Chapter 6

Months passed.
Lila stopped trying to be the queen of everything. She stopped lashing out. She started quietly helping people. Holding doors. Tutoring freshmen. Apologizing to those she’d hurt.
Slowly, the whispers faded. The laughter turned toward kindness instead of cruelty.
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People started coming to me—not to gossip, but to stand beside me. They saw what I’d done: stayed calm, spoken the truth, defended myself without becoming cruel.
I became the leader Lila had pretended to be.