One of my roommates, Victoria Jones, pretended to accidentally lift up my shirt during the physical examination held by our school, pointing at the stretch marks on my belly due to the rapid weight loss and shouting, "Zoe Hanson, why does your belly look like my sister's? She just gave birth to a child; were you also pregnant before?"
That night, she secretly took my photos and posted them on the school forum with a slander that I gave birth to a rich man's child as his mistress.
Soon, everyone knew that the campus queen was a slut.
*****
Today was the first day of classes, and I excitedly left the dormitory with my two roommates, heading to the classroom.
However, as soon as I came out of the dorm building, I could feel numerous judgmental eyes on me.
"She must be the campus queen of freshmen in our school, Zoe, right?"
"No wonder she got famous before entering our university on our school's forum."
"That's why she got a sugar daddy and was pregnant in the summer before this term started."
"What a slut!"
By the time I reached the downstairs of the classroom building, I felt more and more uncomfortable facing the malicious gossip.
I couldn't help but look back again and again to check what was going on.
But every time I turned around, these burning gazes disappeared.
With a frown, I took out a small mirror from my bag and checked the situation in the reflection of it.
Soon, I caught someone pointing at me and strode towards her, "What are you looking at?"
The girl took three steps back and looked at my belly. "Don't you know what you have done? You're so shameless."
I looked at my roommates in confusion, and clearly, they also had no idea what she was talking about.
Later, the moment I stepped into the classroom, everyone coincided in silence.
After we sat down, a girl approached me hesitantly and asked timidly, "Did you really...?"
"What do you want to say?" I said.
She was Clara Green and lived in the next dorm. But what she said perplexed me.
"Well... Did you... Were you really pregnant in high school?" she said.
"What?" I was stunned.
"Here it is. It got viral on the school forum." She handed me her phone.
The title of this post was that the campus queen secretly gave birth to a child during summer vacation.
I immediately clicked the post.
The anonymous poster uploaded my picture and a zoom-in picture of my belly.
The ugly stretch marks on my belly look particularly hideous under a dark filter.
Netizen A: [Zoe is a bitch.]
Netizen B: [I was in the same high school as her, and she had put on so much weight a year ago.]
Netizen C: [How could she even be pregnant in high school? Why didn't her parents teach her to have a sense of shame?]
Netizen D: [Was she pregnant with her sugar daddy's child?]
Netizen E: [Wow, that's so gross. It makes me uncomfortable to stay on the same campus as her.]
One of my roommates, Anna Moore, asked, "Who is this poster? Why did he or she have a picture of your belly?"
I sneered, "I only told my family and roommates that I had stretch marks on my body."
The other roommate with me, Layla Miller, shook her head. "It's not me. I won't take pictures of your belly. It's so creepy."
"Yeah, and you told us that those marks were because of rapid weight loss when we first met," Anna said.
There were only four people in our dormitory. At this point, the suspect was obvious.
2The comments on the forum were still mounting, and more and more pictures of me when I didn't lose weight were posted.
I did gain weight in my last year of high school. In order to prepare for the colleague entrance exam, my parents fed me nutritious food every day. I gained dozens of pounds in just half a year.
The photos were taken secretly. In the photos, I was climbing the stairs with a chunky body and queuing in the cafeteria with my hands on my waist.
Netizen A: [How could she lose so much weight in just one summer? She must have delivered a child to become skinny again!]
Netizen B: [Look at how strenuously she walked, she was obviously a pregnant woman at that time.]
Netizen C: [Only pregnant women would stand like that.]
Netizen D: [I was her classmate in high school, and she always sat on the playground in P.E classes.]
The rumor intensified with the revelations from "insiders" and almost "ensured" the slander about me.
Anna and Layla logged into their accounts and started to help me clarify.
Anna: [That's not true. These stretch marks were left by losing weight]
Layla: [Where is her so-called child? Do you have any evidence that she was pregnant at that time?]
Anna: [That's right. The original poster must be a pathetic bastard. Stop the rumors right now!]
But they didn't take the clarification seriously and soon mocked them.
Netizen A: [She's using puppet accounts to shut our mouths.]
Netizen B: [Do you think she will let us find out where her child is? She must have hidden him or her!]
Netizen C: [Perhaps the child was taken away by her wealthy sponsor. She is just a tool for reproduction. I wonder how much money she makes from each order.]
Netizen D: [She has such an innocent face. I wanted to pursue her before knowing this shit. I'm so lucky to know the truth.]
The speed at which Anna and Layla clarified for me could not keep up with the speed of new comments in the forum. Aggressive as Anna, she even began to curse them with dirty language.
I just held their hands and said, "That's enough. They won't believe you."
"What should we do? Just let them talk shit about you?" Layla even said with a quavering voice.
Of course, I would settle this down.
I couldn't continue the class, so I stood up and walked outside.
As I stepped out of the classroom, I encountered my crush, Kevin Woods, and his friends.
Ever since I successfully lost weight, every time he met me, he always greeted me gently with a faint smile.
This time, however, he just scornfully glanced at me, completely ignoring my presence as he walked past me.
"Kevin, why did you look at me like that?" I stopped him.
Before he responded, his friends started mocking me.
"Don't you know what kind of person you are now? Stop pestering Kevin."
"Zoe, stay away from us. I don't want to get syphilis from you."
Anna exploded. "What the fuck are you talking about?"
"Watch your mouth, bitch!" Kevin's pals looked provoked and wanted to hurt us.
I pulled Anna behind me and pointed at the surveillance camera in the corridor. "This is the surveillance coverage area. You can try to hit us."
Then, I turned to Kevin and said, "Do you also believe the rumors on the school forum?"
Kevin said, "Zoe, my family won't allow me to date a girl like you. I think we'd better just be friends."
He didn't mention the rumors on the forum at all, but every word implied that I was a slut.
He said, "Don't keep your unrealistic fantasies about me anymore. I will never be together."
After saying that, he directly left with his friends.
Anna angrily cursed at their backs and said, "She will find someone better than you!"
3I shivered with rage, Kevin and I were in the same high school, and I had a secret crush on him for two years.
Although we were not officially in a relationship, at least we were friends.
However, a true friend stood beside you when you were in trouble, not stabbing you in the back.
I tried hard to hold back my tears and said, "It's okay, let's go back first."
As soon as I walked to the dormitory door, I heard Victoria talking on the phone inside.
She was on speakerphone, and the dormitory was not very soundproof. Therefore, we could hear her conversation with the student advisor, Charlie White.
Charlie said, "Please tell Zoe to come to my office. I have something to verify with her."
"What's up? She hasn't come back yet," Victoria said.
After two seconds of silence, Charlie asked, "Did you give birth to a child before?"
Victoria said, "I'm not sure about this, but I heard her say that she stayed in bed for a month to recuperate."
Then, I heard the student advisor hang up the phone in a bad tone.
Obviously, she was the origin of those vicious rumors.
Victoria still gloated when Anna suddenly pushed the door.
Seeing we come back, she immediately changed her face and considerately asked me, "Zoe, you're back! Mr. White wanted to see you in his office."
"Really? What did he say?" I asked.
She said, "Nothing particular. He just asked if you were in the dorm."
"Didn't he ask you whether I was pregnant before?" I sneered.
"I don't know much about your privacy," Victoria said.
Anna stepped forward. "You know how she got those stretch marks very well! She told us the first day we met in the dorm that she got those due to weight loss! She showed us the pictures when she was still fat!"
"It's just her one-sided words. Her belly looked exactly the same as my sister who had just delivered a kid. I was telling the truth," Victoria refuted.
"You are the poster on the school forum, right?" Anna asked.
"I don't know what you're talking about." Since she knew we couldn't prove that she slandered me on the Internet, Victoria pretended she was innocent.
Teachers managed the school forum, which meant they could access all the information of the forum users.
In order to better manage the forum, all accounts were registered with real names. Even if someone posted anonymously, they could still check out who was the register.
"I will find everything out," I said.
Then, I called Charlie but was frustrated by his bad attitude.
He said, "Why do you want to find an anonymous poster? People have the right to say what they want. Don't make things difficult for me.
"Besides, if you're really innocent, they won't even have the chance to spread those rumors.
"How about this? You can do a body check to upload the testing result that you have never been pregnant to clarify yourself."
"But I am the victim of..." I said.
"Zoe, you still can't prove that you're decent. You can't determine if those are slanders now," Charlie said.
I hung up the phone. "No one is more reliable than myself."
4"Zoe, just call the police," Anna said.
"Yeah." I was about to leave for the police station when Victoria stopped me and said, "Zoe, consider your reputation. Calling the police will ruin everything." She acted like she did that for my own good.
"I have nothing to fear. After all, those are just rumors. By the way, why are you so nervous?" I said.
I pushed her hand away and kept walking out of the dorm building. However, Charlie appeared near the gate and stopped me again.
He snatched my phone and said, "What are you doing? Save yourself some face!"
According to the heavy panting, he must have run to this place.
The reason he knew I was going to the police station must be thanks to Victoria's notification.
As expected, I caught a glimpse of Victoria heaving a sigh of relief from the corner of my eye.
"It has caused so much trouble in our school. Do you want to be punished?" He looked at me like I was trash and said very unkindly.
"Why will I get punishment? I am the victim of slander!" I disputed him.
"That's right, Zoe did nothing wrong." Anna spoke up for me angrily.
"If she were really as innocent as she claimed to be, she would have been immune to criticism at first. Show me the medical report that you have never been pregnant, and it will be over. Otherwise, you will get punishment." Then, Charlie pointed at Anna and Layla.
Anna still wanted to debate, but I pulled her back.
"Mr. White, Zoe didn't mean to make a big deal out of it. She will defend the fame of our school." Meanwhile, Victoria eased the tension. "Please hand it to me, Mr. White. I will persuade Zoe."
Charlie snorted. "See how beautiful and kind Victoria is! Learn from her."
After seeing off instructor Charlie, she came back with a haughty look on her face. "Zoe, for your own good, just let it go, okay?"
"Don't act like you're her friend." Anna said, "Zoe, I think we should call the police."
I shook my head. I couldn't call the police and implicated Anna and Layla in this shit.
This matter had nothing to do with them, and I couldn't let them suffer this punishment for helping me.
"It's okay. I won't call the police," I said.
I noticed that Victoria suddenly breathed a sign of relief after hearing that.
She relaxed way too early. It was not over.