By the time the police arrived, the smell of spilled beer had been replaced by cold sweat.
A few of the classmates were huddled in the corner. No one dared make a sound.
The guy who’d said Nora wasn’t the one losing out —when the cop started questioning him, his face went sheet-white.
“We… we were just messing around. None of us thought Ethan would actually get physical.”
I smiled. “Is that right? Didn’t you say that once he made manager, one hookup from him and you’d be set for life?”
His head snapped toward me, pure terror in his eyes. “Nora, I run my mouth. I’m an idiot. I didn’t mean it. We’re all old classmates here—don’t hold it against me.”
Old classmates.
Those three words. So familiar.
Ten years ago, they used them to tell me to stop making a big deal out of nothing.
Ten years later, they were using them again to beg me to let it go.
I didn’t answer.
Miles had his assistant take me out first to get my wounds treated.
When the night air hit my face outside the venue, the stinging felt sharper. More real.
Miles followed me out and draped his jacket over my shoulders. His fingers were cold. I looked down and saw them trembling slightly.
I blinked. “What’s wrong?”
He looked at me, and I saw it—something heavy and terrified clawing behind his eyes.
“I should’ve gone in with you.”
I shook my head. “I told you I wanted to go in alone.”
This reunion—Ethan had been working every channel for months to get me here. I finally said yes. Not because I was nostalgic. I wanted to see what those people looked like now. And I wanted to give my eighteen-year-old self some real closure.
Miles had planned to come in with me. I said no.
I told him I didn’t want to need someone to shield me every time I faced my past.
He respected that. Waited in the room next door.
None of us thought Ethan was unhinged enough to go this far.
Miles looked down at the damage on my face. His voice came out rough. “Does it hurt?”
I wanted to say no. But meeting his eyes, my nose stung.
I nodded. “It hurts.”
Miles pulled me into his arms. “Then make them pay.”
On the drive home, his assistant sent over the venue’s security footage. I tapped it open.
Ethan, dragging me toward the suite. Me, struggling, fighting, screaming at him to let go.
All around us, my old classmates stood in a ring.
Some were laughing.
Some had their phones up.
A few were clapping and cheering.
If Miles hadn’t gotten there in time—I can’t even think about what would’ve happened.
I closed the video. My stomach turned over.
Miles grabbed my hand immediately.
“Don’t watch anymore.”
I leaned against the window and said, quiet, “Miles. I want to sue them.”
He didn’t hesitate.
“Okay. And the stuff from ten years ago—we go after that too.”
I froze.
He looked at me, his voice gentle, but absolutely certain.
“Nora, you still have all the evidence, don’t you? The recordings. The chat logs. The screenshots. The share links. Your therapy records from back then. That’s not garbage. That’s the SOS the old you left behind.”
My throat tightened.
Before I left the North for the Gulf Coast, I did one thing.
I saved that audio recording—the one from outside the private room that night. Three copies.
I screenshotted every mocking message in the group chat.
I archived the forum thread, page by page, and every creepshot, share count, and post ID. I organized them into one folder.
The folder was named, Don’t Forget.
Later, my life got better. Scholarships. Grad school. Competitions. Miles.
A lot of the time, I thought I’d already moved on. But I never deleted that folder.
Not because I wasn’t over Ethan.
Because I knew that version of me still deserved justice.
I stared down at my hands.
“I always thought, if I went after them, people would call me petty. They’d say, ‘You’re doing so well now, why drag up the past?'”
Miles brushed his thumb over my knuckles.
“Doing well doesn’t mean you were never hurt. Wounds heal. That doesn’t mean the person who inflicted them is innocent.”
That sentence. It was like a hand lifting a boulder off my chest—one I’d been carrying for ten years.
I turned to him. “Then we sue. Every single one of them.”