9. The Girl They Built To Hate
2103 Words
The alarms on Alina’s phone still went off at 6:45 a.m.
She didn’t need them anymore.
Her body woke up automatically now — not out of routine, but out of defense. Like her instincts no longer trusted time to keep her safe.
The sky outside her window was a pale, indifferent gray. The walls were still painted soft cream. Her desk was still cluttered with sticky notes, textbooks, pens arranged by color.
Everything looked the same.
And none of it felt like hers anymore.
She moved through the apartment with clinical efficiency — brushing her teeth, tying her hair back into a bun that didn’t bother with aesthetics, slipping into a hoodie three sizes too big. She didn’t check the mirror. Not because she didn’t care how she looked, but because she didn’t want to see what was missing.
She used to have a spark in her eyes — not arrogance, but presence. A quiet kind of brightness that said she believed in something bigger than what people said about her.
That spark was gone.
Her phone buzzed again. Two notifications from Sierra. One campus-wide email. A Queen’s Poison repost.
She didn’t open any of them.
Not right away.
Instead, she boiled water for tea and stood at the kitchen counter while it steeped, her hands motionless at her sides. The sunlight reached through the blinds in uneven stripes, cutting her face in shadow.
Ding.
One more tag.
She clicked.
@queenspoison: “Some girls don’t fall from grace. They jump. 💋 #Everharted #ThorneSnare”
The photo was old — from the rooftop party. Her laughing, arm in arm with Sierra. Completely unaware.
The caption beneath the post had over a thousand likes.
Half the comments were snake emojis.
The rest were worse.
Alina pressed the side button. Screen black.
She didn’t cry. Not anymore.
Tears had become a luxury she couldn’t afford. Crying made people feel bad for you. And pity, she’d learned, was just another shade of amusement.
They don’t want apologies.
They want blood.
She sat at the kitchen table and opened her laptop. She didn’t scroll news headlines. Didn’t check for Elias’s name. She just opened her academic calendar and deleted her name from two group assignments she knew her teammates no longer wanted her on.
Then she submitted her solo project proposal.
Then she responded to a student event invitation with “Unable to attend.”
Then she blocked six more numbers from unknown senders.
Routine.
Methodical.
Survival.
She wasn’t trying to be liked anymore. She wasn’t even trying to be understood.
She was just trying to exist quietly enough not to give them more to burn.
Poison in the Walls
Alina adjusted the strap of her canvas tote as she stepped into the campus bookstore.
It used to smell like home — fresh paper, wood polish, overpriced coffee pods, and lemon-vanilla air freshener near the registers. Now it smelled like something colder.
Like judgment.
She walked past the front table, eyes skimming over the new arrivals she once would’ve gushed over, back when she still dreamed of one day seeing her own name on a cover.
Now, her name was only good for headlines.
She found the textbook she needed for her comparative literature class, clutching it tightly as she made her way to the front.
Someone brushed her shoulder as they passed — deliberately too hard.
She turned.
Two girls were whispering behind a display of planners, eyes flicking toward her and then away, followed by soft giggles and one muttered, unmistakable word:
“Homewrecker.”
Alina said nothing.
Just turned back around, placed the book on the counter, and gave the cashier a tight-lipped smile.
The cashier didn’t smile back.
By the time she arrived to class ten minutes later, her stomach was tight with knots. Not fear exactly. Not even dread.
It was anticipation. Like she already knew how it would go.
Professor Lanford was writing notes on the board when Alina slipped into the back row.
She didn’t take her usual seat. Didn’t want to.
Lanford called on three students in a row during discussion.
Her hand went up the fourth time.
It stayed there for a while.
She wasn’t called.
A few students glanced back at her. No one said anything.
Then, after class ended, Alina lingered behind to speak with the professor — just to ask about her next essay submission. Maybe to see if she was still seen.
But before she could reach the desk, she heard a voice behind her:
“Is she still allowed to present?”
She turned.
A classmate — Lara. Wide-eyed. Innocent voice. Words laced with implication.
Lanford didn’t look at Alina when she replied.
“We’ll be discussing scheduling soon.”
Neutral.
Professional.
But cold.
And Alina wasn’t even part of the conversation.
Not really.
She walked out before anyone else could say her name again.
A Crack in the Mirror
The bench was already occupied when Alina arrived.
Sierra sat with her legs tucked up in her usual curled position, hair braided down her shoulder, oversized sunglasses perched on her nose even though they sat in the shade.
She looked up the moment Alina approached and smiled like nothing had changed.
“Hey, stranger,” she said softly. “You missed lecture. Lit Theory, right?”
Alina sat down slowly, folding her hands over her tote bag. “Didn’t feel like getting stared at today.”
Sierra sighed and offered her a cup. “Matcha. No syrup. Extra almond milk.”
Alina accepted it, but didn’t drink. The paper was warm against her palm, and for a second, the gesture made her throat tighten.
But then Sierra said, “People are already forgetting. This campus moves fast. They’re like crows—loud, distracted, and obsessed with shiny drama.”
Alina gave a hollow laugh. “I didn’t know I was a shiny object.”
“You always have been,” Sierra said brightly, brushing a strand of hair behind Alina’s ear like she used to. “In a good way. You were the girl everyone wanted to be.”
Were.
The word landed differently now.
Alina looked down at the cup, then at Sierra’s polished nails tapping lightly against her own coffee.
“How bad is it really?” she asked. “What are people saying?”
Sierra tilted her head. “The usual. That you seduced Kael. That you were planning it.”
Alina flinched.
Sierra didn’t notice. Or pretended not to.
“I’ve told people it’s not true, of course,” she continued. “But you know how it is. People believe what fits the story they already like.”
Alina stared at her.
Something in the way she said it. The ease of her words.
Like she’d said them before.
To a lot of people.
“You’ve been talking to them?” Alina asked, voice quiet.
Sierra blinked. “Only to shut down the worst stuff. I told them you’re not like that. That you made a mistake, but you’re still—”
Alina’s breath caught. “A mistake?”
Sierra hesitated. “I meant that night. Not… you. Just the way it looked.”
Alina nodded slowly. But her shoulders had gone rigid.
Sierra seemed to feel the shift.
Her voice softened again. “You’re not mad at me, right?”
Alina looked at her.
Her eyes were the same as always — wide, honey-bright, perfectly composed. Her expression held just enough vulnerability to seem real.
Alina said, “No.”
But inside, something cracked.
Not wide enough to break anything.
Just enough to let a little light through.
Rumors with Teeth
The computer lab smelled like dust and leftover coffee — familiar scents, grounding ones.
Alina chose a corner seat beneath the vent, away from the windows, where no one would bother looking unless they were trying.
She logged in, ignored the usual student dashboard, and went straight to the tab that had been haunting her since last night:
“The Real Stories of the Elite – Anonymous Submission Board”
It had started as a forum for calling out faculty favoritism and academic injustice.
Now it was a feeding ground.
She searched her name.
And there it was.
Pinned at the top.
“Truth Behind the Angel – Everhart’s Real Story”
Her blood went cold before she even clicked.
She knew she shouldn’t.
But she did.
Everyone thinks she’s the sweet one. The perfect one. But the truth is, Alina Everhart knew exactly what she was doing the night of the party. She told people Kael would be her upgrade. That Elias was a stepping stone. That she’d cry later to make herself look innocent. Classic PR strategy.
Don’t be fooled by the soft smiles. The best manipulators are the ones who look like victims.
She knew exactly who was in that bed. She just didn’t expect to get caught.
Alina stared at the screen.
Not blinking.
Not breathing.
The tone of it — the language — it didn’t read like rumor. It read like someone had been there. Like someone who’d heard her private fears, her insecurity, her past frustrations.
Like someone who had access to her.
Her hand moved to her chest, nails curling into fabric.
This wasn’t just hate. This was personal.
She thought of her dorm.
Of whispered secrets on rainy nights. Of Sierra sitting cross-legged on her bed, drinking cocoa and listening to her complain about pressure, Elias’s arguments, about how exhausting it was to be “the dream girl” all the time.
She had said things.
Too many things.
Things someone could twist.
Had twisted.
The computer screen dimmed, the page still glowing in the dark.
She didn’t respond.
Didn’t report it.
Didn’t cry.
She just sat back, pressed her hand to her mouth, and breathed.
Shallow.
Controlled.
Cold.
Someone wants to rewrite her story.
And the scariest part? They’re doing a damn good job.
Kael’s Cover-Up
The room smelled like leather, old money, and sterilized silence.
Kael Thorne stood with his arms crossed, gazing out the window at the central quad. Students moved below like ants. Loud, chaotic, forgettable.
He was above it all.
That was the point.
“Damage control is already in motion,” said Thatcher Hale, seated across from him at the conference table. “We’ve flagged twenty-two reposts of the Queen’s Poison threads, pushed three takedown notices through campus PR, and I’ve frozen your comment permissions on all official accounts.”
Kael didn’t speak.
Didn’t move.
Didn’t even look at him.
Thatcher cleared his throat. “Still no contact with her?”
Kael turned his head slightly.
“Why would I contact her?”
Thatcher lifted a brow. “You were in the photo, Kael. You’re part of this.”
Kael’s jaw flexed. “She made herself the story. Not me.”
“And yet,” Thatcher said smoothly, sliding a manila folder across the table, “you’re the one they’re about to drag if this gains national traction. The daughter of a professor. Top student. ‘Dream girl,’ they called her.”
Kael didn’t look at the folder.
He didn’t need to. He knew what it would contain.
Her name. His name. The fabricated narrative dressed in the language of power imbalance. A woman scorned. A man untouchable.
“I want it buried,” Kael said flatly.
“You already had us start that,” Thatcher reminded him. “But the girl’s not playing the part you expected. She’s not talking. That makes her dangerous.”
Kael’s hands clenched behind his back.
He hated that.
He hated how her silence unsettled him more than if she were screaming, protesting, or posting her innocence.
Silence meant strategy.
Or guilt.
Or worse — vulnerability.
And he didn’t do vulnerability.
“She’s not my problem,” Kael said finally. “She had a choice. She made it.”
Thatcher leaned back, assessing him. “You really believe she planned it?”
Kael’s eyes didn’t blink.
“She lured me there. She knew what she was doing.”
Even now, he told himself the lie — not because it convinced him, but because it allowed him to function.
Thatcher didn’t argue.
He simply closed the folder.
“Then we’ll keep scrubbing the narrative. Quietly. Deniability is the goal.”
Kael nodded once.
And turned back to the window.
Outside, the world moved on.
Inside, Kael didn’t feel the guilt that he should.
Just a bitter, tightening knot beneath his ribs — the kind that didn’t come from innocence or regret.
But from knowing something didn’t add up.
- Writer
