going to make you pay.
*****
Day eight.
I tracked down Clara and sent her a direct message on Twitter.
At first, she didn't reply.
I sent another one. [I'm one of Adrian's victims too. My name is Olivia Hastings. He did the exact same thing to me.]
Ten minutes later, she replied: [Really?]
I forwarded her the screenshots from my class group chat.
She went quiet. A long time passed before she sent back a massive block of text.
Clara: [I thought I was the only one.
[He started posting pictures of me freshman year. It went on for six straight months.
[I went to the teachers. My homeroom teacher told me to drop it because Adrian's dad had just donated a new science lab to the school.
[The Vice Principal knew too. He said the school shouldn't get overly involved in petty drama between students.
[Eventually, my dad stormed into the school.
[Adrian's dad actually called my dad.
[Do you want to know what he said?]
[What did he say?] I typed back.
Clara: [He said they were just a few pictures. Kids being kids. He offered to write my dad a check for 16 thousand dollars so we could put the whole thing behind us.
[My dad was furious. He threatened to go to the cops.
[Then the school stepped in to mediate.
[The result of that mediation was Adrian writing a public apology and reading it in front of the whole class.
[When he finished reading it, he smiled. He looked right at me in front of everyone and smiled.
[I will never forget that look on his face.]
I remembered it too. It was the exact same smirk he wore when he watched my backpack get ruined by ink.
[What happened after that?] I asked.
Clara: [The photos got worse. The apology letter did absolutely nothing.
[He even made a Reddit post mocking me. He said I was just a bitter reject who went crying to the teachers.
[The whole school laughed at me. Three months later, I transferred.
[On the day I left, he dropped a voice memo in the class group chat.
[He said, "Who's next?"]
I absorbed her words, reading them line by line.
Adrian. You didn't just do this once.
It wasn't a lapse in judgment. It was a habit. An entitlement.
You honestly believed you had the power to do whatever you wanted.
If you set your sights on someone, they had to comply. If they didn't, you destroyed them.
And after you ruined them, you would just smile and move on to the next target.
[Clara,] I said.
Clara: [Yeah?]
[Do you still have the evidence?]
She hesitated. [I do. The screenshots, the forum threads, a picture of his fake apology letter.
[I even have the audio recording of that phone call from his dad. My dad recorded it. I kept everything.]
[Your dad recorded the call?]
Clara: [Yeah. He said to hold onto it because we might need it someday.]
I took a deep breath. [That day is today.]
Clara: [What are you planning to do?]
[I'm going to make Adrian pay. Really pay. No more fake apologies. No more five thousand dollar checks.]