Their friendship deepened when they were paired for a physics project, his mathematical brilliance complementing her experimental approach. For the first time since arriving at Westfield, Aaliyah felt like she might have found her place.
But the reprieve was short-lived.
One morning, Aaliyah's phone buzzed with messages from classmates asking about her social media posts. Confused, she discovered someone had created a fake profile in her name, filled with provocatively altered photos—her face photoshopped onto other bodies—and false claims about sleeping with teachers for grades. Anonymous accounts, clearly Logan's group, flooded the comments with racist jokes and mockery.
Overnight, whispers and stares followed her through the hallways. Even teachers gave her sidelong glances.
When she reported it to the school counselor, the response was infuriating.
"Perhaps you should be more careful about your online presence," the woman suggested with a concerned expression that didn't reach her eyes. "College admissions officers look at these things, you know."
"I didn't create that profile," Aaliyah insisted. "Someone is impersonating me."
"That would be very difficult to prove," the counselor said with a thin smile. "The internet can be such a complicated place for teenagers. Maybe this is a good lesson about digital footprints."
That evening, Monica Carter returned home to find her daughter in tears for the first time since starting at Westfield. When Aaliyah explained what had happened, Monica's expression hardened.
The next morning, she put on her best suit—the one she saved for job interviews and parent-teacher conferences—and marched into Principal Callaway's office. Through the glass walls, Aaliyah watched her mother's increasingly animated gestures met with Callaway's placating smiles and dismissive headshakes.
When Monica returned home that evening, her hands shook with barely contained rage. "They claim there's insufficient evidence to identify who created the profile," she told Aaliyah. "Callaway suggested maybe you're having trouble fitting in because of your 'different background.' As if racism is just a difference of opinion."
Aaliyah recognized the expression on her mother's face. She'd seen it before when Monica had fought the previous school district over tracking practices that separated Aaliyah from advanced classes despite her test scores. She'd won that battle through sheer determination, but this was different: this was power entrenched in generations of wealth and connections.