Chapter 7
1398words
After that terrifying experience on the mountaintop, she found me at the lunch table at school the next day, wearing a perfectly impenetrable smile.
"Jules! Oh my god, did I scare you yesterday?" she sat across from me as if we were old friends who had known each other for years. "I just saw Leo's car, you know, old friend, just checking in."
Her explanation was flawless, but I couldn't forget that flash of suspicion I'd seen in her eyes.
I just nodded vaguely and kept my head down, focusing on my salad.
"We should hang out more," she continued, completely unfazed by my coldness. "That's what girls should do."
I've never had any real female friends. In all those past years, girls either ignored me or treated me with contempt. Savannah's initiative was like a beautifully wrapped candy; even knowing there might be poison inside, my craving for sweetness made it impossible to resist.
I agreed.
So we started having afternoon tea together, shopping together, and discussing the latest beauty bloggers together. She would take me to the hottest dessert shops in town, buy me expensive clothes, and even drive me home herself.
She showed great interest in everything about me, especially my makeup techniques.
"You're literally an artist, Jules," she remarked once, watching me skillfully cover a newly emerged pimple with concealer. "You can almost create a completely new face."
It sounded like a compliment, but sent a chill up my spine.
She always seemed to casually ask about my past. "What was your previous school like?" "Have you always been so good at dressing up?" "I can't believe we've only just met."
Under her sugar-coated bombardment and watertight questioning, my pitiful guard gradually crumbled. I told her the reason for my transfer, vaguely mentioning that I was once "not very sociable" and had gone through a difficult time.
I thought this was heart-to-heart sharing between best friends.
What I didn't know was that behind her perfect smile, a pair of icy eyes was coldly scrutinizing every fragment I revealed, then using her powerful information network to piece them together into a complete weapon that could be used to destroy me.
She found it.
She found my old social media account, the one I thought I had completely deleted and buried in the internet graveyard. There was all my past that I couldn't bear to revisit—bare-faced photos with acne all over, awkward smiles with braces, and those vicious comments below.
That was the physical evidence of my nightmares.
When Savannah and I were picking out dresses for the upcoming annual ball, she was using her other phone to save those photos one by one.
"How about this blue one?" She held up a starry blue tulle dress. "It will make you the center of attention."
Looking at the unfamiliar, pretty girl in the mirror, I felt for the first time that perhaps I really could be the center of attention, rather than hiding in the shadows in some corner.
I didn't know that the "battle dress" she picked for me was only meant to make my fall more spectacular and more devastating.
On the night of the ball, I felt like I was living in a dream.
Leo didn't accompany me to the event, our relationship remained that secret that couldn't see the light of day. But that's okay, he had already given me a hot enough "goodbye kiss" in the studio the night before, and ordered me "not to look at any man other than me for more than three seconds."
I was wearing the blue gauze dress that Savannah picked for me, with the most elaborate makeup I'd ever worn. When I walked into the gymnasium decorated like a galaxy wonderland, I could feel those gazes directed at me, no longer curious or scrutinizing, but amazed.
I even heard someone whispering, "Is that Juliet Lim? When did she become so beautiful?"
This was the moment I had dreamed of.
Savannah came to my side like a dutiful hostess, linking her arm with mine. "See, I told you, you look as beautiful as a star tonight."
"Thank you, Savannah," I said sincerely, "this all feels like a dream."
"The show is just beginning." She smiled meaningfully, raising her phone. "Come, let's take a photo."
The flash went off, capturing my happiest moment, and also freezing the last second before I fell into hell.
The party atmosphere reached its peak at the climax. The DJ was playing a highly rhythmic pop song, colorful lights swept across everyone's faces, and all were immersed in the revelry. I was pulled into the center of the dance floor by several classmates, dancing clumsily but happily to the music.
I felt lighter than I ever had before.
Just then, Savannah walked to the DJ booth and said a few words to the DJ.
I thought it was just routine communication as the student council president.
The next second, the music came to an abrupt halt.
The entire gymnasium fell into an awkward silence. Everyone confusedly stopped dancing and looked toward the DJ booth.
Immediately after, a sound rang out. Not music, but a crisp, familiar notification sound belonging to a TikTok video.
One.
Two.
Then dozens, hundreds.
That sound came from all directions in the gymnasium, converging into an eerie symphony. I saw people around me, one after another, lower their heads to look at their phones.
Their expressions changed from confusion, to surprise, then to undisguised contempt and mockery.
Then, those gazes, like arrows dipped in poison, shot toward me all at once.
My heart suddenly sank, and a bottomless fear instantly seized me. With trembling hands, I fumbled for my own phone from my handbag.
On the screen was the TikTok that Savannah had just posted.
The video thumbnail showed my face now, wearing a blue formal dress with perfect makeup, juxtaposed with a bare-faced photo of my past self with severe acne and braces. The contrast between the two faces was so stark it was almost laughable.
Huge, bright red text was displayed in the center of the video: "Your prom queen is a fraud."
The background music was a highly sarcastic children's song, and the video rapidly cut through all my past "ugly photos," each forming a malicious contrast with how I looked now. Comments from past bullying were enlarged and bolded, scrolling one by one.
"She looks like a monster."
"Seeing her makes me want to vomit."
"How does she have the face to exist in this world?"
The video ended with a freeze frame of an old photo where my face was swollen and red from an allergic reaction, with text overlaid:
"Beneath the painted skin, this is all there is."
The gymnasium was deathly silent, with only the background music from the video still emanating faintly from hundreds of phones, like a public funeral held just for me.
My phone screen kept lighting up frantically, with notifications pouring in one after another. My name, my account, was mentioned and judged in everyone's reposts.
I looked up and glanced around.
Everyone was staring at me. Those gazes that I had just moments ago believed were full of goodwill and admiration had now all transformed into naked, schadenfreude-filled spectating. They were like an audience enjoying a spectacular circus show, and I was the clown stripped of my fancy costume, revealing my ridiculous true self.
The brilliant lights of the ball that had been so dazzling now became unbearably harsh, pinning me to the center of the pillory of shame.
I saw Savannah in the crowd.
She stood there, the sweet fake smile gone from her face, replaced by an undisguised pleasure of victory. She held up her phone, camera pointed directly at me, recording my current breakdown and embarrassment.
Her lips silently formed two words to me.
Game over.
I felt my world collapse in that instant, all sounds, light and colors departed from me, leaving only the tremendous roar of blood rushing to my head.
The small evening clutch in my hand slipped to the ground, lipstick and powder compact scattered everywhere, just like my newly built, fragile confidence, shattered to pieces.
I stood atop a pile of ruins, with nowhere to escape.
