Life Of A Bitch

38

"We questioned Michelle," I say, still hoping that this girl isn't the one behind all this. "I hope you'll come out now, seeing that all your lies are falling apart."

"I don't understand," she says, frowning at me. "There's been some misunderstanding."

"No, there hasn't," Brenna snaps. "Due to some reason, you hate Jennifer so much that you decide to teach her a lesson, as told by Michelle."

"No-"

"You pressurize Michelle into stealing Jennifer's phone from the green room and break into the phone. You hack into her Instagram account, collect some ridiculous pictures of her on her phone and post it there."

"No!" She shouts, standing up, her body taut and her hands trembling- not sure whether from rage or fear.

"No what?" I ask her. "We have evidence. You see my phone here? How do you think we got it back? We went to Michelle and asked her about this whole thing. Now obviously, Michelle is a pure-" I cough to hide my laugh. "-soul who would never do something like that to me, unless under extreme pressure. You blackmailed her about something she wouldn't tell us and under extreme pressure, she had to help you."

"It was dumb of you to ask no one but Michelle, who is my best friend," Brenna stands up, facing her with those sharp criticizing eyes of her. "And it was also dumb of you to keep the phone with her."

"Now you know what happens, don't you?" Aaron smiles. Why does he have to smile in every situation? "You get kicked out of school and arres-"

"Shut up!" Lucy screamed, almost throwing her phone at Aaron. I back away from her and look through the one-way glass door to see if anyone heard the scream. There's no one outside the room. I turn to Lucy again.

"I didn't steal Jennifer's phone!"

"Then who did?" Brenna yells.

"Michelle!"

Brenna looks at me and makes an expression which says I-frickin-told-you. I look down at the smartphone in my hands to see if it's recording. It is.

"She brought me the phone, told me to crack the password on it and hack her Instagram account! I knew nothing about any nude pictures until they were already everywhere," she said, almost teary-eyed.

"And why should we believe you?" She asks her, her voice dripping with contempt.

"Because you should," she whispers, dropping on her chair. "Because I've no evidence to prove my innocence."

"See here, Lucy." Aaron says, approaching her. "You hacked into the account. So, you're not exactly innocent because you were an accomplice in the whole act."

I've to ask her the question that's been bugging me since she admitted that she was the hacker behind this.

"Why did you do this?" I ask her, taking a seat beside Brenna. "Why did you help her in this?  I don't think I bullied you or harmed you or embarrassed you in any way. So why do you hate me?"

I never harm juniors, however annoying they may seem.

Lucy sniffles a little and looks into my eyes. "I don't hate you. I don't even know you personally. I just know that you're very popular and the cheer-captain, that's it."

"Then why did you do it?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

"If you don't help us," I say firmly, banging my fist on the table in front of me. "Then we have no reason to believe that you aren't the mastermind behind this."

She takes a deep breath and looks at her phone. After fiddling with it a little, she slides the phone towards us. Brenna takes the phone in her hands and we frown at it. These are the messages between Lucy and Callaghan. She scrolls up until we reach the messages between them several months before, which is filled with attachments.

"In ninth grade," Lucy begins. "I didn't pay much attention to studies. I don't know why; perhaps I lost interest in it. But as the final terms approached, I realized the gravity of the situation that I might fail and stay a year behind, so I began studying again. But there was so much to cover that I couldn't complete it.

"Around that time, I was on friendly terms with Michelle. So, when I confided in her about the mess I was in-" she pauses abruptly, hesitating.

"Go on," Brenna urges her.

"She- she told me that she could help me a lot in this by giving me the question papers for the upcoming tests-"

"She did what?!" She stands up, leaning further towards her.

"She leaked the papers," Lucy said in a meek whisper, obviously intimidated by her. "If you don't believe me, you can view the attachments she sent me."

I click on the PDF files on the phone and stare at the screen, open-mouthed. The first attachment contained the Chemistry paper. I open all the attachments one by one, to find out that they contain all the exam papers of the ninth grade.

How in the goddamn world did she get hold of these?

Brenna sits down again, shocked by the unexpected turn of events.

Michelle Callaghan.

The so-called teachers' pet.

Leaked the papers.

Damn, what a news.

"I was scared because this was a risky thing to do," Lucy says, sighing. "But, I didn't wanna fail. So, I promised myself that this would be the last time I cheat and passed the exams."

"With flying colors." Aaron ended.

Lucy scowled, looking at her feet. 

"A few weeks ago, when Michelle asked if I could help her in something, I immediately consented to do it. She brought me the phone and it was after I unlocked it that I got to know that it was Jennifer's."

"You could've refused to do that then."

"Yes, I could." She admits, lowering her head so that only her hair-parting is visible. "But I was afraid that Michelle would tell the authorities about the leak. So, I did as she told. I swear I didn't know that she would leak those pictures and everything would get this serious."

We sit in silence for some time, trying to process the information.

"So," Aaron begins after a while. "You're saying, on the night of the SQ Finale week, Michelle stole Jennifer's phone, brought it to you, you broke into it, hacked her Instagram account and gave it to her back, without doing anything?"

"You're recording, aren't you?" She says, looking at me-or specifically at my hands, where the phone is.

"Yeah," Brenna says. "You admit what Aaron asked you just now?"

"Yes."

"And if that's the case, Michelle leaked the photos."

"Probably."

I stop the recording and keep the phone in my pocket. As Brenna warns Lucy against telling anyone of today's events or else she'll report to the authorities about her cheating on her tests, I unzip my backpack and keep the pink phone safely in there. It's expensive and it's not mine so I had to keep it carefully.

All right, time to go confront the devil.