Dirty Little Secrets

15.

SUMMER'S POV

The silence in the small music studio felt heavy, thick, and suffocating. I was completely frozen, my eyes glued to the illuminated glass of my phone screen as the anonymous threat stared back at me. The picture of Kingsley and me hugging outside Saint Peter's Hospital felt like a noose tightening around my neck.

"Summer? Summer, are you okay?" Kingsley’s voice broke through the static buzzing in my ears. He leaned across the wooden table, his hand hovering just inches from my trembling arm, his brow furrowed with deep concern.

"You're white as a sheet," Kingsley said, his brow furrowing as his dark eyes locked onto mine. He stepped closer, the sheer intensity of his concern making the room feel microscopic. "What did that text say?"

I couldn't breathe. I couldn't move. Kingsley noticed my panic, his eyes dropping to the phone clenched tightly in my fist. He opened his mouth, clearly about to press me for answers, but before he could do that, his own phone suddenly buzzed with a sharp, demanding vibration against the tabletop.

Bzzzz.

Almost simultaneously, a chorus of digital chimes echoed right outside our door. Through the glass pane of the studio window, three other students walking past stopped dead in their tracks. Their phones had buzzed too, a synchronized chime that drew them all into an identical, slack-jawed stare at their screens.

A sudden, sickening dread pooled in the bottom of my stomach.

Kingsley picked up his phone, his thumb swiping across the screen. Within seconds, his entire expression shifted from confusion to absolute horror. His jaw set into a rigid line, his eyes widening as he read whatever was violently blowing up everyone's notifications.

"What... what the hell is this?" Kingsley whispered, his voice laced with sudden disbelief and anger.

What is it?" I whispered, genuinely terrified.

Without a word, he turned the screen toward me. It was the university’s anonymous campus forum. Right at the top, pinned and already racking up hundreds of views, was a video of the classroom incident.

The angle was perfectly framed to make Dira look like the victim. The video started exactly when Dira started screaming and I lunged forward, grabbing a fistful of her hair. The angle was malicious, intentionally cutting out the beginning where Dira had physically attacked me first. when I lunged forward, capturing my fingers violently twisted into her hair.

But it was the caption that delivered the killing blow. Written in bold, mocking text: “Looks like the ghetto w***e can’t keep her ghetto tantrums out of the lecture halls. Watch King Kingsley step in to save the queen bee from the campus parasite.” It painted me as an unstable "ghetto w***e"—using Dira's exact venomous words—and framed Kingsley as the noble, protective hero who had bravely stepped in to save Dira from an unprovoked assault.

I scrolled down, my vision blurring with hot, humiliated tears. The comment section was brutal, completely ruining my campus reputation within a matter of seconds.

> Wow, she belongs in a cage, not NYU. Absolute trash.

> Can we get this psycho expelled already? Look at how she attacked Dira! Thank God Kingsley was there to stop her

> Ghetto w***e indeed. Why is she even on our campus?

>"Why is she even still enrolled here?”

>"Gross. Kingsley needs a restraining order.”

The words sliced through my skin like razor blades. Every ounce of dignity I had fought so hard to maintain at this university was dismantled by a twenty-second clip. I felt stripped bare, judged, and utterly loathed by a student body that didn't know a single thing about my real life, my struggles, or the monster pulling the strings from the shadows.

"Summer, don't look at it," Kingsley commanded, his voice suddenly sharp as he reached out and gently tried to pull the phone from my hand. "It’s a lie. The video is completely warped. I'm going to find whoever posted this and make them take it down—"

Bzzzz.

The phone vibrated violently against my palm again, cutting him off. My heart stopped.

While I was still trying to process this public humiliation, a follow-up text chimes on my phone from the unknown number. I looked down, my eyes widening in pure horror as the new message populated on the screen.

"Unknown; Look at that, your reputation is already in the gutter. Let's make a deal. If you don't drop out of the duet or botch the performance next week, the hospital photo goes on the forum next. Let's see how your scholarship and your precious GPA handle a prostitution scandal like that. Clock is ticking, Dark Bird."

My breath completely caught. The trap was perfectly laid. If I sang well, my life was ruined by the blackmailer. If I dropped out or botched it, my GPA died, and my only ticket out of the club life evaporated.

It was a trap. A perfectly orchestrated, lethal trap. If that hospital photo leaked alongside my "Dark Bird" identity, NYU would strip away my music scholarship in a heartbeat. A prostitution scandal would ruin my GPA, destroy my future, and leave Clyde and me completely homeless and unprotected.

And worse, it would drag Kingsley right into the crosshairs with me. Mr. Robert was already playing a sick game, and he was using my brother's life as the ultimate leverage. I couldn't let Kingsley get hurt because of me. I couldn't let him back into my mess, not when his own mother was lying in a hospital bed because of the very same monster.

"Summer?" Kingsley’s voice was closer now, his hand firmly resting on the edge of my chair. He was trying to peer at my screen, his protective instincts flaring in full force. "Who keeps texting you? Is someone blackmailing you about the fight? Let me see."

Terrified of Mr. Robert’s reach and wanting to protect Kingsley from the crosshairs, I violently flipped the phone face down against my thigh, pulling away from his reach. I forced my breathing to slow down, swallowing the massive lump of terror in my throat, and forced my facial expression into a mask of pure, bitter annoyance.

"It's nothing," I lied smoothly, my voice sounding incredibly hollow as I looked up to meet his intense gaze. "It's just... it's just the video. The comments on the forum. Everyone is calling me a psycho, Kingsley. It's humiliating."

I forced a bitter, trembling laugh, shaking my head as if the internet gossip was the only thing tearing my world apart. "I'm just stressed about my reputation on campus. I don't need the dean seeing those comments and pulling my scholarship over a stupid catfight with Dira. That's all."

Kingsley studied my face, his dark eyes narrowing slightly as he tried to look past my walls. He looked like he didn't entirely believe me, but the sheer volume of the campus uproar outside the door provided the perfect cover for my lie.

"We're going to fix it," Kingsley said firmly, his voice steady and resolute as he stood up, his posture shifting into that of a protector. "I won't let them ruin you, Summer."

I looked down at my blank manuscript paper, the anonymous threat still burning through the back of my phone. You can't fix this, Kingsley, I thought bitterly, my heart breaking in two. Because to save my future, I'm going to have to destroy our duet.