Stacey, The middle one

The fall out.

By Friday, the buzz of prom had mostly fizzled into the usual hallway noise, test scores, weekend plans, and new couples snogging behind the bike shed. But my name still lingered in the air like smoke.

"That's her," I heard someone whisper in the corridor. "The girl who dumped a drink on Connor."

Some of it was true. Some were wildly made up. Apparently, I’d slapped him, thrown a chair, and told him his manhood was the size of a paperclip. I hadn’t, but I wished I had.

People looked at me like I was something new. Like I hadn’t been walking these halls for years, faded into the wallpaper. They were finally seeing me, Harry’s sister, Blu’s twin. Stacey with the midnight dress and the burning eyes.

I caught kids staring and smiling. Some even said hi. A few girls asked what Connor had done. I told them every brutal detail.

But not everyone was impressed.

Connor had been off sick or pretending to be since the prom. When he came back, his swagger was gone. He didn’t walk. He stomped. He didn’t smile. He sneered. And every time he passed me in the hall, he glared like I was something to scrape off his shoe.

That Friday, just before the last bell, I got caught on my own. I’d stayed behind to help Miss Rawley put away paints in the art block. The halls were near-empty when I stepped out, heading toward my locker.

That’s when I saw them.

Connor.

And behind him, his crew. Megan Simms. Chloe Farrow. Brianna Tate. All dressed like they were auditioning for a reality show called Mean Skirts of Belgrave High.

"Oi!" Connor barked. "You think you're funny, yeah?"

I froze.

"Think you can humiliate me and just walk around here like you're some big deal?"

His voice echoed, venomous and sharp. I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.

He stepped closer. "You're nothing. A cheap, scruffy b***h. You get one dress and suddenly think you're royalty?"

The girls laughed behind him high-pitched, mocking.

"Hoe," Megan spat.

"Slag," Chloe added.

They circled around me. My heartbeat spiked. My back hit the lockers. My fingers curled into fists.

Then a hand tangled in my hair. Yanked hard.

Pain shot through my scalp. I cried out.

Connor’s face twisted into something feral. "You embarrassed me!"

I tried to move, but someone shoved me. I stumbled. Hit the floor, hands scraping on the tiles.

And then the first punch landed.

Right to my cheek.

White-hot pain. My vision blurred.

Then came the drinks.

Cold. Sticky. One after the other.

It rained soda and juice and energy drinks. Orange. Cola. Something fizzy that stung my eyes. My dress clung to me, soaked and ruined. They were laughing, howling like hyenas. Pouring, pushing, screaming.

I curled into myself. Tried to protect my head. Tried to breathe.

No one came.

No teachers. No students. Just their voices echoing through the corridor.

"Look at her!"

"Soaked like the mutt she is."

"She thought she could mess with Connor."

Eventually, they got bored. Or maybe they thought I’d had enough. One by one, they walked off, high-fiving and cackling. Connor spat at the ground near my feet before stalking off.

I didn’t move for a long time.

My face throbbed. My ribs ached. My cheek felt like it was swelling already. I could taste blood and cola. My hair clung to my face. My hands shook.

I was bruised.

Battered.

And so, so alone.

I didn't remember walking home. Just that I did. I didn’t even go to the office or tell a teacher. What was the point?

When I got home, Mum was out, and Blu was gaming in his room. I went straight to the bathroom.

I peeled off my wet clothes. Looked at myself in the mirror.

My cheek was swollen. Lip split. Arms bruised. Hair crusted with sugar and soda.

I looked like roadkill.

I slid into the bath fully clothed in my underwear. Let the water fill around me. Warm. Comforting. Quiet.

Then I cried.

Deep, ugly sobs that tore through my chest. Not just because of the pain, but because of the shame. The humiliation. The silence that screamed around me in those halls.

No one had helped.

Not one person.

I was alone, again.

When Mum came home, she found me asleep on the bathroom floor wrapped in a towel.

She shook me gently. "Stace? Sweetheart? What happened?"

My mouth trembled. My body ached. I told her everything.

Her eyes hardened. "They did what to you?"

"They laughed. Poured drinks. Hit me. Called me names. And no one did anything."

She pulled me into her arms. Held me tight. I think she was shaking.

"I’m calling the school. First thing. I swear to God, Stacey, they will not get away with this."

I wanted to believe her.

But I’d seen too much to know justice didn’t always wear a staff lanyard.

Still, the next morning, we were in the headteacher’s office. Mr. Langston looked pale when he saw my bruises.

Mum laid it all out, names, dates, and details.

He took notes. Promised investigations. Promised action.

But part of me knew, knew, they’d get a slap on the wrist and a lesson about bullying. Maybe a suspension. Maybe.

But what about me?

What about the girl who walked home in silence with Cola in her hair and blood in her mouth?

What about her?

That night, I sat in my room with a bag of frozen peas on my cheek, staring at my ceiling.

And I made a decision.

I wasn’t going to be their victim. Not anymore.

Connor and his pack wanted me broken. They wanted me quiet.

I would give them hell instead.

I opened my laptop. Made a list.

Every insult.

Every lie.

Every bruise.

And I started writing.

Not just to vent. To build. A story. A record. A warning. A roar.

Because maybe no one had helped me that day.

But I would help every other girl who’d ever been humiliated, laughed at, assaulted, and told to stay quiet.

This was the beginning.

Not the end.

And I wasn’t alone.

Not anymore.

I wouldn’t let myself be.

I didn’t want to go back to school.

After what happened, the bruises on my cheek and the cuts on my knees, I wanted to vanish. Just fade into the cracks between the floorboards and disappear. But Ro? She had other ideas.

“You are not hiding,” she said, standing in the doorway to my room with her arms folded, eyes blazing. “You hold your head up and show every one of those cowards your face. Let them see what that bastard and his little pack of she-wolves are capable of.”

I couldn’t even argue. My mouth opened, but no words came. She marched over, placed a firm hand under my chin, and tilted my face up. Her thumb brushed the bruise under my eye like she could erase it with sheer love.

“They want you to crumble. They want you to be ashamed.” Her voice was low and fire-hot. “But you’ve got nothing to be ashamed of. Nothing. You didn’t start this. You survived it. And now you’re going to finish it by showing up.”

I thought she’d be more upset. That she’d cry or hug me too tight. But Ro had slipped into war mode. Makeup in one hand, hairbrush in the other. She treated my wounds with gentle fingers and then painted my lips red.

“War paint,” she muttered. “You walk in like a queen.”

I nodded, but my insides were trembling.

What I didn’t expect, what completely threw me, was Harry.

The ghost of a big brother. He hadn’t given a damn about anything I did in years. Always slinking around, coming home late, leaving before dawn. But that morning, he was there. Waiting.

I barely made it down the stairs in my uniform when I saw him leaning against the counter, arms folded, a mug of tea going cold in his hand.

His eyes landed on my face.

And everything about him changed.

The lazy smirk vanished. His jaw tightened. His gaze darkened like storm clouds rolling in fast. He stepped forward, slow and deliberate.

“Stace,” he said, voice lower than I’d ever heard it. “Tell me what happened. Now.”

I blinked at him. “Why do you care?”

“Tell me,” he snapped, his fists clenched so tight his knuckles whitened.

I hesitated, but something cracked open inside me. Maybe it was the way he was looking at me, not like a little sister who annoyed him, but like someone who mattered. So I told him. All of it. Every name they called me. Every shove, every slap, every drink that rained down like acid.

When I was done, he turned away, pacing the kitchen like a lion in a cage. His whole body vibrated with rage.

“Connor?” he asked. “He started it?”

“Yeah.”

He nodded once. “Alright.”

“Alright?” I repeated, confused.

But he didn’t answer. He just grabbed his coat and left through the back door.

I had no idea what that meant.

But something told me Connor wouldn’t be walking into school, so smug come Monday.