013 | web of lie

Cassie stretched her arms the moment she was finished answering her school assignments. She closed her notes and books and then placed it inside her backpack, so she wouldn't have to arrange her things in the morning if she woke up late.

She held her phone and then flopped on her bed. She unlocked her phone to see who sent her messages. She saw Yvonne and Samantha sent a message in their group chat. She would see them later, but for now, she went to Facebook to see what her news feed looked like.

She saw lots of photos from her different Facebook friends, funny random videos, and even cute animal videos that her Facebook friends shared.

She saw an interesting post from a Facebook page called Smith Secret Files. Students of Smith could submit their appreciation for someone or some of their interesting stories through Google Form, but it was up to them if they would use their name or remain anonymous, and the admin of the page would post these submissions. Although she wasn't a Smith student, she was still interested to read these files.

She clicked the page to go to the main page and then scrolled down to read more posts. She sat bolt upright once she saw a post relating to Natasha. She tapped at the photo and then zoomed in to see if there were chances of it having edited, but she couldn't see that this was edited although she didn't have intermediate knowledge about editing.

She couldn't believe this. She didn't want to jump to any conclusions, so she wanted to hear it directly from Natasha herself. She tapped home and then tapped the contacts to call Natasha.

But Natasha didn't answer her call.

She assumed that Natasha was busy studying since she was determined to study well or she had some chores to do or she was just simply asleep. She knew Natasha had no Facebook account, so Natasha wouldn't know about this Facebook post. She had no choice, but to leave Natasha a voice message.

"Natasha you have to know this! I don't know if you know about the Secret Files culture, but some anonymous posted in the Smith Secret Files of four photos of you and Baker seemed to be like kissing! Did Baker really kiss you? It seems like you'll be in huge trouble tomorrow because of these photos!" she was satisfied with the voice message, so she hit the send option.

She took a screenshot of the Facebook post and then saved those four photos. She sent a screenshot and the four photos to Natasha as well.

She couldn't shake off the worry about Natasha in her heart. She knew Natasha still hadn't made a friend yet at Smith High School. She knew that worrying about what would happen tomorrow wouldn't help, so she would just trust that everything would work out for Natasha.

**

"You will become miserable, Margaux."

**

Natasha woke up from a bad dream. She dreamt of that dream again. She didn't know why.

There was no use to think of it as thinking of it all over again wouldn't form any sort of answer, so she stood up from her bed to reach her phone that was on her study desk. She saw messages from Cassie, so she double-tapped it to see the message.

She listened to the voice message of Cassie. It certainly wasn't a good approach for her in the early morning. She checked the next message of Cassie.

She saw the photos of her and Baker who seemed to be kissing, but it reality Baker didn't even kiss her. She had an idea who would do this, but reasoning she had no boyfriend at this point would be futile since she had no evidence to back her up.

She shuddered when she realized that she would be labeled as a liar later. As much as she was scared of what would happen later, she needed to go to school because she wanted to do well in her studies for her parents. She breathed in and out to calm herself down.

She was already trapped in this lie.

**

She had no problem being questioned by her parents since she woke up early thanks to her bad dream. Since she was the early one to wake up, she prepared her packed lunch and breakfast for her parents.

She had also prepared herself to be the talk of Smith High School after she learned that information from Cassie.

Her right hand was trembling to open the sliding door of the classroom. She gulped and then breathed in and out to calm her heart.

"It's all right. It's all right," she had no one, so she comforted herself.

She opened the sliding door and then looked at her desk. It wasn't vandalized or no one slipped some sort of hate note under her desk. She speculated that because Charlotte was punished for vandalizing her desk, no one dared to do the same thing. She knew that the response in the Facebook post was pretty much negative.

She would expect the worst later.

**

"Did you see that Facebook post, Addison?" Isabella asked. "What a plot twist, huh."

Isabella recalled how surprised she was yesterday to see Natasha had kissed someone based on those photos. Since the one who submitted remained anonymous, she didn't know who was it, but she had her suspicion.

"You mean Queen of Hearts had a boyfriend in reality? Yeah. Regardless, I don't give a shit if she lied or not," Addison replied. "It's the life of Queen of Hearts anyway. I don't know why do these people bother about someone else's life."

"True," Isabella agreed. "It's kind of scary to think Queen of Hearts had a stalker to get this information."

Isabella suspected Charlotte was the one behind this after the desk incident, but it was also possible that one of the admirers of Queen of Hearts was bothered about the rumor, so they checked it out if it was legit.

"So do you intend to talk about this issue or let us talk about something else? Of course, I'd prefer the latter," Addison didn't want to talk about the issue.

"Let us talk about something else," Isabella answered. "I'd also like that."