Chapter 4

Antonia felt a tight, suffocating knot form in her throat, but she swallowed it down. She refused to let them see her break. She would not give Portia or anyone else in this room the satisfaction of a single tear.

Squaring her shoulders, she marched straight down the aisle. Her steps were firm, her gaze locked onto the whiteboard. Ignoring the burning stares and the venomous whispers cutting through the air, Antonia grabbed the whiteboard eraser.

With calm, deliberate strokes, she began to wipe away the disgusting words. She wiped until the board was completely white again, erasing the lies they tried to pin on her character.

But the moment she dropped the eraser, a sharp, wet crack echoed right behind her head.

A raw, slimy yellow yolk splattered across the clean whiteboard, dripping onto Antonia’s shoulder. Before she could even turn around, a barrage of eggs flew from the tiered seats. Crack. Crack. Crack. They hit her back, her arms, and her hair, the foul smell instantly filling the room.

The classroom erupted into a chaotic roar of laughter and cruel jeers. Students filmed her on their phones, pointing and mocking her humiliated state.

Standing at the front of the room, dripping with slime, Antonia felt the crushing weight of the nightmare. It was too much. The cruelty was suffocating. Every instinct told her to run, to hide, to scream.

But as she looked down at her trembling, egg-stained hands, she thought of home. She thought of her family, surviving on cheap meals, counting every peso, and sacrificing everything just so she could have a shot at a better life.

This scholarship was the only thing she had. It was her one golden ticket—the only weapon she possessed to pull her loved ones out of the crushing cycle of poverty.

If she gave up now, Portia wins. If she ran away, her family's future dies with her dreams.

Forcing her breathing to steady, Antonia stood her ground amidst the flying debris and the mocking laughter.

Her heart was breaking, but her spirit remained unbroken. She looked out at the sea of cruel faces, her eyes flashing with a fierce, quiet resolve that completely defied her humiliating state. She would survive this storm, no matter how dirty it got.

The heavy classroom doors suddenly creaked open, and the chaotic laughter died down to a nervous murmur. Professor Santos stepped into the room, her eyes briefly sweeping across the lecture hall.

They paused on Antonia, who stood dripping with egg yolk at the front of the room, surrounded by cracked shells and a ruined whiteboard.

Antonia felt a sudden surge of hope, expecting the authority figure to restore order and punish the bullies.

Instead, Professor Santos simply adjusted her glasses, turned her gaze toward the podium, and began unpacking her lecture materials as if the board were completely clean.

"Settle down, everyone. Open your textbooks to page forty-five," she announced, her voice flat and utterly indifferent. She completely closed her eyes to the glaring injustice right in front of her.

A cold, hard realization washed over Antonia, heavier and more suffocating than the humiliation she had just endured.

She knew it already. She knew exactly what this meant. This was the terrifying reach of Portia's power and wealth.

Portia’s influence was so absolute that she could effortlessly silence a tenured professional, turning a person of authority into a blind bystander.

It was a brutal, silent statement thrown directly in Antonia's face: In this university, money and status can run over someone with no power at all, and no one will ever come to save you.

Looking at the indifferent professor and the smug, smirking faces of her classmates, Antonia felt the crushing weight of her reality.

She was completely on her own, fighting a system rigged by the elite.

Yet, as she pulled out a pack of tissues to quietly wipe the slime from her skin, her despair began to morph into something else—a quiet, dangerous spark of resilience.

They had wealth, power, and the system on their side, but Antonia had a fire fueled by survival, and she refused to let them extinguish it.