Molly caught my hand. Not a trace of suspicion in her eyes.
"No way we'd forget our star class president!"
Once I was out of the classroom, I stopped at the corner and waited.
Sure enough, the moment I was gone, worried voices drifted out from inside.
"Molls, I heard they're cracking down hard at the exam center this year. What if we actually get caught?"
Molly glanced out the window toward the hallway.
I pressed myself flat behind the corner wall.
She didn't spot me. After scanning the corridor and seeing no one, her brazen laughter rang out from the classroom.
"So what if we get caught!"
Molly nestled right up against Ethan,
and the two of them said it at the exact same time:
"If we get caught, Miriam takes the fall!"
A wave of cheering erupted, and then someone asked in a small voice,
"What if Miriam won't admit to it…"
"She doesn't get to say no!"
Ethan stepped forward and clapped the student on the shoulder.
"She's got the best grades in our class—who else would they suspect first?"
"And there are fifty-six of us. Fifty-six people all pointing at her. Who's anyone gonna believe?"
"One more thing!"
Molly picked up right where Ethan left off, grinning as she spoke.
"Tomorrow morning, when I show everyone how to use the devices—nobody calls Miriam. Not a word."
"Why? We're not telling her?"
"Of course not. Her grades are so good, she can manage on her own!"
"But she already paid…"
"So? She lorded over us for three years. Think of it as payback for putting up with her."
Their laughter hit me through the wall, ugly and wide open, and I dug my nails into my palms until it hurt.
Of course. They let me walk out that easily—there was never a chance it ended there.
But I wasn't the Miriam Winfield of my last life anymore, the lamb led quietly to slaughter.
I gripped my bag and went straight to the homeroom teacher's office.
"Ms. Simmons, this year's early admission to Westbridge University—I want it."
Then I set my exam admission ticket on the desk in front of her.
"I'm not sitting for the national college entrance exam."
I wouldn't set foot in a single exam room. Let them try to pin something on me then.
My decision came so suddenly
that Ms. Simmons didn't even have time to announce it in the class group chat.
The next morning, I picked up my phone. Not a single message. My mouth curved.
My mom was president of the Parent-Teacher Association,