Chapter 3

Ava' s fingers trembled as she untied the simple leather cord holding the diary shut. The live stream was still broadcasting every second. Her audience of thousands was silent, waiting.

"What are you doing?" Liam demanded, his voice laced with panic. "That' s just more of his lies. Don' t read it, Ava. Just burn it all."

She ignored him. She opened the book to the first page.

The entry was dated ten years ago, when we were just sophomores in high school.

September 12th.

I think I' m in love. Her name is Ava Miller. She has the brightest laugh I' ve ever heard. Today in chemistry class, she dropped her pencil and we both reached for it at the same time. Our hands touched. I felt it all the way in my toes. I hope I didn' t look as stupid as I felt. I think I turned bright red. She just smiled at me. I want her to smile at me like that forever.

Ava' s breath caught in her throat. She remembered that day. She remembered thinking how cute he was when he blushed.

The comments started again, but they were different now.

user_h8s_bullies: wait what

TrueCrimeJunkie22: That doesn' t sound like a bully.

LiamIsAnAngel: He' s making it up! It' s a trick!

Ava flipped through the pages, her eyes scanning my familiar, neat handwriting. Page after page was filled with me, with us. Our first date at the cheap movie theater. The time I bought her flowers with my entire week' s allowance. The night we stayed up until 3 a.m. talking on the phone, just whispering so our parents wouldn' t hear.

These weren' t the writings of a monster. This was the boy she had fallen in love with.

"It' s fake!" Liam shouted, his voice cracking. "He wrote all that to manipulate you! He was always playing games!"

Ava' s heart was pounding. She didn' t want to believe him, but the doubt was a seed he had planted long ago, and its roots ran deep. She started flipping faster, looking for the proof she needed. The proof that she hadn' t made a horrible, unforgivable mistake.

She had to prove that Liam was the victim. That she was right to be here, desecrating my grave.

Her eyes landed on an entry from senior year. Her finger traced the page.

"Here!" she said, her voice a choked sob. She held the diary up to the camera, her hand shaking. "Here it is!"

May 5th.

I did something bad today. I saw Liam shoving a freshman against the lockers. Taking his lunch money. I couldn' t just stand there. I stepped in. I told him to knock it off. Liam got mad. He took a swing at me. I just... I pushed him back. Harder than I meant to. He fell. Everyone saw. Now they' re all saying I' m the bully. That I attacked him for no reason. Even Ava... she looked at me differently. Liam told her I started it. And she believed him.

Ava read the words, but she didn' t read them all out loud. She stopped after "I pushed him back."

"See?" she said to the camera, to the world, to herself. "He admits it. He pushed him."

She turned to Liam, who was now looking at her with an expression of pure, wounded innocence.

"He told everyone you started it," Ava said, her voice thick with renewed loyalty. "He lied and made you the victim. He pushed you, and he tried to ruin your reputation."

She conveniently left out the part about the freshman, about the lunch money. She skipped right over the context, the truth. She found the one sentence that fit her narrative and clung to it like a life raft.

The online crowd, easily swayed, turned on me again.

user_h8s_bullies: I KNEW IT!

LiamIsAnAngel: See! He was always a violent psycho! Thank you for finding the proof, Ava!

SpookyGurl666: Burn him. Burn the book. Burn it all.

Ava' s face hardened. The brief flicker of doubt was extinguished, replaced by the familiar fire of self-righteous anger.

She believed she had found her justification.

But the diary wasn' t finished with her yet.