True Intention

Ch 12- Preparing for war...

Soren POV

What a f*****g s**t show. This Carla was beyond the definition of crazy, but I'd bet she had nothing that could be diagnosed beyond maybe being delusional, maybe a personality disorder. We were all going to have to be careful and vigilant. If she was bold enough to make a claim like that out of nowhere, she was likely to stage worse situations to make herself look good. All of this didn't deter me, of course.

You are all probably thinking I've lost my marbles to be so devoted to a girl within four days. I don't think you're wrong. I don't really get it myself, I just know she's it.

Purpose in life, found.

And so, this means I must get my s**t together and prepare, because before that b***h even tried to bring the war to me, I'm taking it to her. It was Thursday evening, and I had four files in front of me. Naomi's file, of course, Kenny Jones, the asshat that tried to chase me away from Naomi, Carla Branch, the girl doing a bang-up job of being a total b***h, and Robert Smithley, the would-be r****t. I noted Nao's birthdate and laughed out loud. My brilliant girl, of course she didn't transfer in the traditional sense, she'd already snagged an AA while still in high school. Damn.

Naomi had brilliant grades, and it was by the barest percentage that she had not made valedictorian. Probably her dual classes at Green River College, since I'm not sure they tive those the same weight as high school classes. Perfect attendance, shockingly, given the amount of bullying the reports also detailed. I closed my eyes briefly. I would have to go through it with a fine-toothed comb and determine if I needed to get more information later. I needed to go through all this other s**t first, then I'd circle back to the "lesser" offenders.

Kenny had mediocre grades and came from a mediocre family. They owned a cattle ranch back in the Bible Belt. Nothing special, but when I dug deeper into his legal history, I found a bunch of random charges that alarmed me. Assault a few times, no specific gender... but he beat up at least six people.To the point they ended up in the f*****g hospital, no less. Apparently hurt a neighbor's cat, and they tried to say he was too young to know better, but there is no way twelve is too young. Setting small fires, though no real damage. Classic stuff you see from people that commit worse crimes later in life. I just hoped I was wrong.

Carla's school and family background was similar to Kenny's, but she had no legal record. What I did find was several, as in, at least twenty separate people, cases where people had claimed she had lied about them on social media with a variety of intentions. In most cases, it was to get a man, though it seemed she had dated this Robert person off and on. She'd been a cheerleader, but not that great at it. Her school record showed a plethora of bullying reports, both victims and witnesses. The main issue was that nobody had additional witnesses to corroborate either way, so she was never punished. And then I saw it. She reported that Naomi was having an affair with her art teacher. The investigation showed nothing, but the damage had been done. Rage boiled within me. This girl made Regina George from Mean Girls look like Mahatma Gandhi. Not even kidding.

Robert... The creature I wanted to do very dark things to. He'd been a mediocre student, but an excellent athlete, specifically in basketball. Not enough to make it big after high school, but enough to make the girls all chase after him and a modest scholarship. It had been Naomi's parents that filed the police report on her behalf. Unfortunately for Robert, there were pictures they took in the hospital, along with her r**e kit results. Fuuuuck. My poor girl. And then, digging into his social media, I found it. His claim that they'd had s*x and she regretted it. His cheering on other guys coming forth and claiming the same.

He and Carla instigated this s**t that Nao had gone through. He could have just left her the f**k alone, but no, they did the same thing on multiple occasions. Several times a week from grade eight on.

I was so upset I immediately hacked whatever I could get my hands on for other reports, pictures, videos, anything that could help me break him. I didn't know how to feel when I found what I was looking for. The man had been reported for s****l assault ten times. Ten! That was outside of Naomi's report, because he'd gotten farther with those girls. As in, he was successful in penetrating them, with r**e kits to back up each claim. How was this person not in jail?! My heart bled for them. And he'd followed the same exact pattern every time. It matched up with Carla's victims and their "breaks." I couldn't figure out why he kept getting away with it. It was like watching a documentary on a cult leader that people just could not believe was possibly a bad guy.

Poor Nao... I don't know how she came out of dealing with these people as balanced as she had. I'd have lost my s**t a long time ago, if I were her. As if the initial assault wasn't bad enough, they all had to keep reminding her and dumping more lies on top of it, destroying her public image. While we often hear that who you are matters more than your reputation, I hate to be the one to say it's just not true. People judge you based on what people they like or trust have said, good or bad.

I'd bet there are places in Auburn she wouldn't get hired, just because someone that bought into the bullshit worked there first.

Finding Robert's current location, a pretty nice college where he'd managed to snag that minor athletic scholarship, I set to work. I put together everything in chronological order, keeping the victims unknown, and added in the result of Carla's involvement. She had posted videos of them laughing about the victims being mistreated after they got the ball rolling. I sent it to all of his professors, the dean, the school board, and a go-getter DA that was likely to pursue the issue. For the DA, I made sure she had fully detailed files.

I also sent it to his parents. I was going to make it plain how much of a piece of s**t their oldest son was. They had one other son, nothing like his brother by all accounts, and I told them in my email, keep it that way or I was going to make sure nobody forgot who their elder son was, ever. Like, their mailman was going to know the details. I'd treat them to the same thing Nao got, except that it would be the truth that got rubbed in their faces with regularity.

I sat for a few minutes trying not to burst out in tears. I could not get what he did to Nao out of my head. With barely enough time to recover before everyone turned on her, no wonder she was hiding. Therapy or not. The most clear lesson she'd learned was that peers were her enemy. People who didn't want to believe in her, would rather cater to Mr. Popular, and let him wreak havoc whenever he felt like it. Carla's heartless behavior towards the victims was inexplicable. Why not get mad at her "boyfriend"? I just, could not understand her thought process, not at all.

Then again, I'm not the blaming type. I own my s**t. If I f****d up, I'm the one taking control and making amends. That's what it means to be responsible, to be accountable. You can't be satisfied in life as long as someone else is being given that kind of power over your choices and emotions. There will always be someone ruining things for you.

The first step to finding solutions is to never give up trying to save yourself. If you want it badly enough, the resource will find you. Call it divine providence, whatever label you want to put on it, but the first steps come from within. You have to be the agent of change, fi you want it to happen.

I decided to launch my attack on Kenny next, making a similar chronological folder, adding in my own assault video. I was not comfortable leaving someone who could just threaten and throw down like that to their own devices. If he stuck around and behaved himself, fine. But he was not going to push people around on my watch. Files were sent to his professors, the dean, the school board, and his parents. I made it clear his parents had been cc'd and were fully aware. It was hard to say what exactly could come out of it, but at the least, the school was informed.

Further issues couldn't be dismissed as one-offs. Always keep track of patterns of behavior. One less excuse the person can make.

Carla, Carla. I wanted to take her down as bad as I wanted to take down Robert, but after her behavior today, I wanted to make it much more personal. She already had a few hundred students in her pocket via social media, and there was a part of me that wanted to flip that right back on her. Make her experience what all these girls had gone through, minus the assault. She could not simply be reprimanded or told and it would stick. She'd have to experience what it was like in order to choose to change her ways. I've always thought of bullying like any other addiction. You won't change until you decide you want to. People can try to intervene, but true change comes from within.

Even then, something about this girl told me redemption was a pretty slim possibility. I hate to think that way about a girl that's not even twenty, but my gut was raging she was dangerous.

The little harlot (let's just say she used her breaks with Robert well) had already tried to force me to do her bidding, and I'm just not that kind of person. Janet already pulled her bullshit and one thing I'd sworn, was never again. Nobody was going to try and force me into anything. The fact that she tormented Nao? After thinking for a few minutes, I sent a text to Nao.

R: Hey, Nao. I put together a folder on Robert and Carla for my next steps. It has pictures from what happened. Can I get your permission to share it with our friends?

I saw the dots popping back and forth as she started, deleted, and rewrite her message probably eight times.

N: Okay.

Well, that was anticlimactic. But I would take it. I emailed it to them, as an encrypted file that was not shareable, with a special password. I'd sent them stuff like that before so they all knew exactly what the password was.

R: I encrypted the message so it can't be messed with. Don't worry.

N: Okay, LOL. It's public record, anyway.

R: Not the s**t I pulled from their social media. The way I lined everything out, even a lawyer could use it.

N: That, my friend, is awesome. Come practice with me :)

She must feel like I deserve a reward. I fist bumped the air and took a deep breath as I left my room.

Control. Yeah.