"She's back?" Camilla asked with surprise laced in her voice.
"Yup," Michelle replied, arms folded over her chest while leaning against the wall of lockers. Savanna Jeans and Kendall Parish, standing beside Michelle, nodded in confirmation, briefly interrupting their conversation before resuming.
"How do you know?"
"Meagan said that Christina told her," Kendall piped in, "and since Christina knows just about everything, I'll take her word for it. Plus, she's friends with some of Amy's friends in band, so she's definitely heard about it."
Camilla stifled a groan and, instead, released a heavy sigh. "Anyone know where Christina could be?"
When her close friends all shrugged or shook their heads, she clenched her jaw and dismissed herself, treading down the hallway. Although Meagan heard a lot of rumors and often looked into them thoroughly before believing them, Camilla couldn't bring herself to completely trust her, despite her defending Camilla's side.
But Camilla needed to hear it for herself. No, she needed to see it for herself.
As she rounded the corner, the momentum from her brisk pace led her nearly colliding with a tall and broad figure. Upon halting, she recognized him immediately as Shane Howard, one of her many popular friends and a star player on the football team.
He seemed shocked by Camilla's entrance, but grinned and greeted, "Hey, Camilla! Seems like you're in a hurry."
She shot him a halfhearted smile in reply, but noticed the two other people with him: Meagan and Jared. She passed Shane without a vocal response and approached Meagan with determination.
"What exactly did you hear from Christina?" Camilla interrogated, her voice coming out more demanding than even she anticipated.
Regardless, Meagan shook her head calmly, as if she expected the demands, and answered, "She said that Amy's back. Surely Michelle told you already."
"She did, but are you sure that's what Christina saw?"
"Yes, Camilla," Jared assured her, stepping between them and placing a hand on her shoulder blade, "and she's not the only one who's seen them; Melissa has too."
Camilla gazed up at Jared, and he returned hers with an intent expression. He tenderly guided her father down the hallway, away from Meagan and Shane, and she followed him aimlessly.
"I know this is hard for you," he stated after a long pause, "but we're working on defending you. We just don't really know how to go about it yet."
Camilla shook her head, insisting, "It's fine, I don't want to rely on you guys. I mean, I guess I need people to defend me because Amy's getting lots of people to back her up, but I'd just feel bad asking that much of you guys."
"We're your friends, Camilla. We want people to realize that your innocent, and we're going to do as much as we can to help you."
"Well, do you know if Amy's trying to convince people to believe her 'experience?'" she inquired, using quotations with her fingers.
"No idea, but we'll make it work."
Camilla shook her head, but didn't say another word. In response, Jared snaked his warm hand around her hair and rested it on her shoulder, dragging her into his embrace like he had on Friday, like they had done on numerous occasions before their break-up. She stiffened reflexively, but then forced herself to relax as to reassure him that she was fine. She found it more difficult to act than normal, which threw her off because she had so much experience with it.
When Jared released Camilla, a hint of panic shot through her, wanting him to hold her for longer, to be her loyal support system. But she pulled back, keeping her head down as her mind raced. Simultaneously, Meagan, with a smug expression, and Shane, looking oddly dazed, returned to the pair.
"Hey guys," Meagan cooed, drawing out her words as if she was sly.
"Any chance we can collect a bunch of people to go on a 'Camilla is innocent' campaign?" Jared asked, interrupting whatever Meagan was preparing to shoot our way.
Camilla was taken aback, but the other two thought it over until Meagan responded, "How many people are you talking about?"
"She has a lot of friends, a lot of people that are on her side and willing to publicly defend her. And Amy doesn't have as many people that are convinced by her lies, so we could easily gather all of her friends and use them to recruit more people."
Camilla was stunned into silence, taking in his plan. It wasn't what she was expecting from him, but he seemed determined to support her, which was just what she needed.
"You would do that?" she questioned, blinking up at him with her deep eyes.
"Of course," he insisted.
"Alright," Shane stated, "then I'll go tell everybody and gather them up.
"And we'll all gather around the main stairwell to chant our point!" Meagan exclaimed as Shane departed down the hallway.
Jared turned to Camilla, asking in a low voice, "Are you going to come with us?"
"Do you think that's a good idea?" She muttered, watching Meagan follow Shane. "Won't it just look like I organized it?"
"Maybe you could come in after we start and pretend you had no idea. You're good at acting, so it'll be fine. We'll text you when it's starting."
She hesitantly nodded, recalling how challenging it was for her to pretend she was fine only a few minutes ago. Oblivious to her uncertainty, Jared smiled and rushed around the corner, tailing Shane and Meagan and abandoning Camilla. She stood still, trying to find her own breathe again, when someone tapped her on the shoulder from behind.
She was met with Melissa's familiar face studying intently, as if anticipating Camilla to make a move. They chatted for a while, later joined by Christina, both of which confirmed to Camilla that they had, in fact, seem Amy at school.
After several minutes, the first bell rang, and they were on their way to first period. She met up with Jared on the way to class, who informed her that a lot of people had been gathered and would begin the "campaign" of sorts as soon as the final bell rang. So she spent the rest of the day preparing herself for the excitement and potential hostility, not concerned who would witness and disagree with the event.
The day dragged on, but it eventually came to an end with the final bell. Numerous students rushed out of the classroom a bit sooner than normal, but Camilla chose to take a bit of her time packing up and wandering into the oddly unpopulated hallway. As she rounded the same corner that she and her friends had developed the plan at, sudden cheering and chanting boomed from down the hallway where it opened up into the atrium.
She rushed that way, like most other students were doing, and could hear them chanting, "Camilla is innocent!" repeatedly. Some people stared at her incredulously, as if she had known, but she played it off as if she had just stumbled upon a surprise event.
Camilla found Shane in the back shouting with the rest of them, and she had to tug on his shirt to obtain his attention. She continued pretending as if she'd never expected it while others around began gathering in with the chanting. If not, they were looking on as if a fight could break out any second.
At the same time, Amy drifted from her last class in a completely dazed state. She'd spent the day ignoring judgemental gazes from Camilla's friends or even complete strangers and inquiries from curious peers, and by that point she was drained. She was already headed towards the atrium before the outburst of noises erupted from her destination. She prayed the scene had nothing to do with Camilla, that maybe it was just a fight, but as she got closer she could hear that they were more like cheers.
"Camilla is innocent!" she heard repeatedly the closer she got, and by that point she broke into a run, careless of other students' judgement. In the center of the atrium, she found a huge huddle of at least 100 of Camilla's loyal disciples insisting her innocence. And there in the back was Camilla, hugging Shane Hyland and smiling giddily.
Amy froze in utter shock and trembled with her increasing panic. Amy wanted to scream about how blind they were, even run up to Camilla and rage at her, but students around her watched intently, searching for any sign of hostility from either party.
Before she could even consider taking action, the girl with a megaphone—Amy realized was Michelle Smythe—shifted the chants to say, "Amy is guilty!" that the rest of the group followed along with.
All heads turned between Amy and the crowd. Michelle was staring right at Amy, from across the atrium, a glare plastered on her face, while Camilla's formed into shock. She rushed over to her best friend as the crowd carried on the chant, frantically explaining something to her, but Amy didn't care that she was clearly trying to stop it. Instead, she turned back to the hallways she'd arrived from and sprinted back down it, desperate to escape the situation, all the bystanders watching her go.
By the time she found a bathroom, tears were already rolling down her face, and she launched herself into a stall, unconcerned by any others in the bathroom. Collapsing onto the cold tile floor in the corner, she released her pent up emotion with shallow breaths and hysterical tears that somehow couldn't cease her dread, while urgent footsteps tramped away as quickly as possible.
Finally alone, Amy allowed herself to grieve over her lost friends, Tiffany and Amanda—though she and Amanda were not nearly as close. And she mourned over the accusations inflicted against her by the guilty party themselves. Nothing mattered more to her than serving justice to Camilla, but at that rate it seemed hopeless.
To Camilla, as well, Amy's endeavors appeared forlorn. Though the outburst of claims blaming Amy were startling, they certainly benefitted Camilla, the effects of which she couldn't complain about. Everyone was whispering about Amy's potential guilt, wanting to know more about that than Camilla's crime.
Even as the campaign was being dissipated by teachers, Michelle announced through the megaphone, "Newspaper committee, we look forward to your support of this cause to defend our junior class representative and incredible friend, Camilla Green. She is dear to Edwardsville and many of its residents, and therefore should be given the opportunity to defend herself to the entire school. Thank you."
Joyful tears welled up in Camilla's eyes, though not genuine, in response to their kind actions and Michelle's thoughtful words. She would grant Camilla a chance to defend herself in the school newspaper, which would allow her to reach out to anyone skeptical and dismiss their doubts. Everything about her situation was looking up.
But what she didn't realize was that she had more enemies than just Amy and her few connections, enemies that had been granted a significance of power by her own side.
In the bathroom had been were two senior girls were conversating about the recent events, utterly unaware of the chaos out of earshot from them. It wasn't until Amy burst in with despair that they became conscious that a crucial crisis was occurring. Rather than attempting to comfort the victim, the duo rushed to the scene and were met with shouting from a microphone and teachers breaking up the crowd. As they did, one of Camilla's closest friends, they knew to be Michelle Smythe, called out to the newspaper committee for their support, oblivious that the heads of the organization, the duo themselves, were mere feet away, but even more tragically unaware that they had no intention of defending Camilla, whom they knew to be guilty.
"They're asking for our assistance, or all people," one noted, glancing at her partner.
"They're blind, then," the second concluded, "to think that we're on their side. Maybe they imagine that everyone is because Camilla is so popular, but that would just make them foolish, I guess."
"Will you let her share her story at all?"
The second girl laughed humorlously, retorting, "She thinks she has everyone fooled, but I will never allow her to take advantage of us. As long as we have the power to sway her peers, we will do just that.
"I may have doubted her nature before, but I will never make the same mistake twice."