Tia’s eyes go wide. The ohhh...fuck, I’m about to die kind of wide.
“Stay the fuck away from me,” she says, backing up. Her voice cracks on the last word and it’s beautiful. Absolutely fucking beautiful.
Aubrey continues walking toward her.
Tia stumbles backward. All that bravado disappears. She’s completely shattered. What remains is just raw, unfiltered fear—the kind that makes you piss yourself in front of three hundred people.
Finally, she pushes past the people beside her. All sharp elbows and panic.
The crowd parts, but not out of respect. Instead, it’s driven by pity and second-hand embarrassment.
And then Tia bolts. She doesn’t even bother to make it look graceful. No silly hair flip. No practiced hip sway she thinks is sexy. She simply turns and runs for the exit with all the dignity of a rat abandoning ship.
Someone laughs—a single snort of disbelief that cuts through the silence.
Then another person breaks, letting out a giggle that turns into a cackle. Then it spreads quickly. Infectious. The whole cafeteria catches it, and there’s no stopping it.
The sound grows louder and louder until it’s deafening, causing the walls to shake. People are doubled over, gasping for air and slapping tables. Someone near the back literally falls off their chair.
Phones are everywhere, a forest of screens capturing every stumble of Tia’s retreat, recording her panic, her humiliation. The exact moment the queen bee became a fucking joke.
“BYE TIA!” someone yells from the far corner.
Tia hits the double doors at full speed. They slam open with a bang that echoes through the chaos. She disappears into the hallway.
The doors swing back and forth, and then back again.
The moment she’s gone the cafeteria fucking erupts.
People jump on tables. A tray of nachos goes flying through the air. Someone’s chocolate milk splatters against the ceiling. There’s a kid running laps around the lunch line with his shirt off, shouting at the top of his lungs. A group of sophomores, who probably have never spoken two words to each other, are hugging, crying, and losing their minds.
It’s total chaos. Beautiful, wild, glorious chaos. The kind that only happens when you see a tyrant fall. When the person who’s caused your suffering for years finally gets what’s coming to them.
Near the windows, someone is reenacting Tia’s stumble with dramatic flair. In minutes, it’ll be all over Instagram, TikTok, and group chats. Immortalized forever.
Tia Calloway is done. Obliterated. Reduced to ash. Finished.
And Aubrey didn’t even have to throw a punch.
It takes me a moment to spot Nicole amid the chaos. She’s standing still, phone in hand, staring at the doors Tia just ran through.
Her face is ghost white, the kind of white that comes from watching your entire strategy go up in flames. Because that’s what this is for, Nicole. A game. She’s been circling Tia for months, studying her moves, learning the playbook, waiting for the perfect moment to slip into those designer heels and take what she believes she deserves.
Except this wasn’t supposed to happen.
You can’t inherit a kingdom that just got torched.
Nicole’s eyes dart around the cafeteria, scanning, trying to salvage something from the wreckage—figuring out how to spin it, how to use it, how to climb over Tia’s corpse and take what’s left.
Then her gaze falls on Aubrey, standing there as calm as ever.
I keep my eyes on Nicole’s face, observing it shift, the gears turning behind her eyes. I see shock bleed into understanding, which then twists into something uglier.
Hate flashes across her face because she finally gets it.
All those months of plotting, scheming, and carefully positioning herself—all that effort to be the one who would step up when Tia fell. She now realizes that the throne wasn’t empty. It never was.
It’s always been Aubrey’s for the taking.
