Chapter 4 Grounded

Look, here she comes now, bow down and stare in wonder... Oh how we love you.

Adriana scrolled through the conversations on her school's forum. According to the latest post, KC was spotted in a place called Cape Innocensia, it is famous for drug dealers due to the mockery they want to connect on its name. The place sells just about anything that the law did not permit. It is a dangerous place to be. The comments on the post shocked Adriana as people started to write negative things about her idol. Some commented, that maybe, she is not as perfect as she wants people to believe. One even said that she will unfollow KC from then on.

Adriana contemplated for a while, before voicing out her thoughts, by commenting that the woman in the picture does look like KC, but knowing what she is like and how she had kept herself respectable. How could she possibly be the person in the photo?

Adriana's comment immediately received a reply. She cannot really rule it as a reply because it only consisted of a smiling emoji followed by a knife.

"What is wrong with them?" Adriana murmured as her comments suddenly received a lot of attention in a matter of minutes. Some joined her on her opinion, while others started to attack her personaly. She wanted to reply to each and everyone of them but decided otherwise. She resorted to messaging Chantell and asked her if she could write an article about the post, and at thesame time, procure an interview with user168 who posted the photo.

She waited, but surprisingly enough, she did not get a reply, despite Chantell clearly online. It is the first time she experienced a brush off from her friend. She tried to send one again, but just as before, her message got no response.

She began to panic, what the hell is wrong with these people she wondered, as the comments on KC's photo started to dramatically increase. She stayed online for a few hours before cursing her schoolmates and throwing her phone on the bed. She must get to school tomorrow and talk to Chantell. Adriana is confident that with a bit of help from the news paper club, KC's reputation will be cleared. But then, it dawned on her, the words her father said, the reason why she actually spent the entire day sleeping inside her room instead of attending school.

Feeling dejected, Adriana walked towards her window and stared down at the grass covered lawn her father spent so much beautifying. She decided not to go to sleep that night, and spent the hours, formulating words of regret and tactics to convince her parents to end her punishment and allow her to go back to school. She must find a way to fix Kc's name before the entire thing gets to bigger platforms like Instagram, tick-tock and Facebook.

Dawn broke and Adriana was startled when the notification on her phone announcing a new video post from KC appeared on her screen. She immediately opened it and smiled when a very pretty teen materialised before her eyes. KC's almond colored eyes are obviously glistening with tears, her long ebony hair hang loose, with a single star shaped clip on the side, to keep her bangs in place. Her make-up seemed a bit dull, but Adriana didn't care. KC smiled and held up, what seems like a printed copy of her photo, which was posted in the school forum, along with the various comments on it.

Adriana positioned herself on the bed as she listened to what KC had to say, and the video went as follows.

"Well, this is new. I would like to address the issue that has been swimming like an uneducated duck on our forum." KC brought the blown up printed copy of the picture towards her camera, in order to give the viewers a better and clearer view of the woman on the photo.

"If you would look closely, this woman have a tattoo on her arm and I don't" KC continued as she smirked at the camera.

"Another thing is, I was attending a runway show while this photo was supposedly taken." she added while putting the paper down.

"Many of you have decided to judge me before I could defend myself, I can't believe you called yourself my fans" she finished, before crying helplessly on social media.

Adriana immediately typed a reply on Kc's post and assured her that she, as part of the news paper community will look into it and make sure that the person who posted the photo will receive a thorough questioning along with an explanation of their claim.

Just when Adriana was done typing her comment, another notification popped up on her screen. Chantell has replied to her message. She frowned upon opening it. Her school's news paper editor has agreed to her request, but Adriana did not bother to reply. She found it offensive, how their editor dismissed her message a while back, and only replied when KC finally made an announcement. Shouldn't she, as part of the school news paper give more attention to things like defamation and attacking co-students without hearing both sides of the story?

The alarm buzzing on her bedside clock sent Adriana to her feet. She scrambled out of her room, ran down the stairs and awaited her mother's descent. She knows that her mom wakes up at five in the morning to prepare breakfast for her father. Despite them having numerous helpers inside their house, her mother still insist on making breakfast for her husband. Adriana has nothing but respect for that side of her mom, because it was her way of showing how much she loves her husband.

Angela spent the night tossing and turning on her bed. Her daughter, she had changed so much. She used to see things clearly, understand words without them trying to drill it on her head. How could she have changed so much in a year? When her phone buzzed to signal five o'clock she slowly got out of bed, careful not to wake her husband.

When she descended the stairs, what greeted her is her daughter with a solemn expression on her face. Angela can tell what she wanted before the teen could even say a word. When she got to her daughter's side, Adriana attempted to say something, but Angela immediately said no, whithout giving her an opportunity to say anything.

"Mom, listen to me for a while please" Adriana pleaded as she followed her mother towards the kitchen.

"look mom, I'm sorry. I know I messed up. But please hear me out" she pleaded again.

Angela asked her daughter to conitnue, but didn't bother to stop her hands from working through the drawer to pull out the utensils she is planning to use.

"Mom, you have to let me go to school today, it's really important" Adriana began. "I have something important to write." she continued as her mother finally turned to face her.

"Oh, and what would that be?" Angela asked.

"Mom, do you remember KC, someone at school started to spread rumors about her." Adriana said as she walked back and forth in front of her mother.

"I have to help her, you need to send me to school today" she added while throwing her mom her puppy eyed face.

Angela released a sigh while shaking her head. "Are you telling me that your apologising because you need to help this KC character and not because you learned your lesson?" she asked in disbelief.

Adriana pouted and without truly wanting to do so, frowned at her mother and asked why she is being difficult.

Angela couldn't help but release a chuckle. Her daughter truly have changed. "The answer is no Adriana" she finally said while waving her hand to dismiss her daughter.

Adriana couldn't believe it. It has always been an easy task to convince her mother in the past. Why is she suddenly being hard on her?

"Why are you doing this to me!" Adriana yelled. Her sudden outburst startled her mother, causing the woman to accidentally release her hold on the egg that she was planning to fry, falling on the floor, whilst releasing a cracking sound.

Angela finally glared at her daughter and command the young teen to go back to her room.

"Your horrible!" Adriana scoffed before leaving her mother. She mounted the stairs, crying and full of anger.