Chapter 7
In the car, my dad kept one hand on the wheel and the other clenched tight, his knuckles white.
“I want you to tell me the truth,” he said quietly. “All of it. How you knew. Why you froze the card. What you’re afraid of.”
My throat tightened.
“I’m afraid,” I admitted, “that they’re going to try to make me the villain again.”
My mom turned in the passenger seat.
“Again?”
I didn’t answer.
I couldn’t.
But my dad heard the shape of what I wasn’t saying. His face hardened.
At the hospital entrance, chaos greeted us.
Parents packed the hallway. Teachers stood with clipboards like paperwork could contain panic. A few kids sat with ice packs, staring at the floor like they had just realized adulthood didn’t care about excuses.
And the moment I stepped into view, a hush cut through the noise.
Then the whispers started.
“She’s the only one who wasn’t there.”
“How convenient.”
“Look at her. Not a scratch.”
Someone’s mother turned her head slowly and stared at me like I was a stain.
And then Khloe appeared.
She looked smaller without the lights and music. Her makeup had smudged. Her expensive clothes looked out of place beside hospital tiles, but her eyes were sharp, still performing.
She pushed through the crowd like she belonged at the center of it.
Then she pointed at me.
“You,” she cried, her voice loud enough to make every head turn. “Why didn’t you answer? Do you know what happened because of you?”
I blinked at her.
Khloe took a step closer, trembling with rage and fear.
“The whole class—everyone.” She choked, then forced it into a sob. “We got hurt. We’re all going to be affected, and you’re just going to walk into finals like nothing happened?”
I stared at her like she had just offered me a gift.
Then I lifted my hand—not to hit her, but to show them something.
I pulled out my water-damaged phone, the one I had dropped into the bowl, and held it up like evidence.
“My phone died,” I said loud and clear. “I couldn’t answer.”
A few parents scoffed.
I kept going.
“I didn’t go out,” I said, “because I was studying with a tutor at home, in front of my parents.”
My dad stepped forward then, his voice low but sharp.
“My daughter was home,” he said. “All night.”
A woman near the wall snapped, “Then why did Khloe call her? Why was she the one you needed to reach?”
Because Khloe needed a scapegoat.
Because Khloe needed someone to carry the blame so she could walk away clean.
She turned toward the homeroom teacher, her eyes filling on command.
“Teacher,” she whispered, “I didn’t want to say anything, but I have to. Someone planned this.”
The teacher’s face softened.
And I felt it like déjà vu.
Like a cold hand sliding up my spine.
In my last life, adults had believed Khloe, too.