---
What Delilah didn't know--couldn't know--was that Amy's cruelty had roots that went deeper than simple popularity.
Amy and Fredrick had been childhood friends. Pen pals, actually--their letters crossing cities and years, building a bond that had survived distance and time. They had finally reunited in high school, their friendship rekindled with shared memories and inside jokes.
But then Fredrick had made a comment. An innocent comment.
"She's really beautiful, isn't she? Delilah. One of the prettiest girls I've ever seen."
Amy had overheard him say it. The words had lodged in her chest like a splinter, festering and infected.
She's the School Flower. She's the one everyone notices. And now even Fredrick is looking at her.
The old Amy would have been happy for her friend. The new Amy saw only competition.
If I tear her down, maybe I'll feel taller. If I make her small, maybe I'll feel big.
It wasn't rational. It was desperate. Insecure. Human.
But that didn't make it hurt less.
---
Meanwhile, Wei Xinyi watched the drama unfold with quiet satisfaction.
She had plans. Big plans. And Amy was the perfect instrument.
As student council president, Xinyi wielded considerable influence. But she was a senior. Her time was running out. If she was going to leave her mark on this school, she needed to move fast.
Amy's popularity was the perfect tool. Her ambition was the perfect fuel. And Delilah's devotion? Well, that was just the icing on the cake.
Xinyi began to mentor Amy, guiding her decisions, whispering suggestions that Amy mistook for friendship.
"Be more assertive," Xinyi would say. "Show them who's in charge."
"You don't need to be kind," she would add. "Kindness is weakness dressed up as virtue."
Amy drank in every word. She was flattered by Xinyi's attention, grateful for the guidance. She didn't realize she was being molded into a puppet.
Special, she thought. Xinyi sees how special I am.
She didn't see the strings.
---
Amy's grip on Delilah tightened with each passing day.
The errands became more humiliating. The insults became more cutting. And through it all, Delilah obeyed.
She couldn't stop. Couldn't resist. The old Amy—the kind Amy, the friend Amy—was still there in her memory, and she clung to that memory like a drowning woman clings to driftwood.
Maybe if I'm good enough, she'll come back. Maybe if I do everything right, she'll remember who she used to be.
She didn't realize she was already drowning. Didn't realize the driftwood was just another piece of wreckage.
---
Despite the bullying, despite the manipulation, Delilah's obsession with Fredrick grew.
She would watch him during lectures, memorizing the way his hand moved when he took notes, the way his hair fell across his forehead, the way he laughed at something the teacher said.
At night, she would lie in bed and imagine conversations. Confessions. The moment he would finally look at her and see her the way she saw him. She'll stare at the sneek pictures she'd took, obsessing, infatuated, over him.
He's kind. He's safe. He's everything I need.
She was lost in a fantasy, blind to the world around her. Blind to the danger. Blind to the truth.
---
The truth was simple and ugly.
Amy was using her. Xinyi was manipulating her. And Fredrick didn't even know she existed.
But Delilah was too naive to see it, too innocent to understand the games being played around her.
Amy was becoming more and more influential. Wei Xinyi's ultimate goal was to use Amy to control the school, and Delilah? She was a lamb in a den of wolves, and the wolves were growing hungrier by the day.