"I told you, papá, everything will be okay."

"Mija, I'm just worried..."

"Don't worry, this is all just a big misunderstanding. I'm handling it my way."

"Just... don't do anything dangerous."

"I won't, I'll call you later I gotta go. Te quiero."

"Te quiero tambien, be careful."

I hung up the phone and placed it beside my laptop. The screen before me showcased the photo I had taken last night. All of this seemed to make absolutely no sense and I wasn't getting anywhere. The headmistress had called my father and told him that I would have to leave by tomorrow morning. However, I had no intention of actually leaving.

The picture wasn't telling me anything as I continued to stare blankly at the screen. It seemed to have been a screenshot of videocam footage outside of the homeless shelter. The only similarity between the girl in the photo and myself was that we both had long brown hair. I felt like I was going crazy and didn't even realize when my roommate came into the room.

"What's that?" She asked from behind me as she threw her pink knitted scarf onto the bed.

I jumped a little in my seat, startled that I hadn't heard her. "Oh, um, it's just a picture of someone vandalizing a homeless shelter."

She leaned in to get a closer look at it and lightly shook her head in disapproval. "That's not a real picture."

I furrowed my eyebrows in confusion and gave her a quizzical look.

"It's photoshopped, can't you tell?" She said as she adjusted her green framed glasses.

To be honest, I couldn't even tell. What even was photoshop?

"What's photoshop?" I repeated out loud to her.

She got close to my laptop again and turned up the brightness all the way. "It's when someone manipulates a photo to make it look a certain way. Look," she pointed as she zoomed in on the girl in the photo. "This girl has been cut out of a different photo and placed into this one. Whoever made this was a rookie. Or just not very good at it."

My mouth dropped open. I could see clearly what she meant–the girl had ridges around her silhouette. Who in the world would go through the trouble of photoshopping something just to slander me?!

"How do you know all of this?" I asked her in a state of panic.

"I'm into graphic design. I'm planning on majoring in it in uni," she replied coolly.

Incredible. Then a thought occurred to me: I had been rooming with this girl for the past few months yet I didn't even know her name.

"I'm ashamed to say I haven't properly introduced myself to you, I'm Camellia De León." I extended my hand to her and she smiled.

"My name is Himawari Suzuki. I've heard a lot about you lately actually, but I don't make judgments on people until I meet them. I knew you were having a hard time so I didn't want to bother you."

My heart felt warm and I smiled back at her. "If it weren't for you I would have never realized that this photo was tampered with. I must attend to something!" I declared as I promptly stood from my seat.

As I took my coat I looked at Himawari and beamed, "Thank you!"

She laughed and waved as I headed out the door. "Oh!" I stuck my head back in our room, "and let's hang out some time!" And left.

I headed straight for the headmistress's office. She couldn't deny that there was clearly something wrong with this photo and that whoever sent it to her had a vendetta against me. As I was about to make a turn towards the administration building, I received an ominous message from a random number.

Perhaps this was a mistake and they accidentally texted the wrong person. I tried to dismiss it, but curiosity got the best of me.

Re-routing myself towards the direction of the ballroom, I replied back to them.

However, no reply came. I waited for a few minutes as I stood outside the ballroom building. There was no soul in sight. A small part of me was saying to just leave it alone and head straight towards the administration building, but I had a strong feeling that this was something I had to see through. I wasn't entirely sure why–though Tulip used to tell me that Pisces were very intuitive. She was super into horoscopes. I missed her.

I sucked in a deep breath and headed inside.

The door creaked open and I yelled out, "Hello?" The sound of my voice echoed throughout the large room. The lights were off yet a faint light that came through the windows made everything visible. Memories of Angel's birthday party came flooding back to me. A memory I wished to forget was still fresh in my mind.

Something wasn't right.

Then I heard a sound come from the far left side of the room. I immediately whipped my head towards the direction it came from and croaked, "Who's there?!"

It was much darker on that side than it was on the right where the windows were but I could make out a faint silhouette in the dark. They were sitting on a chair. With caution, I slowly approached them.

My voice wavered as I said, "Um, I think there's been a misunderstanding, I think you texted me by accident."

"Oh, it was no accident."

That voice made me stop in my tracks as my eyes widened in horror. My heart rate picked up and my breath hitched. No, it couldn't be...

I wanted to run away but my legs wouldn't move; it felt like I was stuck in quicksand. She stood up from her seat and stepped into the light, a grin plastered on her face.

Sakura.

°°°

The news had entailed of a boy disguised at an all-girls school for a good few days. They didn't say who nor did they put a face to who it was. All that was known was that it had been an act of parental abuse.

But Sakura didn't need to see or know their name because she already knew who it was. She was outraged that she would more than likely never see him again. But the rage was nothing compared to how she felt when she found out who he had been rooming with. I didn't know it at the time, but Sakura had minions do her dirty work. When she wanted to find something out, she did. And with the power she had, she could do anything and no one would stop her.

Now she stood a few feet away from me as I stood there, completely frozen.

She laughed. "Well, aren't you a sight for sore eyes!"

I finally found the courage to speak and gulped, "What do you want?"

Sakura tucked a piece of her short, ebony hair behind her ear and acted aloof. "I'm not sure what you mean. I already got what I want."

My brain swirled with senseless thoughts as it searched for answers as to why she was here. Then it hit me like a ton of bricks. It was all her fault–she was the reason why I was expelled from Lunacrest–the anonymous source–the liar.

"Whatever you're doing, it won't work," I retaliated, "your evidence is garbage and I have proof that it's fake."

She shrugged. "It doesn't matter whether it's real or fake, it came from me. No one would expect me to lie."

Her words angered me. They were starting to get to my head, what if she was right? What if the headmistress doesn't care that it's fake? She thinks it came from a reliable source...

"Listen, you *spic, if you don't tell me where he is then I'll make sure your life is a living hell from here on out."

As soon as that word exited her mouth, my eye twitched.

"What did you just call me?" I glowered.

"Tell me where he is, now," she hissed as she got closer to me. I could feel the heat radiate from her body from how close she was. It took every bone in my body not to push her away from me.

I got closer to her face, however, and whispered, "I wouldn't tell you where he is even if my life depended on it."

Sakura's eyes flickered with anger and yelled, "Fucking whore!" She stepped away from me and paced back and forth in the dark.

I tried to get my breathing under control. The tension in the atmosphere was thick, which made it hard to breathe. If I were being honest, I was afraid. Not of Sakura, but of me. If I do something to harm her, if my temper gets out of control, then I could really be sent away for a long time.

She wasn't Hyacinth, a student with little to no power, she was a well-known actress.

This was dangerous and I needed to get out of here, now.

━━━━
Thanks to @islandapricots for the idea of the fake text messages <3

*spic - a contemptuous/offensive term for a Spanish-speaking person from Central or South America or the Caribbean