Revenge12 min read
My Voice Heard What She Hid
ButterPicks16 views
I didn't expect a single misstep on a stair to change everything about the people around me.
"I okay," I told Hadley as I landed on my knees on the dorm staircase, the world tilting for a second. She crouched, hands trembling. "Are you hurt, Adelyn?"
"No, I'm fine." I tried to sound bright. But then the other voice slid into my head like cold water: This fat idiot—why is she acting like she can't walk?
I froze. Hadley was still holding me, her eyes full of concerned light. "What happened? Are you hurt, really?"
I turned my head and looked straight at her. The hallway was empty; the late afternoon sunlight slanted through the windows and dust floated like tiny planets.
"You just—did you just call me fat?" I asked.
Hadley's face crumpled for the smallest second. "What? No, I would never—"
The voice in my mind continued: Of course she’s stupid. Who would hang out with someone like her if not for the glow she brings me? What a free ride.
I pulled my hand away. "You think I'm stupid?"
"Adelyn, stop," Hadley said out loud, but the voice that answered in my head was hers, sharp and impatient: Idiot—of course I think that. If I didn't use her, who would make me look better?
I stared at her. Her smile didn't change.
"No, you don't," she lied. "I love you. You know that."
I let the stair railing support me. The world had become thinner, every noise magnified down to nails tapping and the far-off slam of a door. I felt my heartbeat in my wrists like it was a thing that had been hiding there the whole time.
When I tried the same test on a passing girl—"Hi" I said politely—she returned a polite "Hi." Her voice shouted the expected one: Who's that? Why does she talk to me?
I had been certain, until that fall, that the girl who shared my bedside lamp and cried with me on bad nights was as loyal as a sister. We had eaten every campus meal together, shared notes, laughed over silly dramas. She had told me to keep a low profile, to be careful with money and with the way I showed my privileges. I had followed her, trusting the hands that always reached out.
I sat on my bed that night and cried until my pillow was damp. My cousin Caroline called right away.
"Who did this to you?" she asked when she heard the short version. "Tell me their name."
"Hadley," I almost choked on the word. "She—Caroline, I can hear people's thoughts. She thinks I'm a joke."
Caroline's laugh was thin. "I told you, she's a green tea. But we don't rush. We out-green the green tea."
"Out-green the green tea?" I sniffed.
"Exactly. Play dumb, then strike. Don't make a scene. Make her get exposed."
I wiped my nose and tried to think. The idea of being cunning enough to use someone's own game against them felt foreign and a little intoxicating. The person Hadley had been in public—polished, calm, gentle—was a costume. Underneath were teeth that had been bared at me for years.
The next morning I tried a tiny experiment. I walked into our shared bathroom and lifted the Armani body wash my mom had sent me, holding it like a foreign object.
"That was mine," I said gently.
Hadley spun, the practiced care etched on her face. "Oh, I wouldn't—"
Her thought butted in early: Ew, oily. That stuff is for old ladies. Why would she use Armani? Who told her she could?
I kept my voice light. "Looks like it's empty. Did you use it up?"
She flapped. "I would never use yours. I told you—that formula isn't for you."
Her eyes flickered toward my shelf. The mascara there. The MiuMiu dress propped in a hanger. She had always borrowed things and called it protection.
"Caroline said it's fine if I keep the things she sends me in my closet. She said it helps me feel at home."
Hadley shifted. Decide whether to buy me a replacement, she thought, weighing the number. Five hundred bucks? Ugh.
"I can ask her," I said, impossible calm, and the look on Hadley's face told me everything. She knew I could.
Days passed, and the trick worked: I played small, obedient, the friend who was easy to manipulate. I let her do my makeup sometimes and sometimes made a show of being grateful. "Thank you for helping," I'd say.
Her thoughts rarely matched her voice. She would smile and think: Serves her right. She looks like a clown. Let her wear it tonight and make her look ridiculous.
I made notes in my head. I counted the things she took, the things she returned with minuscule excuses. She was careful—always careful to make it look like she was protecting me from the dangers of flashy life. She forbade me to tell anyone our true situation, to avoid jealousy. Yet every designer item in our room—my designer shoes, my unopened bags—ended up hung on her hooks within days.
"Why do you tell me not to show off?" I asked one night, voice soft, as we lay in our beds. The room hummed with the air conditioner.
"So you don't become a target," she said. "People are mean to rich kids."
Of course, the real thought: People are blind. If you are prettier you cast a shadow on me.
The more I listened, the colder I felt. My chest clenched when she, facing away, thought: I'm doing her a favor. She doesn't know how to behave. She's lucky I'm around to lead.
Caroline's plan became my script. She taught me how to lean in and be extra-gullible. "Let her wear you out like a showpiece," Caroline said. "Then you reveal the cracks."
In the classroom I raised my hand in a way I never would have before. The professor picked me to present. I walked to the front, the lights hitting every contour of my face. Hadley sat to the side, prim and perfect, watching.
I let her do my makeup thoroughly that morning and then, in front of the entire class, I removed my mask.
"Am I… too much?" I asked the professor, voice trembling. "Is my makeup awful?"
The room silence cut sharp. Someone laughed and then a ripple of chuckles. The professor scolded Hadley mildly.
"Next time, don't mess with others' faces," he said. "A little care."
Hadley flushed white, the smile gone. Her mind raced panic: What did I do? I'm supposed to be the perfect girl.
It was effective, but small. The big moment came when I followed Caroline’s plan fully.
"Let's split the bill today," I told her at lunch, casually. She blinked in surprise. "I ran out of cash."
Her inner voice spat venom: Bitch! Ask your own family for money.
She tried to say no; then she caved, slapped her card on the counter. The card declined.
Hadley left in a huff. I posted about it in a public comment under one of her staged "everything-is-perfect" photos: "You forgot to recharge your card—are you okay?"
Her post disappeared.
I kept building small ruptures, small exposures, each one like a notch on a belt. I made sure girls noticed: the way she always had things that weren't hers, the way her "rich daughter" story bent under questions. I hinted gently, "Did you really get that from family? It looked like she bought it from you."
And then the hit—sweet, delicious, loud.
It started with a simple favor. I filled in an application for on-campus financial aid and used Hadley's name, claiming she might be ashamed to ask herself. The counselor called her to speak at a review meeting to "confirm documents." Hadley stood in front of the class and stuttered. Her defense crumbled. Whispers spread. "Why would she, the rich girl, need aid?"
She had been borrowing money from me—thousands here and there—while always telling others that I was the awkward, poor one. When asked point blank by the counselor whether she had ever borrowed money from classmates, Hadley could not maintain the act.
It tasted like victory at first, then like something nastier. I watched her face as she tried to explain to the counselor that maybe there was a mistake. She said her father was a businessman, and then—caught—said her father had some business trouble. Her tears were sudden and melodramatic.
The crowd around us changed. Friends I had never seen before started to murmur loudly, side glances and raised eyebrows like knives.
"She owes how much?" someone whispered.
"Eight grand? For what?"
"Who pays for a hairdo that costs six grand?"
Hadley’s world began to shift. Everyone who had once nodded at her politeness now saw another version: a woman who borrowed, borrowed, borrowed, lied, and blamed others.
But that was only the beginning. Caroline and I staged the largest expose at the birthday party for Javier Espinoza—the student association president Hadley adored like a trinket.
"We'll go as friends," Hadley had coquetted, and the room applauded. She dressed in white chiffon and silenced the breath of everyone when she walked in. I walked in wearing the rival MiuMiu Caroline had helped me pick—fitted, elegant, with a dress that hugged the weight I'd lost with Aldric's training. Aldric? He'd been my cousin's friend who trained me with a purpose.
"Look at them," someone whispered. "Both of them are in MiuMiu."
I smiled and leaned into the party scene, seeing the chance. Caroline had brokered everything—the private singer, the limited edition shoes, the borrowed Lamborghini we used as a prop. Gene Webb, a kind older man who worked as a driver we'd hired for the night, agreed to play a small but crucial part.
"Your dad?" he said, approaching Hadley, a gentle shock in his voice.
"What are you doing here, Gene?" she snapped. "You're not my father."
He blinked. Hadley shoved him rudely. The room’s tune shifted in a syllable.
"Is that—" a boy started, eyes wide. "Is he—"
My pulse pounded like a drum. I wished I could stop the ache that came when Gene took the rejection with dignity. The man had driven all night to make this happen and came expecting to be treated kindly.
A chorus of sideways glances turned to whispers about Hadley’s claims about her background. People remembered the stories she'd told of family gifts and villas. Now the evidence—Gene's presence—suggested the opposite.
"Who even borrows cars?" someone asked. "Who lies about a dad?"
But the real hammer came when I handed the president a box. Inside was the limited-edition sneakers I had arranged to arrive early and the singer's cameo as a surprise. The president's eyes widened. "This—this is unreal."
Hadley pushed to be in the spotlight, and I let her march right into it. I handed her the gift first, with the sweet smile of someone giving another the stage. The president opened it, and the boys around us gaped at the price tag they'd whispered about.
"You bought this for me?" Hadley cooed.
"I thought you liked this model," I said, stepping back.
The president glanced at me. "Thank you," he said, meaning my gift as well, and the tilt of his voice suggested he noticed the difference between the two. He looked over Hadley with a confusion that I had started to study.
The singer—Juliette Yamamoto—glided in later, greeted each guest like someone else’s sun. She sang only a couple of lines, voice like a polished bell, and people melted.
Hadley had rehearsed to sing for the president. She wanted to be remembered for her voice. She took the small stage and began to sing, breath trembling.
Juliette walked on, smiled, and sang a few lines so perfect no one could watch Hadley anymore. The room turned. People clustered around Juliette to take photos.
Hadley’s hands began to tremble. She stumbled over lines and her face, in those lit, unforgiving photographs, turned red with a shame deeper than embarrassment.
A boy made a video. "She can't even finish," he whispered. The comments under the party photos the next day were brutal.
As if that weren't enough, during dessert I made my move. "I have a story," I announced when the president asked if someone wanted to speak. People groaned. "No—Adelyn. Go on."
"Let me tell you about something that happened this term," I said, voice steady. "About someone who borrowed and borrowed, who told everyone she was rich, who had everything she needed—except the courage to own it."
"Are you okay?" Hadley snapped.
"Yes," I said. "I will tell it. In fact, I kept track of everything."
I pulled out my phone, and the room leaned forward. "Small A borrowed eight thousand from Small B," I said, because names were easy to infer in our small campus. "Here's the list."
Someone in the crowd laughed, then fell quiet. I projected a spreadsheet—meticulous, labeled—on the wall through the phone screen. There were receipts, screenshots of money transfers, and messages.
"She told us she came from money, right?" I continued. "She told people she couldn't be helped. But when pushed, she claimed hardship."
The room closed in around Hadley. She went white, then flushed. "You—this is private," she stammered, the practiced voice gone.
"Do you want me to read the list?" I asked softly. "There are items: a six-thousand-dollar hair appointment. Shoes. Tickets. I paid for some of these in trust. She has not—she has not repaid it."
Gasps and murmurs, the room folding into whispers like wings. I closed my eyes for a second and pictured every time she'd stood with one hand on my shoulder, whispering 'I'm protecting you.'
"Pay your debts," someone called.
"How could you—"
Hadley lunged, slapsticky with anger. She shoved a nearby student accidentally, and someone fell, cutting a finger on a dessert knife. The knife opened another sort of wound: sympathetic mouths muttered "dangerous."
I watched her best act, the one she'd perfected in our dorm showers and campus selfies, peel off. Her voice cracked. "You made me—"
"I made you?" I echoed. "You stole from the people you claimed to love."
For a long time, the room was a theater of judgment. Phones came out. People filmed and whispered. Some applauded. Others averted their eyes, disgusted.
"You—" she choked. "You're lying."
"Am I?" I asked, and I showed the bank transfers. People crowded around, reading. Proof sits heavy on a table with a thud.
She changed tone: "I—my father—"
A man near the door murmured, "Who borrowed eight thousand from a friend? Who does that to someone they call sister?" The words were like cold water thrown at her. She rocked on her heels.
Someone in the group, who'd always been polite to Hadley, said quietly, "We used to think she was from a rich family. Turns out, she borrowed cars and bags. Who does she think she is?"
It got louder. Executed mistakes multiply like echoes in a canyon. Tears began to fall, but nobody rushed to offer tissues; the sympathy had gone.
Hadley went through the stages I had watched in a dozen stories: anger, denial, bargaining, collapse. At first she rage-shouted that the documents were fake. She accused me of making everything up. Then she noticed the faces and tried to cry real tears, to beg the president to confirm something. The president's face mixed pity and caution.
"Please," she begged. "I can explain."
I let silence yawn a while. The room's breath was a thousand small sounds—shoes shifting, fingers on phones, the whirr of the air conditioner.
"This is the explanation," I said. "You can't have both a narrative of wealth for applause, and a lifestyle where you borrow everything and treat the lender like dirt."
Her hands shook. A girl near the dessert station said quietly, "I lent her money once and she never paid me back." Another nodded. A boy who'd always flirted with Hadley shouted, "She used me for photos."
She became unhinged. "You're all jealous!" she yelled. "You're the liar!"
Then she sagged, going still. The party had folded into many small tribunals.
I stepped closer. "I didn't do this to hurt you," I said, and I meant it less for her than for myself. "I did this because I can't be used anymore. Because I can't be a prop in your show."
She fell to the floor as if sudden weakness had struck her. People edged away as if she might be contagious.
"And the best part?" I added softly, because the room needed closure. "You always called me the ugly, oily one. But look around. Who's clutching boxes of shoes, who has keys to cars that are not theirs? Who is standing with the singer? Who, when asked about truth, collapses?"
Fans of Hadley would post the videos later that night—40 seconds of her crying on the villa floor, 20 seconds of her face when the driver revealed himself, 10 seconds of her trying to sing and failing. The comments were merciless.
Later, when she escaped campus, claiming health reasons, the counselor filed notes and the dean got copies of the spreadsheet. People stopped inviting her to meetings. The president, surprisingly, made a quiet statement: "We value honesty."
For weeks after, the campus turned its head when she walked by. She left her bed empty in the dorm, and the landlord later returned the key.
This was the punishment I had wanted: not legal, not with gavel and judge, but public and undeniable, with the people who had been duped watching her unmasking and knowing she had nowhere to hide.
It was more brutal because she had built her life on appearances. To have those appearances crumble in front of the exact crowd who had put her on a pedestal—friends, admirers, the president—was a collapse that showed the cost of a life built on other people's kindness.
I did not dance on her ruin. When the driver left with the slow dignity of a man who'd been insulted by a child, I felt shame for having used him as a piece in my plan. I wired him a thousand dollars for cab fare and then cut myself off. Revenge tastes like iron.
Caroline hugged me the next day. "You did it," she said. "You didn't ruin yourself either."
"I lost trust," I said, which was truer than anything. "But I gained the relief of knowing I will never be used like that again."
"Good," Caroline said. "Now keep your things in your closet and your life in your hands."
Days settled like dust. The MiuMiu dress hung back in my closet with the label still looped on its seam, but now I wore it because I wanted to, not because someone else had directed me to. The pink BMW I had lent to Hadley one night sat where it always did, dusty from the party. The fingerprint door that had opened so smoothly for me when I came in with the Lamborghini was now a story I told sometimes, a unique sound: the "click" of a villa door that opened by my hand because the key had once belonged to me, not to anyone else's pretense.
Hadley took a leave of absence that week. Her bed was cleared out. Students whispered for a while and then moved on. People like big scenes but they tire quickly.
I sat on the dorm balcony the next morning and listened. For the first time in months, the noise in my head was my own breath. I realized I could still hear faint thoughts—fleeting, uninterested—but not the constant chatter that had once made me dizzy.
"Do you regret it?" Caroline asked when she came over with coffee.
"Some," I admitted. "Using Gene was wrong. But I couldn't let the lies keep taking what was mine."
She put her hand over mine. "You did what you had to. Just be careful how you do it next time."
The pink BMW was still mine. The villas and the gifts were mine. The things had been taken back, retrieved in plain daylight. The cost was not small; forgiveness is expensive, and the laundry of conscience is not free.
But the taste of being seen properly—the rightness that came from a truth laid bare—stayed with me like the echo of a clock struck at noon.
When I locked my finger to the villa door later that week, the pad answered with the soft "beep" only I had heard before. It was a small, private music.
"Maybe next time," I thought, "I'll use this voice differently."
The End
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