Chapter 235
Though far apart, Yvonne caught that smile on Emily’s face. In an instant, a wave of unease spread deep within her.
Before she could react, the host said, “Let’s welcome Ms. Zwick to give us a detailed introduction to the project.”
The spotlight hit wenne, exposing the panic on her face before she quickly masked it with a stiff smile and stepped onto the stage.
The Zwick family had been getting ready for this benefit dinner long ago, and the task of presenting the project had been specially assigned by Walter to
Yvonne.
To perform well, Yvonne had been practicing her speech so much, feeling confident before going on stage. However, once there, all she could think about was Emily’s smirk.
She thought, “What did that smile mean? Has she done something? Is she trying to set me up?”
These thoughts kept popping into Yvonne’s head, making her stumble and mess up a lot. The Windrose family down below looked upset, and even though Walter wore a smile, his expression was far from pleased.
Yvonne noticed their expressions and grew even more flustered, stumbling through her words for several minutes before finally directing attention to the screen behind her. “Now, here’s the video I made for this project”
She stepped back a bit, pointed at the screen behind, and breathed a sigh of relief. She decided to get someone to grab Emily as soon as she got off the stage
However, before she could fully relax, strange voices came from the screen behind her.
“Hey, look at the camera. Give us a big smile”
The never seen anyone drink toilet water before. How does it taste!”
“Come on, let’s take a selfie”
In the video, several girls hold down a drenched girl on the floor, scooping toilet water with a cup and forcing it into her mouth.
The girl couldn’t fight back, crying and begging for forgiveness, but the other girls just laughed even harder, especially the one filming, whose voice sounded a little familiar.
At the end of the video, the girl behind the camera showed her face. It was Yvonne,
Everyone else’s faces in the video were blurred except Yvonne’s, who stood front and center with her face captured in sharp clarity.
“No, that’s not me.” Yvonne’s face went pale as she stumbled a few steps on stage.
Instinctively, she tried to cover the screen with her body, but the Zwick family had deliberately chosen the largest display for this event. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t block it.
She pressed against the screen, yelling hysterically at the staff, “Turn it off. Right now.”
Only then did the stall members react, rushing to turn off the screen, but no matter what they tried, it wouldn’t shut down.
The first video ended, but a new one started immediately. One after another, all showed the same group bullying the same girl in different ways and places.
was the one bolding the camera, running the show.
Every video ended with a group photo, and in all of them, Yvonne w
in a panic to stop it, Yvonne accidentally stepped on her dress and fell hard to the ground, ripping it open, but she didn’t care and looked frantically at the crowd below.
People looked at her with shock, disgust, mockery, and hatred. Yvonne trembled and said, “No, it’s not me. These videos are fake. Someone is trying to
frame me.”
“It’s Yvonne. She’s behind all of this. Another voice cut in, stopping Yvonne’s excuses. “I was one of the girls who bullied people with Yvonne back then. Everything in the videos is real. Yvonne filmed them, calling them her trophies.
“Yvonne was bossy and a troublemaker in high school. She bullied her classmates because her family had connections. Lots of students and teachers know about it.
These videos didn’t capture everything Yvonne did. She even forced someone to chest on the SAT and get caught on purpose. That girl got so desperate that she committed suicide the day before the test.
“After that, Yvonne used her family’s influence to get the principal to cover it up, even changing that girl’s records to say she went to another school. “Her grandmother once went to school to demand justice, but on the very day of the funeral, she died in a car accident. To keep us silent, the Zwick family targeted our families, driving us into bankruptcy and debt, forcing us to leave Cloudridge.
“We didn’t want to do it, but if we hadn’t, Yvonne would have done it to us. We had no choice.”
Following the bullying videos were multiple confessions from girls who had been in Yvonne’s crew. With Lily’s help, Emily found them and convinced them to record videos accusing Yvonne
It was Lily who collected those bullying videos and handed them to Emily.
Yvonne, who was used to bossing others around, had recorded how they bullied Quiana but was too lazy to sort out the footage, so she passed the job to
Lily
Lily, being cautious, kept a copy of all the videos just in case, and Yvonne had no idea about this.
When she was forced to leave Cloudridge, she had considered using the videos to threaten Yvonne, but then she heard that Quiana’s grandma had died. She knew it was connected to Yvonne, so she left the city quickly.
Because of the lingering resentment inside her, she kept those videos all along until Emily showed up.
It wasn’t only Lily’s family who had been forced to leave Cloudridge. Everyone in that crew hated Yvonne, so they all agreed to record the videos for Emily. Their only condition was to blur their faces in the videos.
Emily agreed, but asked them to keep Quiana’s name secret, along with the fact that Yvonne filmed her and stole her diary
Although Quiana was gone, Emily didn’t want her tragic story or her feelings for Zack to be used as gossip. She was sure Zeke felt the same way.
