It's coming today. The thing you've all been waiting for.

So, I hope you're ready.

><><><

"It's out."

"It's out?"

"It's out."

"You're lying."

"Well, I'm reading it right now, so." Celeste retorted, her eyes glued to her phone. Rebecca grabbed her own and pulled up the Chopped website. And there it was, for their Sunday issue, in bold writing at the top of the page: The Story of Kennedy Abrams & Her Scapegoat.

Beneath the title was a picture of Kennedy as Drew Parley, posing for the camera on a Tampa beach at sunset. Rebecca stared at the photo for a second, not sure how she was supposed to feel—the picture, and the fact that she knew she had been the person behind the camera, represented a version of herself that wanted to be included so desperately that she would do anything to gain Kennedy Abrams' favor. Drew Parley and @drewboo seemed like a distant fever dream that had never actually happened. The only proof that it had indeed happened were the pictures that littered Instagram feeds and Pinterest boards, serving as fashion inspiration and confidence levels to aspire to.

Beneath the photo of Kennedy, came the article that Rebecca had spent what felt like a lifetime painstakingly writing out, trying to come up with the best way to write it all out—to put it all down and tell the world what had happened to her, to Hank Wilcox, and even to Kennedy Abrams herself.

This is weird, because it isn't on a blog. And I'm not an incredible writer, which is why I'm as surprised that I have this opportunity as you undoubtedly are. So, I'll try to sound like someone who knows how to write, because this is a story that deserves an amazing writer to tell it. Perhaps the editors will help with that. Will I even get editors for this?

At the beginning of my sophomore year of college, I was at the gym. More specifically, I was on a treadmill. And I think that is where this entire thing started. Me, on a treadmill, falling flat on my face and wishing that the entire world would just drop dead around me so that I wouldn't have to from the embarrassment.

And then my savior walked up to me. Kennedy Abrams, bright-eyed, blonde-haired, and with the most enviable body I had ever seen in my life. I was a little bit in love with her, I'm not going to lie. I had been following her on Instagram for two years and noticing her whenever I passed by her on campus at Clemson University, where we both attend—or, attended, in her case—school. She had thousands of followers on every social media platform, hosted the most infamous parties in the school, and was known among the guys our age as The One Girl You Had to Hook Up with Before You Graduated. It was like a rite of passage to them. And Kennedy loved it.

This absolute supermodel helped me up off the floor and saw my shorts. She saw my volleyball shorts and invited me to play with her and her friends. Could you imagine? The girl you've looked up to for two years, the girl you've been borderline creepy towards with how much you idolize her, casually inviting you to play volleyball with her and her friends after helping you up from arguably one of your most embarrassing moments. I was in love. I was determined to make this opportunity count.

After volleyball came smoothies. After smoothies came party invites. And soon I was no longer a virgin, could no longer say I had never been drunk, and was the coolest person in my own friend group. My new BFF was Kennedy Freaking Abrams. I was on top of the world.

And then we had The Idea.

The Idea to absolutely obliterate All Other Ideas. It was perfect. Stellar. Exquisite. The only thing that Kennedy Abrams didn't have was the status of Influencer. So, we made her into one. Or rather, we created one for her to embody.

Drew Parley. Derived from the name of a guy I hooked up with and a misspelling of the word 'parsley,' Drew Parley was the perfect scam. She was gorgeous, because she was essentially Kennedy Abrams with a different name, she was rich, she was photogenic, and she was poised to attract thousands of followers.

We just didn't know exactly how many followers Drew Parley was capable of attracting. Within two months she had over 600,000 followers. And last time I checked the account—which has been inactive recently due to some infamous events—she was bouncing around 715,000. But in all honesty, it started out quite a bit sketchier than that. Kennedy bought her first 5,000 followers and her first few hundred likes. She did it until the followers became real and the cash deals became real, and nothing was ever thought about it. We had executed The Idea to perfection. If we bought a few followers along the way, who cared?

That 'who cared?' attitude is what got me into more trouble than I ever thought myself capable of getting into. When I was around Kennedy, I didn't think about anything except how to appear cooler to her. When I wasn't around Kennedy, I didn't think about anything except how to be exactly like her to everyone else. I wanted to be Kennedy 2.0, and I was determined to have that happen for me. So much so, that I ended up being the scapegoat for one of the most heinous things I have ever had the displeasure of being witness to.

September 27, 2020, we started our drive from Clemson, South Carolina to Tampa, Florida. We were going to go take pictures at the beach—find a different location for our pictures so that no one figured out it was actually Kennedy in Drew's pictures and not a doppelganger. We took my car, and we drove through the night until we got to our Airbnb on the morning of September 28. We spent our day taking pictures and eating good food. We spent our night taking pictures and getting lost in the woods.

I remember everything in waves when I try to think about it, mostly because I question everything thinking back. I question how I let Kennedy drive my car home from the beach when I had done the driving for the entirety of the trip up to that point. I question how I let her not use a GPS and trusted her to find her way back when we were hundreds of miles away from home and in an unfamiliar town. I question how I didn't think anything of it when she happened to hit the only person wandering the deserted road in the middle of the night.

Yes, this is the part you've all been waiting for: Kennedy Abrams killed Hank Wilcox. I didn't know his name at the time. I didn't know who he was, or his connection to Kennedy. All I knew was that one second we were speeding down a winding road and the next there was a man laying dead behind my car, having flipped over it when Kennedy hit him. I remember her slamming on the brakes and getting out of the car. I remember asking if we had hit a deer. I remember her shaking her head at me as she looked down at his body. I remember everything about that night in bursts. And I remember Kennedy getting back in the car, driving to a car wash, and then waking up the next morning to a completely fixed car.

I still don't know how she did that part, but she did.

And we went home. We cut our trip short and drove back to Clemson. We went home. And I didn't know who we hit until the article came out saying that Hank Wilcox had been killed in a hit-and-run.

"But Rebecca, why didn't you turn her in?"

Kennedy Abrams is not without her faults. But there is no denying the genius of her twisted mind. She told me that if we were caught, I would be the one implicated in the murder. She told me that if we were caught, they would know it was my car that was used to hit Wilcox, and that I would be arrested. So, I stayed quiet. I stayed quiet until I couldn't stay quiet anymore.

I couldn't stay quiet anymore when I realized that Kennedy Abrams was only out to help herself. When she convinced me to quit my job and rely on the income we were making from Drew Parley's Instagram ads. When she kicked me off of the account and froze my payments because I happened to land her a modeling gig with none other than her estranged stepmother...who I had no idea was her stepmother in the first place. Because Kennedy, loud when it came to her parties and her ego, was silent when it came to her family life.

She kicked me off of the account and I realized I couldn't keep everything inside anymore. I had to confide in someone who wasn't Kennedy Abrams. So, I did. I confided in my friends. In my family. In a private investigator. In the blog that I thought would get ten hits at the most. In the blog that now has over 500,000 reads. And now? In this piece.

Kennedy Abrams will be a stain on my report card of life. Kennedy was caught between who she knew she could be and who she thought she should be. She did everything she could to rid her life of a man who made it miserable, but she did it by trying to take down a girl who had simply fallen on a treadmill.

Rebecca nodded to herself as she finished reading the article. It was good. They hadn't edited anything out. She had said everything she wanted to say.

She turned on the TV as Celeste finished reading. Her eyes widened to three times their regular size as she watched the news reporter on the screen.

"In the case of Kennedy Abrams and Hank Wilcox, a newcomer has made her way to the forefront of the conversation: Rebecca Eaves published her first op-ed in Chopped this morning, and her stunning accusations in the piece have solidified the evidence that the state needed to bring Abrams' case to trial."

The screen cut to an image of the district attorney, speaking into a microphone twice the size of his head.

"The state will be pursuing a criminal trial for Kennedy Abrams. The defendant is accused of killing Hank Wilcox in a hit-and-run accident this past September. The trial dates will be set this upcoming week. A new first-hand account has made us certain we will be able to bring Hank Wilcox's killer to justice."

The screen cut back to the reporter, her long blonde hair laying over her shoulders as if set there by someone seconds before the camera panned to her.

"That was District Attorney Gregory Hartlen. This trial is sure to be one that attracts a lot of press, and will most likely be the subject of many a news story to come. But, we all know that Kennedy Abrams has been accused of this crime for a while now. The real question is: did Rebecca Eaves just implicate herself in Wilcox's murder as an accomplice? Will we watch two college students stand trial for this heinous crime?"

THE END

A/N: I know, I know, THE END??? But it's OK!! There's going to be a SEQUEL!

That's right. Kennedy's trial and everything that goes down with it is getting its own book. Mainly because this bad boy is already at 76,000 words and I want some DRAMA to go down with the trial.

ALSO. If anyone can guess the exact thing that gave me the idea for this book, I will send you the first chapter of the sequel before it comes out. This chapter has the most clues as to what gave me the idea in the first place, a year and a half(ish) ago. 

Let me know your thoughts on the final chapter!