Three years ago, Liam Carter bullied me relentlessly at school. I begged him to let me go, but he just stepped on my hand and called me trash. Three years later, he was on his knees, crying and begging me not to leave him. I gave his words right back to him. 1 Backed into a corner by the school’s notorious bully, I sent one last text to my online boyfriend. At that exact moment, the bully’s phone dinged. Liam pulled out his phone. The icy cruelty in his eyes vanished instantly, replaced by a soft, tender warmth. [Be good, Summer. I’m busy right now, just give me a minute.] The second he hit send, my phone gave a faint vibration. It was the special notification tone I had set for my online boyfriend. I stared at him in utter disbelief. He was standing under the streetlight, and his perfect profile and elegant features were exactly the same as my sweet "Liam" from our photos. But the dark, ruthless sneer on his face, a cigarette dangling from his lips, was completely at odds with the gentle boy I knew online. For a moment, my mind couldn't process it. Was this my sweet, loving boyfriend, or was this Liam Carter, the terrifying school bully and Chloe’s boyfriend? "Liam, she’s the bitch who slashed my bag! She’s just jealous because she’s too broke to buy one herself. Poor people are always causing trouble!" Chloe pointed at me viciously, her eyes shining with smug triumph. "I didn't..." I didn't ruin Chloe's bag. Earlier that day, Chloe had tried to slap me for absolutely no reason. When she swung again, I dodged. She lost her balance, fell hard, and completely trashed her brand new twenty-thousand-dollar designer bag. She screamed at me to pay for it. When I said I couldn't, she threatened me, saying her boyfriend, Liam Carter, would handle me. Everyone knew Liam. He was a rich kid from a powerful family. Rumor had it he had serious connections, fought like a complete psychopath, and wasn't afraid of anything. People were terrified of him. They called him a monster. But I never, ever imagined that my sweet, gentle "Liam" online and the monstrous school bully were the exact same person. Liam stood up straight and slowly walked toward me. The warm yellow light spilled over him, but his gaze was as freezing as ice. His tall frame loomed over me. I instinctively clenched my fists. Then, I heard his cold, detached voice. "Two choices. You pay for it, or you get on your knees and apologize." His cold, dismissive attitude was lightyears away from the tender, affectionate boy on my phone. I couldn't describe the twisted feeling in my chest. In a moment of pure, stubborn defiance, I stared back at him and said, "Would you believe me if I said I didn't ruin her bag?" Liam stared at me for a few seconds, then let out a sudden, mocking scoff. "You really don't know what's good for you." He turned away, his voice dripping with impatience. "Teach her a lesson." The blood in my veins turned to ice. My ears started ringing. His cronies forced me to my knees. They slapped me relentlessly and kicked me in the stomach. The pain was so agonizing I couldn't even scream. Liam leaned casually against the wall, completely indifferent to what was happening, smiling tenderly at his phone screen as if waiting for a message. I curled into a tight ball, taking every punch and kick, the tears streaming down my face unstoppably. The result of being beaten by several grown men was that I couldn't get up for a very long time. Two of my teeth were knocked loose, and the blood I coughed up stained my collar red. I lay there like a dead fish for three solid hours before I finally scraped together enough strength to crawl home. I didn't dare tell my parents. They were honest, hardworking people from a rural town. They had moved to the city to give me a better life, but they were already struggling just to make ends meet. Honestly, the only reason I was bullied was because we were poor. Every time they called me "hick," "cheap trash," or sneered, "Selling you wouldn't even cover the cost," it felt like knives in my heart. That was when I learned that being poor meant you didn't deserve dignity. You only deserved to be stomped into the mud. "Hiss—" I quietly applied ointment to my bruises. It hurt so much. My phone kept chiming with that special notification tone. It was all messages from my sweet "Liam." [Summer baby, are you home yet?] [You should be home by now, why aren't you replying? ~] [Did I do something to make my baby mad? ...] Even though his tone was still affectionate and sweet, a deep chill ran down my spine. I typed out several responses, but deleted every single one. Finally, I just sent: [You only went to the library tonight?] There was a slight pause on his end, then a quick reply. 2 [Yeah! I was studying hard today!] As if to prove it, he even sent a photo of himself in the library. In the photo, the boy was wearing a crisp white shirt, a bright, sunny smile lighting up his face as he stood by the bookshelves. He looked refined, gentle, and utterly perfect. But it was all a complete lie. I was so incredibly thankful I had never sent him a picture of myself, and that he hadn't recognized me. It gave me the chance to see exactly who he really was. Terrified of falling behind in my classes, I didn't dare skip school. Right after morning study hall, Chloe dragged me into the girls' bathroom. She and her squad cornered me by the sinks. "Summer, how do you even have the nerve to show your face? Tsk, tsk. Did Liam not hit you hard enough last night?" "Haha, maybe she's just thick-skinned because she's so cheap. She's so ugly and poor, if it wasn't for that thick skin, she'd have killed herself by now!" "No wonder her name is Summer Pig. She's got the hide of a pig!" The girls beside her hurled every degrading insult they could think of. Then, a bucket of filthy mop water was dumped directly over my head. It ran down my hair and soaked into my collar. The rank, damp smell made me want to vomit. "Tsk, tsk. Summer, you really are as ugly and filthy as a pig!" She grabbed a handful of my wet hair and slapped me twice across the face. Then, looking completely disgusted, she washed her hands and strutted out of the bathroom. I slid down the tiled wall, collapsing onto the floor. I buried my face in my knees, biting my lip to stop the tears from falling. Chloe locked me in that bathroom for the entire morning. It wasn't until the lunch bell rang that someone finally let me out. I foolishly thought that would be the end of it. But Chloe wasn't done. For the rest of the week, my desk was constantly trashed, and my homework mysteriously vanished. After a few times, my teachers stopped believing my excuses. Chloe haunted every single corner of the school I tried to hide in, taking immense pleasure in humiliating me. During evening study hall, I hid in the library, studying for hours before finally packing up to go home. I just wanted to avoid Chloe. But Chloe hadn't left. She and her squad were waiting for me right by the library exit. She slapped my thermos out of my hand. With a loud crash, the coffee I drank to stay awake splashed all over my legs. My freshly washed white pants were instantly stained dark brown. I glared at her furiously. I opened my mouth to speak, but then I saw Liam's warning look. He was standing right next to her, a cigarette dangling from his lips, his eyes full of contempt. "Tsk. Summer, do you have a problem?" Chloe shoved me hard. I fell backward, landing directly in the puddle of spilled coffee. The smell of cheap coffee mixed with the dirty floor made my stomach churn. Her followers erupted into cruel laughter, mocking me for looking like a pig rolling in slop. They even tried to force me to drink the coffee off the floor! My face was mere inches from the dirty tiles when the librarian arrived to lock up and saw what was happening. "What is going on here?!" Chloe and her minion quickly let go of me. Chloe put on a bright, innocent smile and said to the librarian, "We're just playing Truth or Dare with Summer!" "Yeah! Summer lost, so her dare was to drink the coffee off the floor!" "No!" I desperately shook my head, looking at the librarian pleadingly. "Ma'am, they were forcing me." The librarian frowned. Just as she was about to speak, Chloe immediately jumped in, smiling sweetly. "Ma'am, don't listen to her. She's just trying to get out of her punishment!" "Summer, don't be a sore loser. A loss is a loss. Why are you running to the teacher?" Chloe deliberately twisted the narrative, pinning the blame entirely on me. Her followers quickly chimed in. "Yeah, Summer, you're taking this way too seriously." "It's just a game! If you didn't want to do the dare, you didn't have to tattle!" There were so many of them, and their stories matched perfectly. Sure enough, the librarian believed them. Her face darkened as she looked at me, then back at Chloe. "Alright, enough. You're at school to study. No more of these pointless games!" The librarian walked away. She clearly didn't want to get involved. Chloe looked down at me from above, smiling smugly. "See that, Summer? They're all on my side. No one is ever going to believe you." "Running to the teachers won't save you. I have a hundred ways to make sure I never get in trouble, but you? You aren't nearly as lucky!" 3 My heart turned to ash. I didn't even hear what they said after that. I sat by the library doors for a very long time, until all the lights on campus were turned off. It wasn't until a patrolling security guard started shouting my name that I realized I had been sitting in a puddle of freezing coffee for hours. I stumbled home in a daze. My mom was angrily scrubbing dishes in the sink. "You're old enough to know how to keep yourself clean! How did you get your clothes so filthy? I don't have the money to buy you new ones." "You won't focus on your actual studies, insisting on this useless art nonsense! It costs me twice as much to support you! It's a sin! Why can't you be more like your cousin back in the village? She's hardworking and sensible." I had heard my mom's complaints so many times I was completely numb to them. But today, I felt a sudden, overwhelming urge to cry. I ignored her and locked myself in my room. My phone started buzzing relentlessly. It was Liam. [Summer, are you out of study hall yet?] [Hurry up and reply!] [Baby, did I do something wrong? You've been so cold the last two days.] [Don't ignore me, it breaks my heart.] It breaks his heart? Yeah. It would. Even though Liam and I were only dating online, I knew exactly how dependent he was on me. He demanded to be texting me twenty-four seven. He was a boy who grew up starved for love and completely lacked a sense of security. His childhood was overshadowed by severe family trauma. Ever since his mother died, he had become incredibly dark and negative. I had appeared right at that critical moment, staying by his side and pulling him out of that agonizing darkness. Since then, he had been like a puppy rolling over to show its belly, giving his entire heart to me. He used to say: [Baby, you are the only light in my life.] [Baby, I'm slowly becoming a better person for you. I'm studying hard, eating right... I'm going to be the perfect boy you want...] [Baby, I love you the most. Stay with me forever, okay?] I thought about the things he had said, and then I thought about him helping Chloe torture me. My fingertips trembled. [Liam, if someone bullied you, what would you do?] I asked him. [Get revenge, obviously. Make their life a living hell.] [Why are you asking, Summer? Is someone bullying you? Tell me who it is, I'll handle them for you!] [It's nothing.] I didn't need him to. Liam, I have my own ways of making the people who bully me suffer. 4 During art class, Chloe walked past my easel, deliberately knocking over my paint bucket and ripping my canvas. "Summer, do cheap, low-class trash like you really think you deserve to study art? Art supplies are expensive. Can your pathetic family even afford this?" She strutted away, practically glowing with smug satisfaction. I silently started cleaning up the spilled paint. Half the bucket was gone, and my canvas and other tools were ruined. I sealed up the remaining paint and took my dirty brushes to the bathroom to wash them out. I felt a heavy gaze fixed on me. I turned around and saw Liam. He was leaning against the wall, a cigarette in his mouth, looking at me with absolute mockery and disgust. Like I was a clown. I gripped my brushes tightly. He made no move to leave. When I tried to walk out the bathroom door, he blocked my path, trapping me against the wall. "Tomorrow, you are going to apologize to Chloe." His tone left no room for argument, his eyes full of threat. "But I didn't do anything wrong. I didn't ruin her bag." I gathered my courage and met his stare. The next second, he pressed the burning cherry of his cigarette directly into my arm. "Cut the bullshit!" "It was a twenty-thousand-dollar bag. Just apologize. Don't push your luck." "I'm losing my patience. If you don't apologize, you know exactly what's going to happen to you!" Liam walked away. I clutched my burned arm, massive tears rolling down my face. When I got home that night, my mom started complaining again. She told me to quit art, saying our family couldn't afford my dream. Finally, my dad told her to drop it. Before I went to sleep, my dad came to my room. He told me to just focus on studying hard. He promised the family would find a way to support my art. Looking at my dad—his hair turning gray far too early, his stiff glass eye—my heart ached terribly. When my dad was young, a delinquent kid in our village had hit him, blinding him in one eye. He had to get a prosthetic. Ever since then, whenever it rained or he overworked himself, the eye would ache and burn. But even with that, he carried the weight of our entire family on his shoulders. "Dad, I'm going to start a work-study program. Trust me, I'll start making money soon." My dad smiled proudly, telling me not to worry about money. Then he asked, "You haven't seemed like yourself the last few days. Did something happen at school?" I shook my head. He said, "If anyone is bullying you, you have to tell us." I nodded, reassuring him. They were already working so hard. I couldn't add to their worries. After surviving on my own for so long, growing wild and stubborn, I always found my own ways to handle things. Chloe thought I was a soft target she could crush whenever she wanted. But did being poor mean I had to swallow my pride and accept the abuse? The day Chloe demanded twenty thousand dollars, I had already secured the security footage showing her tripping and ruining her own bag. After all, poor people like me have to be hyper-vigilant against scammers. I kept the bruises from the alley and the bathroom as evidence. I also managed to get a copy of the security footage from outside the library. I hadn't replied to Liam much over the past few days, and he was completely blowing up my phone. I had 99+ unread messages. I opened them and read them one by one. [Summer, what are you doing? Are you so busy you can't even talk to me?] [Summer, did I do something wrong?] [I'm sorry, baby. If I did something wrong, just tell me. I'll fix it. Please don't ignore me.] [Summer, are you... are you leaving me?] Reading that last message, I knew Liam was panicking. Liam, so you really do get your heart broken, huh? Don't worry. The real heartbreak hasn't even started yet. 5 Before I could finish reading his messages, Liam started calling me incessantly. I didn't answer. Instead, I texted him back. [I'm not leaving you.] [Really?] Liam clearly didn't believe me. He was far too insecure. [Then promise you won't ignore me anymore, Summer. It hurts too much.] My fingers hovered over the keyboard. After a brief silence, I replied: [Okay.] Liam's tone instantly brightened: [You're the best, Summer. I want to see you as soon as possible. Can I come find you?] Liam and I had originally agreed to meet in person after we graduated high school. But now, he was clearly too desperate to wait. Maybe he could sense that I was pulling away from him. [Summer?] [You said you'd stay with me forever. You won't break your promise, right?] I could hear the careful, desperate fear of loss in his words. A pang of sourness rose in my chest. I had been so determined to break his heart, but for a split second, I actually wavered. I asked him: [Liam, you said you were slowly becoming a better person for me. Is that true?] [Of course, Summer. I'm trying so hard.] His answer was immediate and firm. As if the guy who casually terrorized his classmates wasn't him at all. He truly had two completely different faces. [Then you have to promise to be a good, just person. At the very least, you can't do bad things.] I texted back. Liam, I'm giving you a chance. You had better stick to your word. ... Chloe’s campaign against me was far from over. To force me to apologize, she weaponized public opinion. She posted the story of her ruined bag on the school forum. Instantly, she transformed from the abuser into the victim. She played the pathetic, wronged innocent, claiming she only wanted an apology. She took the moral high ground, preaching that poor people shouldn't covet luxury items, that my vanity was bankrupting my family, that I was ungrateful and didn't appreciate my parents' sacrifices... Her "kindness and justice" won everyone's sympathy. Overnight, the entire forum was flooded with comments attacking me. "If you're poor, stop trying to act rich!" "This is classic 'if I can't have it, I'll destroy it' behavior! That is so malicious. Summer makes me sick!" "Yeah! Get that bitch Summer out of this school!" "I heard Chloe's boyfriend, Liam Carter, beat her up a few days ago." "Good! Taking a beating to pay off a twenty-thousand-dollar debt? I'd take that deal too!" "Summer needs to apologize immediately!" In the most vicious, highly-trafficked thread attacking me, I uploaded the video. The video clearly showed Chloe tripping, ruining her own bag, and then immediately blaming me. The people cursing my name went dead silent. I had planned to release the video today anyway. Chloe's massive exposure was exactly what I needed. It gave me the perfect platform to publicly humiliate her. After hitting post, I calmly went to school.
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