Chapter 15 - The Girl Who Chose
Olivia arrived at the special school board meeting wearing jeans instead of her cheer uniform. Her mother sat behind her. Charles didn't come.
Olivia read from a handwritten page, stopped, and started again.
"My father told me Emma was hurting the school's reputation," she said. "He told me to make her look foolish so people would stop listening. He didn't tell me to throw the tray. I chose that. I knew it would hurt her. I thought it would make people like me."
A board member asked whether she'd been promised anything. "No. I was already captain of the squad. I didn't need a prize."
Emma sat beside Maya, nails pressed into her palms. Part of her wanted Olivia to blame her father for everything. Olivia's confession was harder to hear because it left nothing to misunderstand.
"I also knew the edited video was wrong," Olivia continued. "I didn't correct it. I liked that people still believed I was the victim."
Merritt's attorney requested a recess. The board chair declined until Olivia finished. She submitted her statement to Ruiz and named the students who had helped spread the recording.
After the meeting, Olivia approached Emma but stopped a few feet away.
"I'm sorry," she said. "Not for how you felt. For what I did."
Emma breathed slowly. "I believe you understand it now. I don't know if I can forgive you."
"I wasn't going to ask you to."
Olivia turned to leave. Emma spoke again. "You should apologize to the cafeteria workers, too. That tray was their work."
Olivia nodded with tears in her eyes.
Ruiz called Grant late that night. Investigators had confirmed that money intended for student meals had been used to cover charges from an unrelated Harper company.
"There's more," she said. "The board signed a three-year extension last month."
Grant glanced toward Emma sleeping on the couch with her mother's letter on her chest.
May you like
"Who signed it?" he asked.
Ruiz answered, "Every person who was at the containment meeting."
