Chapter 6 - THE BROKEN TRUST
By Wednesday evening, the pressure cook erupted. Leo’s house had been vandalized with toilet paper and eggs the night before, and his mother had spent the morning weeping at the kitchen table, terrified they would be evicted if the school pulled his scholarship and his story hit the local news.
In Sam’s garage, the mood was toxic.
"This was a mistake," Leo yelled, slamming his hand against the desk. It was the first time Sam and Maya had ever seen him raise his voice. "Look at what’s happening! Maya, your phone is destroyed. My mom is terrified to leave the house. The school board hearing is tomorrow at 8:00 AM. We have nothing!"
"We don't have nothing, Leo!" Maya snapped back, her eyes flashing with anger and exhaustion. "We know they’re scared. If Jax didn't care, he wouldn't have smashed my phone. We are close!"
"Close isn't enough!" Leo shouted, tears spilling over his eyes. "I’m just going to go in tomorrow and confess. I’ll tell them I hit him. I’ll accept the expulsion. Maybe if I just take the blame, the internet will move on to something else and leave my mom alone."
"If you do that, the lie wins," Sam said, his voice unusually quiet but incredibly firm. He stood up from his chair, walking over to Leo. "Do you know why I’m helping you, Leo? Because last year, when someone made a fake profile of me and posted leaked, fabricated chat logs, nobody believed me. I sat alone in the cafeteria for three months. You were the only person who sat down and asked if I was okay. I’m not letting them do this to you."
Leo looked at Sam, his anger melting into raw sorrow. He covered his face with his hands, his shoulders shaking as the weight of the last four days finally broke through his defenses.
Maya walked over, putting an arm around his shoulders. "We’re a team, Leo. Outcasts stick together. We have twelve hours left. Sam, tell me you have a miracle."
May you like
Sam turned back to his monitors, a fierce spark in his eyes. "I might. When Jax smashed Maya’s phone, he thought he destroyed the evidence. But Maya’s phone automatically syncs audio memos to my local server when we’re on the same Wi-Fi. I’m pulling the audio of Jax’s voice right now. But more importantly... I finally broke the encryption on the school network logs from Friday afternoon."
His finger hovered over the enter key. "Let's see who was actually sitting at computer station number four."
