I tried to escape.
Jessica shoved me, and my face struck the open door of a metal locker.
My nose broke.
And Michael had stood in the corner, recording everything on his phone.
“You recorded me?” I asked.
“I was a stupid fifteen-year-old kid.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“Yes,” he said. “I recorded it.”
The video spread through the school the following day. That was when the names “beak,” “witch,” and all the others had begun.
Michael’s father was an influential businessman. He had come to the hospital and offered my mother money in exchange for her silence.
“How much?” I asked her.
She couldn’t look me in the eyes.
“Forty thousand dollars.”
I laughed.
But there was no joy in that sound.
“You sold the truth for forty thousand dollars?”
“Your father was sick,” she sobbed. “We were drowning in debt. They also threatened me. They said that if I went to the police, they would make it look as though you had attacked Jessica first.”
