CHAPTER 16 – Fallout
1129 Words
Savannah unlocked the door and pushed it open. The house was dark at first—quiet, still, waiting.
She flicked on a hallway light. Warm glow. Hardwood floors. Not a speck out of place.
Her parents were out of town for the weekend, and it showed:
Everything was perfectly curated. Throw pillows aligned. Air faintly scented like sandalwood and something citrusy.
The kind of space that made you instinctively lower your voice.
Not because it was eerie, but because it felt like walking into a boutique hotel.
The girls piled in behind her.
Lia dropped the keys on the entry table and unzipped her hoodie halfway, revealing the glint of her bronze prom dress beneath. Glitter clung to the sleeves like static.
Savannah kicked off her heels and made a beeline for the speaker dock in the corner. She tapped through a few tracks until something soft and instrumental filled the space.
Mila dropped her duffel by the door, and collapsed onto Savannah’s sleek, modern couch with a dramatic groan.
“If I pull a muscle from that wall sprint,” she muttered, “you’re all buying me ice.”
Savannah raised an eyebrow, toeing off her shoes. “Pretty sure you hurdled a trash can.”
“Parkour,” Mila said, deadpan. “It’s called art.”
Imani slipped into the kitchen, already grabbing water bottles. “It’s called adrenaline. Let’s not make it a habit.” She walked back to the living room and put the the water on the glass coffee table before claiming the floor space, her laptop open. She began scrolling through school group chats, lips twitching.
“Someone said he looked like he got slapped by the Ghost of Consequences,” she read aloud.
Savannah snorted. “We should put that on a shirt.”
Mila leaned over the side of the couch. “Wait, check Snap. By now, I’m sure someone’s posted the whole video. With captions.”
Imani tapped. Swiped. Held the phone up.
Sure enough. There it was.
Jordan, crowned and confident, standing center stage. Then the slideshow shift. Then the silence. Then the gasps.
All in shaky vertical video glory.
They watched the moment again—not for the hurt, but for the precision.
“We actually did it,” Imani murmured.
Savannah clinked an invisible glass toward her. “To sabotage.”
“To art,” Mila said, raising her imaginary flute.
“To getting the hell out before the cops showed up,” Lia added with a grin.
They burst into laughter, loud and breathless.
⋆⸻⸻⋆
The snacks were an afterthought. Savannah disappeared into the kitchen and came back with popcorn, leftover mochi, and a box of cereal no one opened.
They sprawled across the furniture like a crime scene. Mila stretched across the couch, one arm flung over her eyes, boots kicked halfway under the coffee table. Imani curled into the corner chair, blanket draped over her shoulders, sipping from a bottle of water like it was holy. Savannah sat perched on the armrest, legs tucked neatly beneath her, spine straight even in exhaustion. Lia sat cross-legged on the rug in the center, hoodie pooled around her waist, fingers drumming absently against the side of a half-empty popcorn bowl.
For a while, it was just jokes. Stories about the looks on teachers’ faces. Speculation about what Monday would look like. Mila reenacted Jordan’s confused twirl when the crown slipped off his head. They laughed until their stomachs hurt.
The room settled.
Not into silence exactly—just a kind of shared stillness.
Breathing slowed. Limbs slackened.
Lia stared into the popcorn bowl like she’d forgotten it was there. Her smile faded—not dramatically. Just drifted away.
Savannah was the first to notice.
Imani picked her head up. “You good?”
Lia shrugged, barely. “Yeah. I mean. Yeah.”
Mila reached over and flicked a kernel at her chest. “Try again.”
Lia caught it. Rolled it between her fingers. “It’s stupid.”
“No such thing tonight,” Imani said.
Lia took a breath. “When he looked at me... after the video, the posters, all of it... he didn’t even look mad. He just looked... wrecked.”
She hesitated. “Like I was the last person who wasn’t supposed to hurt him.”
No one jumped in right away.
It sat there for a second.
“And part of me,” she went on, “still wanted to explain. Like—make it make sense for him. Like I owed him that.”
Savannah didn’t scoff. Just nodded slowly. “Because you’re decent.”
Imani shifted on the armrest. “Because he made you feel like it was your job to hold the weight.”
Mila sat up straighter, rubbing the back of her neck. “And because he wasn’t lying all the time. Some of it was real. That’s the part that screws with your head.”
Lia blinked hard. Swallowed.
Then laughed, quiet at first. “Ugh, why’d y’all have to be nice about it? I was planning a full-on guilt spiral. Dramatic lighting. Sad playlist. Maybe some floor crying.”
Mila tossed a pillow at her. “You’ll have to get in line.”
Imani reached over and squeezed her foot. “You did what had to be done. And you didn’t do it alone.”
Savannah handed her the blanket from the back of the couch. “We’ve got you now. No exits.”
Lia smiled—small, but real—as she pulled the blanket around her shoulders. “Cool. But if anyone cries, I’m disappearing into the drywall.”
“Bold of you to assume you’d fit,” Mila said.
“Bold of you to assume I haven’t tried.”
They laughed again.
Louder this time.
⋆⸻⸻⋆
By the time the playlist shifted to soft instrumentals and the distant tick of sprinklers rose through the open window, they’d all found places to land.
Savannah was curled on the couch, one arm tucked under her cheek, her blanket folded neatly at her feet. Mila had stretched out across the floor, head propped on a folded throw pillow, hoodie tugged low over her eyes. Imani lay half-under the coffee table, journal open beside her, pen resting loosely in her hand. And Lia sat cross-legged on the rug, sipping peach juice straight from the bottle, a small smile ghosting across her lips.
Her phone buzzed. More reactions. More reposts. More fallout.
She didn’t check it. She turned it face down.
Outside, the world was still unraveling. But in here—in this warm, candle-lit stillness—they were steady.
It wasn’t a perfect win. But it was real. And for tonight, that was enough.
Tomorrow could wait.
- Writer
