ELIANA'S POV
The photo appeared on the gymnasium screen, and Eliana's life ended in front of two thousand witnesses.
She saw it happen in slow motion—her own face, grotesquely photoshopped onto a body she'd never recognize, spread across screens meant for football highlights and pep rally announcements. Bold white letters burned beneath: Riverside's Biggest Mistake—Who Let Her In?
For three seconds, the world held its breath.
Then the gymnasium exploded.
Laughter erupted like a bomb—sharp, cruel, deafening. Two thousand students pointing, gasping, screaming with glee. Someone started a chant. Phones lifted like weapons, recording her destruction from every angle.
Eliana couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. Her body turned to stone in the back bleachers where invisible girls like her always sat—oversized black hoodie pulled tight, calculus textbook clutched against her chest like armor that suddenly meant nothing.
Oh my God, is that really her? a girl shrieked three rows down.
Who even let scholarship trash in here? another voice called out.
The cheerleaders—perfect, golden, untouchable—were doubled over laughing on the gymnasium floor. And standing center court with the microphone, wearing her competition-white uniform and a smile sharp as knives, was Sienna Cross.
Their eyes met across the chaos.
Sienna winked.
Run. The word screamed through Eliana's brain. Run before they see you cry.
She bolted. Stumbled down bleacher stairs while students grabbed at her hoodie, while someone threw a half-eaten granola bar that hit her shoulder, while the chanting grew louder: Scholarship! Scholarship! Scholarship!
The side exit appeared like salvation. Eliana slammed through it, burst into September sunlight, and immediately tripped over her own feet. She hit the parking lot pavement hard—knees scraping concrete, palms burning, glasses flying off her face.
Behind her, the gymnasium doors crashed open. Voices poured out.
Did you see her run?
Someone got it on video, right?
Already posted! This is going viral!
Eliana scrambled for her glasses—one lens cracked, frame bent—and shoved them back on. The world came into blurry focus: rows of cars, a few scattered students cutting class, and her beaten Honda Civic parked in the scholarship lot where rust and poverty lived.
Her phone started buzzing. Then it didn't stop.
Instagram notifications flooded the screen. Comments on posts she'd been tagged in, messages from numbers she didn't recognize, emails from accounts with names like RiversideWhaleWatch and BiggestMistake2024.
LMAOOO who is this???
Scholarship students really think they belong here
Her parents must be SO proud hahaha
Five hundred notifications. A thousand. Fifteen hundred.
The video had been posted six minutes ago.
Eliana's hands shook so badly she nearly dropped the phone. She wanted to throw it. Smash it against the pavement and watch the screen shatter into a million pieces that could never hurt her again.
Instead, she opened the video.
Her own humiliation played back in crystal-clear quality: Eliana frozen in the bleachers, face white with shock. The obscene photoshopped image filling the screen behind her. Students laughing so hard some were crying. Sienna's voice crystal-clear through the microphone: Just a reminder that Riverside has STANDARDS. Some people clearly forgot.
The comments were already brutal:
Why is she even at our school?
Scholarship mistake fr
Imagine being this desperate for attention
Views: 247,000.
Shares: 15,000.
The numbers climbed while she watched.
A car horn made her jump. The parking lot security guard leaned out his window. You cutting class, Miss Grant?
I—I'm sick. Going home.
He waved her off without interest.
Eliana fumbled her keys three times before getting the car door open. Collapsed into the driver's seat. Locked the doors. And finally—finally—let herself break.
The sobs came violent and ugly, tearing out of her chest like something dying. Mascara she'd carefully applied that morning ran down her cheeks in black rivers. Her whole body shook.
She'd survived three years at Riverside High by being invisible. Head down, mouth shut, never making waves. Tutoring rich kids for cash they'd hand over in parking lots while pretending not to know her name in the hallways. Eating lunch in the library bathroom because the cafeteria felt like walking into a war zone.
She'd been careful. She'd been safe.
And Sienna Cross had destroyed her anyway.
Her phone wouldn't stop buzzing. Eliana watched the notifications pile up, each one a tiny knife cutting deeper. Someone had found her parents' bakery—Grant's Artisan Breads, the tiny shop her mom and dad had built from nothing after fleeing their war-torn country fifteen years ago.
If their daughter looks like THAT, imagine the food
No. No, no, no.
Eliana's vision blurred red. She clicked on her parents' business page and watched it happen in real time: One-star reviews flooding in. Cruel comments. Threats. People posting the address, encouraging others to go see the freak's family business.
Her phone rang. Mom's contact photo—her mother's tired, beautiful face smiling in the bakery's kitchen—filled the screen.
Eliana couldn't answer. Couldn't explain. Couldn't face the disappointment in her mother's voice when she learned her daughter had become an internet joke.
She let it ring out.
Then came the text messages. Dozens of them. Most were strangers sending hate. But one made her blood freeze:
Unknown Number:This is only the beginning. You should've stayed invisible. -S
Sienna.
Of course it was Sienna. This whole thing was planned—the photoshopped image, the public announcement, the perfect timing to cause maximum damage.
But why? What had Eliana done except exist quietly in the background where she belonged?
Her phone buzzed again. Different unknown number.
Unknown Number:I need to talk to you. Tonight. It's important. -CA
CA?
Carter Ashford?
No. That couldn't be right. Carter Ashford—star quarterback, walking perfection, Sienna's on-and-off boyfriend—didn't know Eliana existed. They'd never spoken. Never even made eye contact.
She stared at the message, heart pounding for entirely different reasons.
Unknown Number:Please. It's about my sister. I need your help.
Eliana's fingers hovered over the keyboard. This had to be a trick. Another cruel joke. Sienna probably had Carter's phone, planning some new humiliation.
Her phone buzzed a third time.
Unknown Number:I know what happened today. I'm sorry. But this isn't about that. Lily is dying, and you're the only person I trust. 8pm. Grant's Bakery. Please come.
Lily Ashford. The name triggered a memory: eight years old, cancer patient, sweet kid who'd once complimented Eliana's pencil case during a school fundraiser two years ago.
The only Ashford who'd ever looked at Eliana like she was human.
Outside the car, students were filtering out of the building. First period must have ended. Any second now, someone would see her sitting here crying in her beat-up Honda, and tomorrow's viral video would be Scholarship Whale Has Breakdown in Parking Lot.
Eliana wiped her face, started the engine with shaking hands, and drove away from Riverside High.
She didn't know if she'd ever come back.