Chapter 3

By the time I got a ride home, it was too late.

The sounds hit me before I even reached the front door.

Loud, bass-heavy music vibrated through the walls of my family's stately brick home, a sound it had never known before.

The manicured lawn was already littered with red plastic cups and crushed beer cans.

I pushed open the front door and froze.

My home, my sanctuary, had been turned into a frat house. People I didn't know were everywhere. A couple was making out on the antique sofa in the foyer.

Someone had set up a beer pong table on my mother' s polished mahogany dining table. The air smelled of stale beer, weed, and cheap perfume.

I felt a surge of rage so pure it almost choked me. This was a violation.

I saw a group of Liam' s friends trying to pry a small painting off the wall in the living room. It was a landscape my grandmother had painted.

"Get your hands off that!" I yelled, running towards them.

They just laughed at me. "Liam said we could take whatever we wanted," one of them slurred.

I pulled out my phone, my fingers trembling as I dialed 911. I was going to have every single one of them arrested for trespassing.

Before I could hit the call button, the phone was snatched from my hand. I spun around to see Skye standing there, a triumphant smirk on her face.

"Oh no, you don't," she said, pocketing my phone. "We're just getting started."

She turned to the crowd that was starting to gather around us. Her face transformed, her expression shifting to one of a wounded victim.

"Look at her, everyone," Skye cried out, her voice filled with theatrical pain. "We just wanted to celebrate our friend's success, and she wants to call the cops on us. Is it because we're not from a rich family like hers? Does she think her fancy house is too good for people like us?"

Her words hit their mark. The mood in the room shifted. Murmurs of agreement rippled through Liam' s friends. They looked at me with open hostility now, seeing me not as a victim in my own home, but as a rich, arrogant snob.

Liam pushed his way through the crowd to stand beside Skye. He was drunk, his eyes glassy with a mixture of alcohol and fury. He grabbed my arm, his fingers digging into my skin.

"Who do you think you are?" he spat, his face twisted in a sneer. "After everything my family-everything your family-did for me, you think you can just throw us out?" He seemed to conveniently forget that his family was my family.

"Liam, be careful," Skye said, putting a hand on his arm. Her voice was pure poison wrapped in silk. "She's just fragile. She' s not used to people who have to work for a living. We should be more understanding of the poor little rich girl who has everything handed to her."

Her words were like gasoline on a fire. Liam's grip on my arm tightened until I winced in pain. He was completely buying her act, seeing himself as a champion of the common people against the entitled princess.

"You need to be taught a lesson, Ava," he snarled.

With a sudden, violent motion, he shoved me to the floor. I landed hard on the marble entryway, the impact jarring my bones. Someone in the crowd handed him an open bottle of red wine.

He loomed over me, a dark silhouette against the chaotic backdrop of the party.

"You think you're so clean and perfect," he said, his voice dripping with contempt. "Let's mess you up a little bit."

He tilted the bottle, and a stream of dark red wine poured out, soaking my hair, my face, and my white graduation dress. It was cold and sticky, running down my neck and staining my skin.

The room erupted in laughter. It was a cruel, jeering sound that echoed off the high ceilings.

I looked up and saw a sea of faces, all of them laughing at my humiliation.

Phones were out, their cameras flashing, recording my lowest moment for the entire world to see.

I was on my knees, drenched and disgraced, in the ruins of my own home.