Morning After Prom.

The next morning, the world didn’t feel the same.

It was quieter—but not in a peaceful way. It was the kind of silence that comes before judgment, the kind that fills every corner before laughter erupts behind your back.

I stared at my reflection in the mirror—swollen eyes, bruised cheek, and mascara smudged across my skin like war paint. Grandma’s voice floated in from the kitchen, soft and careful.

“Breakfast is ready, sweetheart.”

I didn’t move.

The lilac prom dress hung over the chair beside my bed, wrinkled and torn at the hem, stained by the dirt from when I ran out of the hall. I wanted to throw it away, to burn it, to erase every memory attached to it—but I couldn’t. Grandma had made it. She’d sewn it with love, each stitch a promise that I was worth something.

So, instead, I folded it neatly and put it in my drawer.

My phone buzzed again. I had turned off notifications, but it wouldn’t stop vibrating. My chest tightened as I picked it up.

99+ messages.

Most from classmates. A few from unknown numbers.

The first one I opened was from Clara.

“ Don’t go to school today, Nova. Please. They’re going crazy online”.

My throat went dry. I clicked on the school group chat—Hillsdale Seniors 2025—and my heart dropped.

Pinned at the top was a video. The video.

Daniel’s name was right there in bold. Daniel Hayes shared a video.

It had already gotten over 500 comments and hundreds of reactions. I didn’t even have to play it to know which one it was. The preview frame showed me—blushing, smiling shyly in Daniel’s car—saying those words that now felt like daggers.

"I’ve always admired you, Daniel. You make me feel like I can breathe again."

I pressed play, and my voice filled the room.

I couldn’t listen. I couldn’t breathe.

They had added captions and laughing emojis across the screen. Someone had written:

 “Ladies and gentlemen, meet Miss Desperate 2025 🤣🤣🤣.”

Another replied:

 “Guess genius girls fall stupid too 😂😂.”

The comments scrolled endlessly.

“She thought she could bag Daniel with her brains.”

“Lilac disaster! She should’ve stayed home.”

“Mandy won. Period.”

“He really slapped her? Damn. She deserved it.”

Each word cut deeper than the slap.

I threw my phone onto the bed, pressing my hands over my ears as if it would block out the noise, but it didn’t. It was everywhere—in the air, in my head, in the walls of that tiny apartment.

Grandma knocked softly. “Nova?”

I wiped my tears quickly and opened the door.

She looked at me, her expression tightening the way it always did when she sensed something was wrong. “What happened?”

I forced a weak smile. “Nothing, Grandma. Just school stuff.”

“School stuff doesn’t make you look like you haven’t slept all night.”

I wanted to tell her everything—the humiliation, the laughter, the video—but I couldn’t. She’d already lost her daughter to my father’s betrayal. I couldn’t give her another reason to break.

“I’ll be fine,” I whispered.

Her eyes lingered on me for a moment before she nodded slowly. “Then eat before you go.”

I didn’t have the heart to tell her I wasn’t planning to.

By the time I got to Hillsdale High, the whispers had already begun.

The moment I stepped into the hallway, I felt it—eyes everywhere.

Students huddled in groups, pretending to chat but stealing glances at me, muffling laughter behind their hands. A few phones pointed discreetly in my direction.

“Is that her?”

“Yeah, that’s Nova.”

“She’s the one in the video.”

My fingers clenched around the straps of my backpack. I kept my head down and walked faster.

Then I heard the first voice—sharp, mocking.

“Hey, Nova!”

I stopped. Slowly, I turned.

Mandy stood near her locker, surrounded by her glittering circle of friends. Her golden hair shimmered under the fluorescent lights, and her lips curled into a satisfied smirk.

“Big night, huh?” she said, pretending to wipe imaginary tears from her eyes. “You really went viral. I guess you finally got everyone’s attention.”

Her friends snickered.

“Don’t you have class to go to?” I muttered, trying to move past.

“Oh, relax,” she said. “You should be thanking me, honestly. If Daniel hadn’t recorded that, no one would even remember your name.”

I froze. “You knew?”

Mandy leaned close, her perfume nauseatingly sweet. “Of course I did. Who do you think convinced him to share it? We make a great team.”

My vision blurred with anger. “You’re cruel.”

She tilted her head, smiling like it was a compliment. “And you’re naive.”

The bell rang before I could respond. Mandy patted my shoulder lightly and sauntered off.

Her laughter echoed behind her, loud and deliberate.

Classes were worse….

Every time I raised my head, I caught someone staring. Every time I walked to the front of the room, whispers followed.

“Poor thing.”

“She probably begged him for a kiss.”

“She’s not even that pretty.”

The teachers didn’t say anything, but their eyes carried pity, and pity was worse than mockery. It made me feel small. Weak.

By lunch, I couldn’t take it anymore. I escaped to the old music room—my quiet corner of the school. It was where I used to study with Daniel, where we’d laughed over failed notes and shared dreams.

Now, it smelled like dust and betrayal.

I sat on the piano bench, pressing the same keys he once did. The sound was soft, trembling, uncertain—like me.

The door creaked open. Clara stepped in, her expression filled with worry.

“I told you not to come today,” she said gently.

“I had to,” I replied. “If I stayed home, they’d think they won.”

She sighed and sat beside me. “You don’t have to prove anything to them, Nova.”

I looked down at my hands. “It’s not about them anymore. It’s about me. I need to face it.”

She hesitated, then whispered, “Daniel posted the video on his I*******m too. He captioned it—‘Know your level.’”

My stomach twisted. “Know your level?”

She nodded. “People are making memes now. It’s bad.”

I stared at the piano keys, my reflection faint on the glossy surface. “So that’s what I was to him. A level.”

Clara’s voice broke. “He’s a monster.”

“No,” I said quietly, shaking my head. “He’s human. Monsters have hearts—they just hide them better.”

When school ended, I walked home instead of taking the bus. I needed the air. The city buzzed around me—cars honking, people chatting, the scent of roasted peanuts from the street vendors. Ordinary life.

But inside me, nothing felt ordinary anymore.

Halfway across the Brooklyn Bridge, I stopped and stared at the skyline. The sunset painted the buildings in gold and rose, the same colors that had once made me dream of a future filled with love and laughter.

Now, it just looked distant.

My phone buzzed again. A message from an unknown number.

‘ You should have seen your face when he slapped you. Priceless 😂😂’.

My fingers trembled as I blocked the number. Another message popped up. Then another. I turned the phone off completely.

I leaned against the railing, closing my eyes. The cool wind brushed against my skin, carrying the faint scent of the river.

I thought of Grandma. Of Mom. Of every moment I’d been silent while people hurt me.

And I realized something.

They could laugh at me. They could humiliate me. But they couldn’t break me—not unless I let them.

Silence wasn’t weakness. It was control. It was the power to choose when to speak—and how loud that voice would be when I finally did.

That night, when I got home, Grandma was asleep. I tiptoed into my room and sat by the window, looking out at the stars.

Somewhere, in another part of the city, Daniel was probably laughing at another meme, Mandy was basking in the attention, and my name was trending in the school chat for all the wrong reasons.

But I wasn’t going to cry anymore.

I opened my journal,the one place I could be myself—and wrote:

“They laughed at me today. But someday, they’ll remember me for something they can’t mock. I’ll rise quietly, like dawn and blind them with what they never saw coming”.