For half a second, everyone just stared.
Then Lukas shouted, “She just dumped it!”
Ms. Ward rushed to the sink. Piper backed away, both hands raised, already performing innocence.
“It slipped,” she said.
But her voice shook.
And from inside the cloudy water, the phone screen still glowed.
The draft was still there.
Part 3: The Screenshot Before The Screen Went Black
Ms. Ward grabbed the phone with blue gloves like it was a piece of evidence in a crime show.
Water ran off the case and onto the tile. The screen flickered once, twice, then brightened. The video draft was still open, the caption still visible, my face still trapped beneath Piper’s lie.
“Do not touch anything,” Ms. Ward said.
Piper laughed, but it came out thin. “You’re acting insane. It’s just a stupid video.”
“Then why destroy it?” Lukas asked.
Piper snapped her head toward him. “Stay out of it.”
That was the first time I saw the room turn on her.
Not fully. Not bravely. But enough.
A girl named Elise lifted her own phone. “I recorded the screen before she dumped it,” she said.
Piper went pale.
Elise looked terrified of herself for speaking, but she held the phone up anyway. “When Nell said the draft was proof, I started recording. I have the saved time.”
Ms. Ward took one step toward her. “Send it to me now.”
Piper’s mouth opened.
No sound came out.
My cheek burned, and my hands had started trembling, but the trembling was different now. It wasn’t just fear. It was my body realizing I might not be alone anymore.
Elise sent the clip.
Ms. Ward watched it with the volume off. Her face hardened.
Then she turned the phone toward Mr. Bell, the workshop coordinator, who had arrived at the doorway with two security staff behind him.
On the video, Piper’s own phone showed everything: the prepared caption, the fake accusation, the timestamp, and then her hand reaching in to destroy it.
Mr. Bell’s jaw tightened.
“Piper,” he said, “come with me.”
“No.” She took a step back. “No, because this is ridiculous. Nell has been trying to sabotage me since last week.”
I blinked.
“Last week?” I said.
Piper’s eyes flashed.
That was her mistake.
Because I had not mentioned last week. Not in front of them. Not once.
Mr. Bell noticed.
“So there is a history here?” he asked.