Gmail

Pietra Tiorano

Subject: Tagged on Twitter

Hey, Bella! Got your email address from Insta. I'm so happy about our encounter yesterday. Have you checked your Twitter? I just wanted to say hi and let you know how awesome I think you are. Don't let anyone drag you down.

PJT.

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Wyland High School

Subject: Hot News

Travon Justice, who virtually everyone at WHS thinks is perfect, is actually messed up. Dropping grades (and he's 'coding club' captain?) + separated parents (personally I saw this one coming. Have you seen that family?) + a WHOLE lot of weed... and maybe (probably) the harder stuff too = a terrible recipe.

Wyland female population, what do you think now?

Bella was livid.

Enduring the tension-filled ride to school with someone's secrets making the laptop in her lap heavier, somehow, was one of the hardest things she had ever done.

She received two emails that morning. One from Pietra and the other from her school—which she now understood was just a cover, because the school's system was obviously hacked.

Her blood was boiling in a way it had never done before. She wasn't sure who exactly she was mad at—maybe at herself for not understanding and stopping Cody from hurting Travon when he had so much on the line, maybe at Cody for being too much, or maybe even at Beau for reacting—but she knew she was mad.

Cody's look of disbelief as he walked to the car that morning with his phone clutched tightly in his hand added fuel to the starting fire in her.

What right did he have to look like that? He should've been happy.

Throughout the ride, neither of them spoke, but, immediately Cody parked the car in the school's parking lot and got out, Bella followed quickly, determined to address some issues.

He didn't lock the car and was already heading to the entrance, so she tapped on his arm to get his attention.

Around them, students were glued to their phones, devouring everything Wyland had offered them that morning, and the whispers of their thoughts made the school seem even busier than when the Teen Stars had been there.

"Hey," she angrily called, and he turned to her.

"What is it?"

She folded her arms over her chest, her defensive stance, then said, "I know I didn't say anything about this, but why did you hurt Travon, Cody?"

Cody smiled, almost making Bella want to punch the look off his face. She didn't know her brother could be such a jerk. "I think it's too late for you to ask that question, Bella."

"What's so funny? And what makes this such a bad time?"

"Look, I'm not talking to you about anything Travon-related. Just hearing his name makes me mad, and, while we're at that, Bella, man up, or woman up, whatever. It takes just one person to start a trend and, if you continue acting all innocent, all the boys at Wyland will be running to you just so they could use you and throw you away the way Justice did."

"He didn't 'throw' me away!" she screamed at him, her face burning. What would it take for her to just hit him?

"Keep on telling yourself that. The email doesn't change how I feel, if that's what you think. I don't regret anything I did to him—not even one little bit."

Cody left her standing there in the middle of teenagers, who were now more interested in her than their phones.

She tried catching up with Travon, but, between all the classes she had before lunch, she couldn't find him anywhere. She knew he was in school—she saw his car in the parking lot before she came in earlier—but he was as good as invisible.

During lunch, she set out to find him. After scanning the cafeteria for a few minutes, she went to the only place she hadn't checked: the robotics lab.

When she pushed the door open, she was met with an empty room and an angry wave of memories from the last time she was in there. Shaking her head clear of the thought, she studied every inch of the room as if expecting to see Travon nailed to the wall.

A disappointed sigh escaped her and she turned to leave, but that was when something fell.

She quickly spun around and looked in the direction of the storage room.

She didn't care if she was trespassing as she walked to it and pushed the door open. The room was dark, but the light from the main room illuminated it a little, and she heard what sounded like a phone call before she saw him.

When she listened properly, she realized that it wasn't a phone call, but a voicemail.

"...drugs?" The voice was high-pitched and obviously belonged to a female. "Seriously, Travon? And, on top of all of that, you're ignoring my calls. You're not escaping this one." The woman started crying, but her voice still held its anger. "You're coming home immediately after school, and we're going to talk about it. I already called your father and he's on his way home."

The voicemail ended, and she stared at Travon, who was sitting on the floor with the hood of his black hoodie pulled over his hung head. Her hand was still on the door and, politely, she knocked, even though she knew he had noticed her.

He didn't move, and she left the door open so light could go in, then walked to him. She gently lowered herself beside him and gave him a sideways glance, a bit nervous.

She could understand how he was feeling; it wasn't everyday a person woke up to something as terrible as that.

"What are you doing here?" he asked quietly, his voice deeper than usual, and that was when she noticed it—he was crying.

She didn't know why, but she took his hand. It startled him, but he eventually relaxed, and she held his too cold hand with both of her warm ones and placed it in her lap. "How long have you been in here?"

He didn't say anything for a long time. "Does it matter?"

"Your hand is so cold, Travon." She didn't know what to say to him. What could she have possibly said?

Travon used his free hand to clean the tears off his face, then said, "They didn't tell me they knew... about my grades or the fact that—that I'm dealing." She listened to him breathe for a while. "They sent it to my mom, too. She's been calling me, but I'm terrified of what she'll say so I haven't been picking up."

"I'm so sorry." She was realizing that she didn't exactly like it when a boy cried where she was present. First it was Beau, and now it was Travon. It confused her and made her a little uncomfortable.

"You should be happy, Bella. This is exactly what I deserve for what I did to you."

"What you did wasn't right, I agree, but this is too much—it's unfair."

"It's not. I humiliated you... and don't tell me I didn't. I heard what people were saying about you. I felt like hitting them all every time I heard your name from their mouths."

"Isn't that why you did it? To have me humiliated?"

"I didn't know I would hate it as much as I did."

She drew in a breath, remembering what Cody said to her in the parking lot. "Look, I'm not going to say anything more, but, after everything you did for them, if they could still do this to you, then I don't think you should keep their identities a secret."

He hesitated, then said, "Forgive me for everything—genuinely—and I'll tell you who they are."

Her hands trembled at the thought of finally knowing who YWN was. "I forgive you. With all my heart, Travon. I forgive you, okay?"

After she said it, she held her breath, impatiently waiting for him to say something.

Then, finally, he said the names that had her releasing her breath. "Jun, Fleur and Frankie."

"Fleur?"

"Algernon, yeah."

She couldn't believe her ears. Fleur was a part of it.

* * *

Bella prayed she had enough time to talk to Beau before the bell rang as she rushed to the cafeteria after talking to Travon.

She needed to tell him what was going on, and the adrenaline made her throat feel dry.

She spotted him at a table and hurried to his side. When he turned to her after she had taken a seat, his eyebrows raised in curiosity, and he gave her an amused smile.

"What's up?"

She swallowed to hydrate herself, then readied herself to speak, but, before she could get a word out, a hand slammed down on the table, making her flinch, and she looked up to see an angry-looking Fleur.

At the sight of her, the admiration Bella had for her evaporated, and, as she stared at her, it took all she had not to scream the truth for everyone in the cafeteria to hear.

Fleur threw her a dirty glance, her eyes shooting daggers at her and, if Beau noticed, he didn't say anything about it.

Ignoring Fleur and suddenly feeling intimidated by the way she towered over her, Bella turned back to Beau, who looked more confused than anything.

"Did you two race here?" he innocently asked, and she took one of his fries, trying to act casual after losing her courage at the last minute.

"We need to talk," Fleur said, fixing her hazel eyes on her brother. "In private."

"What's wrong?"

"In private, Beau," she said through gritted teeth, and Beau stared up at her for a while, before looking at Bella.

"I'm sorry. I'll see you later, okay?"

She couldn't respond, and he sensed something was wrong, but his sister's sudden tug on his arm prevented him from asking if she was okay.

He managed to give her a kiss on the cheek from behind as Fleur pulled him past her. The sensation made her body tingle with both excitement and fear, and, when she turned in their direction, she saw Fleur glaring at her over her shoulder.

When she turned away, she caught the eyes of Jun and Frankie, who were both on the other side of the room, and the way they were looking at her made a chill run down her spine.

They knew that she knew about them, that much was obvious. But that also meant they were watching her more than she thought.

* * *

Maggie-Lyn was playing a JoJo Siwa song in Bella's room when Bella got home. She had done things absentmindedly after lunch, feeling like every move she made was being monitored, so she wasn't paying attention when she walked into her room, and didn't notice the clothes scattered everywhere until she tripped over a pile of them.

When she regained her balance, she fiercely kicked off the tiger-striped jumpsuit that had wrapped itself around her right foot, then turned to her cousin with a glare.

Maggie-Lyn had five empty suitcases around her and was in the process of emptying another one. "Where is it?" she kept muttering.

"Maggie!" Bella exclaimed. Her room looked like a rainbow's toilet. "What is this?" she asked, extremely annoyed.

"I'm literally looking for my backup phone and, until I find it, I literally can't talk, sorry."

Bella stared at her, confused. "Backup phone? What are you talking about?"

"I said I literally can't talk!" Maggie-Lyn snapped, flinging clothes backwards. It was like a movie scene, where the main character had a big date coming up and couldn't figure out what to wear. The only difference was that it was messier and sparklier.

Bella shook her head, then walked to her study table. "Whatever. Just clean up when you're done."

"Done. Got it," Maggie-Lyn replied, distracted.

Bella took her laptop out of her backpack, then set it on the table. She wasn't in the mood to do anything particularly productive, and she was also scared of going online, so she just stared at the laptop for a while, before sitting in front of it.

She had a ton of homework to do, but that was the least of her problems.

She kept thinking about Travon and Beau, and how Travon was doing, and what Fleur dragged Beau off for.

A video-call request came in on the laptop, drawing her out of her thoughts, and she was surprised at the caller.

"Stephanie," she said after accepting the call, a little bit in shock.

Stephanie smiled, her face glowing. "Hi, Bella!"

"Hi." The air was a bit awkward and the both of them could sense it. Their shaky smiles and constant blinking were big indicators. Bella joined her hands below her chin. "Wow, you look great."

"Thanks. You, too."

Bella knew she was lying—she looked anything but great, according to the mirror in the girl's bathroom at school. She nodded anyway, then said, "So... how're things?"

"Things are cool. Last night, Gabrielle and I did each other's hair. How about on your side of the planet? How are things?"

Her first instinct was to lie. "Things are awesome." When the words were out of her mouth, she realized 'awesome' was overstretching it.

"And Viola?" There was hesitation in Stephanie's voice that time, and Bella couldn't help the skip of her heartbeat. She didn't say anything for a while, making Stephanie give her a sad smile. "Bella, I actually called to apologize to you."

She subconsciously straightened in her chair. "Apologize for what?"

"For what I said at the sleepover. I shouldn't have brought that up." Stephanie's face froze up for a moment, before she came back on. "Sorry about that. Actually, we planned the whole thing before Amparo called—Fleur, Jun, Frankie, Amparo and I. It was Amparo's idea."

"But why did you go along with it?" If she was getting a confession, she needed a full one. She massaged her temple at the first sign of a developing headache.

"When... when I was still in LA, Bella, you were... amazing. You had so many fans and such an amazing life and I guess I—I felt a little jealous you had that."

Stephanie Baldesco was jealous of her? But, at one point in her life, Bella was the jealous one. How enlightening.

"So I told Amparo, and Viola's issue slipped by mistake. Then she suggested we did something to throw you off balance a little. I'm sorry, Bella."

Bella smiled. "Steph, you put this big, uncrossable hole between Viola and I. I'm sorry, but 'sorry' just won't do."

"I know, but please. I didn't want to bring up her problem—at first. Amparo forced me to do it, and I just thought it was perfect that Viola felt overshadowed by me, and I—"

Hold on.

Both Stephanie and Bella froze.

Bella knew she only told Stephanie that Viola had an 'issue'. She never mentioned anything about Viola feeling overshadowed, so how did Stephanie know?

Stephanie's eyes widened in realization and, before Bella could say anything about what she just said, she hung up.

* * *

It's not over, guys! Quick checkup question: how have you been feeling these past few chapters? Thoughts, theories, predictions? I'd love to hear your thoughts!

As always, I love you guys! Thanks for reading! 💕