Chapter Five

Cathy stared at the notification. Her heart skipped. She opened the school group chat, and messages flooded the screen. She scrolled upward, trying to figure out what she had missed while working.

Then she saw it: Oh, poor girl.

Cathy froze. Her eyes stayed on those four words. Then the reactions began. One after another, the laughing reactions multiplied beneath the message. Twenty. Forty. Sixty. The number kept climbing until nearly a hundred laughing reactions appeared beneath it.

Cathy’s throat tightened. She had known people would talk. She had known some students would laugh. But seeing so many people turn what happened to her into entertainment made her eyes burn.

Another message appeared: She really thought that project was going to win the grant.

More laughing reactions followed. Cathy swallowed. She scrolled again: Imagine spending weeks building that thing just for Alex to destroy it in seconds.

Someone replied: He should’ve done it sooner.

Another student sent more laughing reactions. Cathy’s fingers tightened around her phone. Then someone finally pushed back: Why are you all laughing? Alex destroyed her project.

The chat went quiet for a few seconds. Then a reply appeared: Nobody asked you.

Another student added: You weren't there. Stop acting like you know what happened.

Cathy stared at the screen. So someone was actually defending her. Before she could read further, another message appeared: Alex said she shouldn't have brought that garbage to school in the first place.

Cathy’s stomach dropped. She knew exactly what that meant. Alex wasn't sorry. He had already decided how the story would be told, and everyone was expected to accept his version.

Her phone vibrated again. A new photo had been posted. Cathy opened it. Her face appeared in the picture. Someone had captured her standing beside the broken remains of her project, her expression frozen in humiliation.

The caption underneath read: When you realize your big project wasn't as impressive as you thought.

Cathy’s chest tightened. They had taken a picture of her at her lowest moment. She locked the phone. She couldn't look at it anymore.

The apartment fell silent around her. The oxygen concentrator hummed softly from her father's room. For a moment, Cathy stood there with her phone hanging loosely in her hand. Her eyes burned, but she refused to let the tears fall. She couldn't afford to fall apart. Her father needed his treatment, her mother needed the money, and Cathy had too much waiting for her tomorrow.

Her phone buzzed again. She looked down. A private message from an unknown user: You should apologize to Alex tomorrow.

Her eyebrows pulled together. She typed: Why?

The reply came almost immediately: Because you embarrassed him.

Cathy stared at the screen. Alex had destroyed her project in front of everyone, and she was the one who was supposed to apologize?

Before she could respond, another message arrived: You don't want to make him angrier.

Cathy’s expression hardened. She deleted the conversation. Then she noticed something else. The video was no longer staying inside the school group. Someone had shared it outside, and a public post showed it already had hundreds of views.

Her stomach twisted as she opened the comments. The same jokes were spreading. People who hadn't even been at Elite Academy were now laughing at her. Cathy closed the page. That was enough.

She placed the phone on the table and walked toward her father's room. She stopped at the doorway. Her father was asleep, the oxygen tubing resting beneath his nose as the machine continued its steady rhythm. Cathy watched him for a moment. This was why she stayed up late. Why she took every cybersecurity job she could. Why she couldn't afford to let one humiliating day destroy her. Her earnings helped pay for his treatment. She had handled difficult things before. She would handle this too.

But tomorrow, she would have to walk back into the same school where everyone had watched Alex destroy what she had worked so hard to build and kept blind eyes because he was from influencial family.

Her phone buzzed again. Cathy turned. This time, the notification wasn't from the student group. She picked up the phone, her eyes moving across the message:

Elite Academy Administration: Cathy, report to the principal's office at 8:00 a.m. tomorrow.

She read it twice. Her heart sank. “Why me?”

She stared at the screen. Alex had destroyed her project. Students had laughed. Someone had spread the video. And now the administration wanted to see her.

Cathy slowly lowered the phone. Tomorrow had just become a lot more complicated.