Maia and Ainsley leave me. I think this is temporary because they haven't blocked my phone number or my socials. They need time to decide what they're going to do with me.
But I'm nervous. It's been three days since they stopped sitting with me at lunch.
I don't eat alone. Yuey joins me, loyal as ever, even as my peers look down on my circumstances. If Maia and Ainsley decide to abandon our friendship, I won't be by myself. Things are better than the time when I first lost Natalie.
Speaking of the devil, I haven't seen her since our conversation in the bathroom. She's absent from school again, either skipping class with the other delinquents or back at the psych ward. If she weren't responsible for damaging my reputation, I would not have cared why she was missing.
But I want revenge. If she's hanging around delinquents, I would rather she end up arrested for possession of illegal substances. If she's rotting in the psych ward, I would prefer that she stay there until I graduate from high school.
I would ask Ainsley for help if she weren't so intent on avoiding me. She would want to see Natalie ruined more than I did. Maybe that isn't true anymore. I'm tempted to enlist Yuey, but I quickly toss out that idea. I would be a bad friend if I involved her in my old grudges.
Instead, I try a less conventional approach. I open up my socials, scrolling past degrading messages and comments from other students who followed me. The usual remarks about my poor background. I click on the profile of Natalie's bully. I hesitate for a minute before sending a message request.
The enemy of my enemy is a friend. Unfortunately, it doesn't change the fact that this is a new low for me.
There's no guarantee that whoever runs the account will respond. But still, the intent is there. I would destroy her with the push of a button when presented with the opportunity. After all, she did the same to me.
I'm tempted to also drag Mikael into this dispute because he is the reason why Natalie resents me. If she had his affection, then my economic situation would never be exposed. I wouldn't want him to weigh in on anything, but he would make a good bargaining chip. He is the pawn that she would never refuse to take. For whatever reason, she would do anything for that boy.
But Mikael hasn't been in school recently either. He's been absent for as long as my friends have been ignoring me, if I can still even call them that. A quick text tells me that he's sick, which makes me worried about him.
"Maybe we should pay a visit to your boyfriend," Yuey suggests. "Bring chicken soup."
"He's not my boyfriend." But it's a good idea. Part of me is nervous. What if he refuses to see me because of my secret?
"He should be."
I roll my eyes. "He doesn't have to be anything more than my friend." Despite my crush on him, I mean what I say. I would be cruel to force him to be my boyfriend.
My phone beeps. I glance down at the screen. The online bully accepted my message request and was in the middle of typing a response.
"What's wrong? You look sick," Yuey points out.
Even though I didn't want to involve her, I decided to come clean and explain what I was trying to do. The disapproving expression on her face tells me everything I need to know about what she thinks of my plan, but she doesn't voice her judgment. Instead, she reads the message that the bully sends me.
"Meet me on the Brooklyn Bridge at 4:00 pm." She gives me a pensive look. "It sounds like a setup. Please tell me you won't go."
"I want to see the face of the person who ruined my life." Plus, I was also curious to know who they were. Most people said awful things on the internet because they could do so behind the safety of a screen. The fact that this person was willing to tear away their anonymity meant they weren't afraid of the consequences.
"Let me go with you. You shouldn't have to face this alone."
"What if they target you?" I didn't want Yuey to suffer as I did.
"I'm not scared. I have enough money to make them go away." Her face shifts from arrogant to apologetic. "Sorry, I didn't mean to put it that way."
I appreciate that she was trying to be sensitive about my economic situation, but I didn't need to be coddled. I've been poor my whole life and not because of my own efforts.
"Don't worry about it. I'll let you come," I relented. "But only if you stay out of sight."
"I'll be in disguise," she agrees.
For the rest of the day, I exchange messages with the mysterious online persona. I coax out more specifics about how we were going to meet and what they were going to wear so I could spot them. They told me that I could spot them by their red hat and black jacket. As if they couldn't be vague enough. But I took whatever crumb they gave me to form the bread trail that would lead me to them.
In class, I avoid the resentful stares of my peers. With the exception of Yuey and Mikael, I outranked all of the juniors. The fact that I was poor curdled their mild dislike of my higher grades into hatred. Every time I raised my hand to participate, five more hands shot up in competition. If I asked for help with any of the questions, my seatmates would either ignore me or deliberately give me the wrong answer. When we passed up worksheets to the front of the class, I even saw someone try to erase my responses to write in some nonsense, but the teacher caught them before they could finish.
The sabotage was overwhelming. Being in third place when it came to my GPA was never an issue when my classmates thought I was one of them. In their eyes, I used to deserve my spot. But when their parents spent a fortune on tuition and tutoring, and I was still better than them, things were suddenly unfair. It was easier for them to believe that I was a smart kid rather than a freak that defied the odds.
Yuey didn't understand that. She was outraged on my behalf when some of the more vocal students began throwing money at me to mock my background. She was the one scrubbing obscene names off the metal of my locker and threatening my bullies with expulsion. If it weren't for her, I would shatter under the pressure of the negative attention.
"Don't listen to them. I'm smarter than everyone combined. When I take over the Wang corporation, I will push everyone's family out of their businesses. They will be begging me to stay profitable."
I couldn't tell if she was bluffing, but considering that her family moved from Long Island City to the Upper East Side in a matter of months, they were certainly a force to be reckoned with. It was a reminder of just how scary my best friend could be if anyone got on her bad side.
Still, I felt awful. I wasn't Yuey's responsibility, and she wasn't my shield. We were two girls in high school, not Roman soldiers doing battle with the Visigoths in our history textbooks. But life felt a lot like the latter. The voices of the mob drowned out any reason that a rational person may have.
I never looked forward to school ending, but when the bell finally rang that day, I was happy to exit the building with the rush of students. All of the venom I received from my peers dispersed as they returned to their comfortable, affluent lives. Something else would grab their attention in the future, and they would forget how they treated me. But I will never forget the way they were eager to turn against me, desperate to be mean.
As they were chauffeured back to their penthouses and mansions, I took the train uptown with Yuey to visit Mikael. I bought a plastic carton of chicken soup, a few slices of sourdough bread, and an orange Fanta to give him. For whatever reason, his favorite soda was the orange Fanta, and he delighted in the way it would stain his tongue. I figure it would cheer him up if he were sick and stuck at home.
Yuey greeted the doorman as we stepped into the building. She hits the button for the twentieth floor. The elevator operator pulls down the lever, and we soar up, shooting past the other floors without stopping.
Once we get off, I ring the doorbell of the Svensson home. His mother greets us, taking the bag of food. However, she doesn't invite us inside.
"You just missed Mikael," she informs us. "He went out for a walk on the Brooklyn Bridge. I'm not sure when he'll be back."
"Thank you for letting us know," I say politely. "Maybe we'll see him another day."
As soon as Mrs. Svensson closes the door, we rush to the elevator. What were the chances that he was the one on the bridge wearing a red hat and a black jacket?
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