Chapter 6
This… this can’t be possible! How could it be…?” Melanie was the first to speak, her voice trailing off as she stared at Rose, unable to finish her sentence.
On the other hand, Rose looked like she wanted to vanish into the floor.
Harvey’s face turned pale as he urged the staff to speed up. “No. It can’t be her. Look again–maybe there’s someone else that comes out later?”
But it was a holiday, and the grove was deserted. That was why they had chosen that place.
The footage was sped up 16 times, showing a full four hours of nothing but the two of them entering and leaving. No one else had come or gone.
The officer turned back to Hugo. “You won’t claim this is also fake, right? So what exactly happened here?”
Hugo knew there was no way to cover up the truth any longer. The evidence was too clear, and if he kept lying, he’d only dig himself deeper. He finally confessed.
It turned out that Rose had been desperate to get the scholarship. She had been talking to Hugo constantly, saying things that shouldn’t be spoken aloud.
In the face of her advances, Hugo had faltered, and they ended up in bed together. But when it came to the scholarship, the department was taking it more seriously this time, and there was no way for him to manipulate the system to his advantage. So nothing had come of it.
Because of that, their relationship ended, and they went their separate ways.
Fearing that the police would misunderstand, Hugo quickly added, “It was all her choice. I have the chat records to prove it. I didn’t do anything wrong. And it’s not just me. Many teachers received her advances—she even seduced the Student Union president, and he says they slept together too.”
His words were like a bombshell crashing down on Harvey.
He turned to look at Rose, disbelief written all over his face. “Is that true?”
Rose ran over to him, tears streaming down her face. “Let me explain.”
“Explain? Forget it!” Harvey slapped her across the face without hesitation. “You’d cry if I even touched your hand, and I thought you were some pure, innocent girl. Turns out, you’re just rotten to the core!”
Even without Harvey saying it, we all knew that Rose didn’t usually let Harvey touch her. They had been dating for three months, and he had only been able to hold her hands. She always claimed she was a conservative girl, unwilling to even touch a man before marriage.
And Harvey had respected that.
Rose’s crying only grew louder. “I told you not to touch me but I never said others couldn’t. You made that choice yourself, so who can you blame?”
Harvey’s face twisted with rage. If the police hadn’t been there, I honestly believed he might have killed Rose.
“How can you say that? After everything I’ve done for you? You wanted a new phone, so I worked extra hours. You said your scholarship was taken by Yvette, so I went and talked to the teachers for you. And this is how you repay me? By treating me like some kind of fool?”
Melanie couldn’t stay quiet anymore. “Yvette stole her scholarship? What a joke! I went to the same high school as Yvette. She was at the top of the class and always worked hard. Rose? All she does is seduce men. How could she
Chapter 6
have gotten that scholarship?”
By now, everything was clear. The people in the video were Rose and Hugo. It had nothing to do with me. And since their relationship was consensual, it wasn’t even illegal.
The officer turned to me. “Do you want to drop the case?”
I shook my head. “Even if the people in the video aren’t me that doesn’t prove Mr. Lynch didn’t do something to me. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. The rumors at school about me are awful–there has to be some truth to them. Officer, you need to look into this, and find out what really happened.”
Hugo’s face was pale. He kept swearing up and down that nothing had happened between us, that I earned my scholarship on my own. He even forced Harvey to apologize, threatening him with punishment if he didn’t.
Knowing he was in the wrong, Harvey finally agreed to post an apology on all his social media accounts.
Hugo also said he would contact the school to clear up the scholarship situation. But Hugo had one condition—he wanted me to keep everything that happened a secret.
I agreed.
Hugo thought that by getting me to stay silent, the truth would stay hidden. However, three days after Harvey posted his apology, everyone knew that the people in that video were actually Hugo and Rose.
