Chapter 5
Sophia was back at school on Thursday to give her account.
I saw her through the office window as I passed. She sat between her parents, twisting a bracelet around her wrist. For the first time since I had known her, she looked uncertain.
I felt no joy in it. I wanted her to tell the truth.
At the end of the day, Mr. Walsh asked whether I would speak with an independent reviewer the board had brought in. Her name was Ms. Porter. She met me in an empty classroom without Dad or anyone from the school administration.
She asked me to tell the story from the beginning. I did. She did not interrupt, even when my voice shook.
When I finished, she said, “I’ve watched the footage. I also want to understand what happened before that day.”
I told her about the photograph of the SUV and the rumors Sophia had started. I told her about the comments she made whenever Mrs. Reyes crossed the hallway with her cleaning cart.
“Did you report them?”
“Once. I told a teacher Sophia called Mom a thief because we couldn’t afford a new bike.”
“What happened?”
“The teacher told us both to be kind.”
Ms. Porter wrote it down.
“She spoke to both of you?”
“Yes.”
“Did anyone ask what Sophia had said?”
“No.”
I could see her pen pause.
On Friday, Dad’s legal director told us what had happened with the construction payment. Sophia’s father, Grant Mercer, had tried to persuade a Carter Holdings executive to hold money owed to his company’s subcontractor until Dad “helped calm the school situation.” The executive refused and reported the call.
“It doesn’t change what happened in the courtyard,” Dad told me. “But the school board needs to know he tried to interfere.”
“I don’t want his workers to lose their jobs because of Sophia.”
“They won’t. The project has a contract, and people will be paid for their work.”
That mattered to me. I knew what Sophia had done. I did not know the workers who depended on their wages.
At home, Mrs. Reyes found me staring at the necklace in its small box. A jeweler had repaired the clasp, but the missing stone had left an empty space. Dad had asked the jeweler not to fill it until I chose.
“Do you want to wear it?” she asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Then it can rest.”
I closed the lid.
“Mom trusted you with so much. Were you ever angry she asked you to keep it secret?”
“Sometimes,” Mrs. Reyes admitted. “Not because I wanted people to know I was a trustee. Because I watched you swallow insults about my job, and I couldn’t tell you why your mother chose me.”
“She chose you because she trusted you.”
“Yes.”
I leaned against her shoulder.
“I should have defended you more.”
“You did defend me, Mia. I heard you yesterday, and I’ve heard you for years. You can love me without taking every cruel word into your own heart.”
The next morning, I went with her to the school garden. She helped care for it on weekends. Two scholarship students were there watering seedlings. Neither knew I had anything to do with the fund that helped them attend Bellmont.
One of them, a younger boy named Eli, looked up from a tray of plants.
“I saw what happened,” he said.
I froze.
“I’m sorry I didn’t say anything. I thought if I did, Sophia would come after me too.”
His honesty took the anger out of me.
“You can still tell Ms. Porter what you saw,” I said.
“I already did. Yesterday.”
“Thank you.”
He nodded and returned to the seedlings. I helped him move the trays into the sun.
On Monday, the board sent Dad and me a summary of its decisions. Sophia had been suspended for taking and damaging the necklace and for repeatedly harassing me. Logan had been suspended for kicking me and for his part in the harassment. Both would have to complete school work during their suspensions and meet with the reviewer before returning.
Mr. Walsh was placed on leave while the board examined how he had handled earlier complaints and the courtyard incident. Ms. Porter would review reporting practices across the school.
I read every page.
“Is that what you wanted?” Dad asked.
“I wanted them to believe what happened,” I said. “I wanted it to stop.”
“It has stopped for now.”
I looked at the words “for now” in the letter. Sophia and Logan would return. I would still have to walk the same halls.
“I need to know what happens when they come back.”
Dad nodded. “Then we’ll ask.”
May you like
That afternoon, a letter arrived addressed to me in Sophia’s handwriting. I held it for a long time before opening it.
The first line read, My parents told me to apologize, but I’m writing because I watched the video again.
