The court cases.
The depositions.
The girls who never apologized—but were finally held accountable anyway. They spliced together footage from the sliming incidents and used snap stories to show the fall of my senior year including the slime incident with me running out and Leo giving chase. There was so much footage. People really love to record on their phones.
It followed me through freshman year too.
The panic attacks.
The therapy sessions I let them film once—just once—because I wanted people to see what healing actually looks like.
The first time I scored in a college game and cried on the field, face buried in the grass while my teammates piled on top of me, laughing.
They didn’t edit that out.
They left it messy.
They left it real.
My phone buzzes again.
AUNT SUSAN:
Proud doesn’t even cover it. Your grandfather would’ve lost his damn mind.
I smile, soft and private.
The Cape house is still standing. Renovated now. Bigger windows. A real gate. Still smells like salt and old wood and coffee in the mornings. Still home.
The screen shifts to footage of me walking across campus last fall—hoodie, backpack, no makeup, no entourage. Just another student late to class. The narrator’s voice fades under my own.
“I thought surviving meant staying quiet. I was wrong. Surviving is telling the truth even when your voice shakes.”
Cut to a lecture hall.
Cut to practice.
Cut to me laughing in a dining hall with people who don’t know my past unless I choose to tell them.
And then—him.
Not at first. They waited.
Leo Holt doesn’t appear until episode four.
Harvard Yard in autumn. Crimson leaves. Brick paths. He’s taller than I remember. Leaner. Less polished. No designer coat. Just a beat-up canvas jacket and a scarf his dad probably wore before him.
He looks… real.
The internet had opinions about that.
He doesn’t deserve her.
Why is he even in this documentary?
He better grovel.
They missed the point.
