“I should’ve said something earlier.”
Jada looked at her.
“About what?”
“The page.”
Bree shoved both hands into her hoodie pocket.
“It started as stupid stuff.”
“That doesn’t make the later stuff less real.”
“I know.”
Bree looked embarrassed.
“Sloane got obsessed with it.”
“Why?”
“Attention.”
Jada waited.
Bree continued.
“At first people laughed because she was funny.”
“Then?”
“Then she started checking views constantly.”
Bree looked toward the hallway.
“She’d get mad if a post didn’t do well.”
Jada thought about Micah’s edited video.
A fifteen-year-old boy’s worst moment had become somebody else’s engagement metric.
That realization made her stomach turn.
Bree continued.
“She’s really mad at you.”
“I noticed.”
“She says everybody thinks she’s a monster now.”
“Does she understand why?”
“I don’t know.”
Before leaving, Bree said something Jada remembered later.
“She keeps saying you embarrassed her.”
Jada almost laughed.
“I didn’t post anything about her.”
“I know.”
“She got caught.”
“I know.”
“Then how did I embarrass her?”
Bree shrugged.
“You made it impossible for her to pretend she didn’t do it.”
That was the difference.
Jada had assumed Sloane wanted revenge because she had been punished.
What Sloane actually hated was being known accurately.
February became March.
Graduation began feeling close enough to imagine.
College letters arrived.
Rachel picked up extra shifts.
Micah joined a small after-school basketball league and started speaking more comfortably in class again.
Jada thought perhaps the worst had passed.
Then Sloane lost something else.
The school’s annual spring showcase included a student-produced video played before performances began. Sloane had edited the video for the previous two years and expected to do it again.
Because she had been removed from media activities, Olivia received the assignment.
The showcase video was excellent.
Students loved it.
Teachers praised Olivia.
Afterward, Sloane overheard somebody say the new version was better than last year’s.
The following morning, Jada found a carton of spoiled milk inside her locker.
The lid had been punctured.
White liquid had soaked through two folders and into the sleeve of her spare sweatshirt.
The smell hit before she understood what she was looking at.
Jada stood there staring.
Students passed behind her.
Someone laughed.
Not necessarily at her.
It felt like they were.
That afternoon, Jada finally cried.
Not at school.
She waited until she reached Dawson Diner, changed into her work shirt, went into the employee bathroom, locked the door, and sat on the closed toilet lid.
She cried because she was tired.
Because every small incident sounded stupid when described separately.
Because she had spent four months wondering whether each hallway comment was intentional.
Because she hated feeling relieved whenever Sloane was absent.
Because she had begun organizing ordinary parts of her day around another person’s anger.
A knock came at the door.
Her aunt Carla Dawson spoke from the other side.
“You planning to work today or move into my bathroom?”
Jada wiped her face.
“Give me a minute.”
Carla waited.
Then said, “Open the door.”
“I’m fine.”
“That answer should be illegal.”
Jada laughed despite herself.
She opened it.
Carla took one look at her face.
“What happened?”
Jada told her.
Everything.
Not only the milk.
The account.
Micah.
The rats.
The ketchup.
The hallways.
The no-contact order.
Carla listened without interrupting.
When Jada finished, her aunt leaned against the sink.
“You know what I think?”
“What?”
“You’ve spent months trying to prove you’re not bothered.”
Jada looked away.
“I don’t want her thinking she got to me.”
“Why do you care what she thinks?”
That question stopped her.
Carla continued.
“You think strength means nobody gets to affect you.”
Jada said nothing.
“That’s nonsense.”
Carla reached for a paper towel and handed it over.
“Strong people get tired too.”
That night, Jada told Rachel everything she had not already heard.
Her mother became furious.
Not loud.
Rachel’s anger became quieter as it deepened.
She emailed Keene.
Then called the principal.
Then requested every incident report involving Sloane and Jada.
The school reviewed security footage.
This time they found something.
A camera at the end of the hall showed Sloane entering the locker area carrying a cafeteria milk carton ten minutes before Jada arrived.
The camera did not show her opening the locker.
It did show her leaving without the carton.
Keene called her parents.
Sloane received two days of in-school suspension for violating the no-contact directive and was warned that another incident could lead to a longer removal.
Her mother, Patricia Mercer, argued that the video did not prove anything.
Sloane said someone else might have taken the carton.
No one believed that explanation.
But the discipline remained limited because nobody had recorded the actual act.
Jada wanted graduation to arrive faster.
Instead, April arrived first.
The cafeteria incident happened on a Tuesday.
Nothing special had happened that morning.
That was part of why Jada remembered it so clearly.
She had a statistics test during second period.
Olivia complained about prom shoes before lunch.
Micah texted her a photograph of an awful haircut somebody had given a basketball player and asked whether friendship required honesty.
At 11:42, Jada entered the cafeteria.
Olivia had a yearbook deadline and would eat later.
Jada considered taking lunch to the library.
Then she stopped herself.
She was tired of changing plans.
She bought pasta, green beans, a dinner roll, and a small blue-and-white carton of milk.
Then she chose an empty table near the center of the room.
Not hidden.
Not against the wall.
Not close to a teacher.
Just a table.
Jada sat.
She removed the lid from her food.
Around her, hundreds of conversations blended into the usual cafeteria roar.
She had eaten only three bites when Sloane entered.
Her maroon jacket was open over a black shirt.
Several silver chains hung around her neck.
Pale blue streaks framed one side of her hair.
Bree was not with her.
Two other girls followed several feet behind.
Sloane saw Jada immediately.
Jada did not see her.
She was looking down at her tray.
Sloane stopped behind the table.
One of the girls whispered something.
Sloane smiled.
Then she reached toward the table behind Jada and picked up an unopened carton of milk.
A few students noticed.
One phone came out before anything happened.
Sloane shook the carton once.
Jada lifted her fork.
Then cold milk exploded across the top of her head.
It ran through her braids.
Down the back of her maroon jacket.
Across one shoulder.
White drops splattered onto the table and her lunch tray.
The cafeteria reacted instantly.
Gasps.
Laughter.
Someone shouted.
Jada did not move.
For several seconds, she simply sat there.
Her fork remained in one hand.
Milk dripped from the ends of her hair.
Behind her, Sloane was laughing.
That stillness confused everyone.
People expected Jada to jump.
Yell.
Cry.
Throw something.
She did none of those things.
She placed the fork down.
Very carefully.
Then wiped milk from one eyebrow with the back of her hand.
Her heart was beating so hard she could hear it.
She looked at the white liquid spreading across the tabletop.
The smell brought her immediately back to the locker incident.
For four months, she had been told to document.
Walk away.
Stay calm.
Do not escalate.
Jada had done all of it.
She pushed her chair backward.
Then stood.
The cafeteria became quieter.
She turned.
Sloane was sitting partly against the edge of the table behind her, still smiling.
“What?”
Jada looked at her.
“You poured milk on me.”
Sloane lifted both hands.
“It slipped.”
A few people laughed.
Jada stepped away from her chair.
“You need to leave me alone.”
Sloane’s smile narrowed.
“Or what?”
“Nothing.”
Jada breathed slowly.
“I’m going to clean up.”
She moved toward the aisle.
Sloane stepped down from the table and blocked her.
Jada stopped.