Chapter 4: What Everyone Saw
“Turn it off,” I said.
“I did.”
“Did you start that before you came downstairs?”
Stacy backed against the counter.
“I thought there was going to be a reveal.”
“So you planned to broadcast our family without asking us?”
“It was supposed to be fun.”
My husband held out his hand.
“Give me the phone.”
“No.”
“Stacy.”
“If I stop responding, people will think I’m crying.”
“You are crying,” I said.
“That’s different.”
The phone buzzed again.
Stacy looked down despite herself.
“What are they saying?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
My husband took the phone from her hand.
She grabbed for it, but he held it above the counter.
“‘Spoiled.’ ‘Ungrateful.’ ‘I’d take that Corolla.’” His jaw tightened.
“Someone clipped the part where you said the car would cost you your social life.”
“Delete it!”
“We can delete your broadcast,” I said.
“We cannot control what other people copied.”
“You ruined my birthday.”
“No,” my husband said.
“Your livestream did that.”
Stacy shoved her chair backward.
“You both wanted this.
You wanted me punished in public.”
“I didn’t know the public was watching.”
“But you knew my friends were outside.”
“You invited them to celebrate a promise I never made.”
She ran upstairs.
Her bedroom door slammed, and a framed photograph in the hallway shifted crooked.
My husband placed the phone beside me.
“Look at this.”
There were hundreds of comments.
Some defended us.
Others were cruel enough to make me turn the screen facedown.
“She’s still a child,” I said.
“She’s a child with an audience.”
The doorbell rang again.
Emma stood alone this time, holding her own phone.
“I’m sorry to come back,” she said.
“But Stacy isn’t answering.”
“She needs time.”
“I know.
I saved the full broadcast before it disappeared.”
My husband frowned.
“Why?”
“People are reposting a short clip that makes it look like you surprised her just to embarrass her.
The full video shows she started recording first.”
She sent the file to my husband.
“Thank you,” I said.
“That was a kind thing to do.”
Emma shifted her weight.
“I’m not trying to get her in more trouble.”
“Then why come back?”
“Because Madison wants Stacy to post that the Corolla was a fake gift and the Tesla is arriving tonight.”
My husband stared at her.
“There is no Tesla.”
“I know.
But if Stacy says that, Madison says everyone will forget what happened.”
I looked toward the stairs.
“Stacy!” I called.
She came down slowly, wiping her face with her sleeve.
“Did you tell Madison you would lie again?”
“She’s trying to help me.”
“By turning one lie into two?”
“You don’t understand how school works.”
Emma spoke quietly.
“I go to the same school.”
Stacy’s eyes hardened.
“Why are you even here?”
Emma unlocked her phone.
“Because there’s something else your mother needs to see.”
She opened a draft Stacy had shared with the group before her birthday.
It showed a photograph of me through the dealership window.
May you like
Above it, Stacy had written five words:
“Watch her give in again.”
