The fallout from the summer school scandal left the Johnson household colder, more fractured than ever before. Amy, forced to endure the humiliation of attending summer school, simmered with a potent blend of resentment and self-pity. She blamed Carol entirely. Her pretty face, usually the picture of effortless charm, twisted into sneers every time they crossed paths. Sarah, mortified by the public embarrassment, echoed Amy's accusations with an almost venomous precision. Her words were sharp and dismissive, carving fresh wounds into Carol's already bruised spirit.
Robert, his brief flash of fury now a distant memory, retreated into his work. His calls became perfunctory, his visits rare and strained. He had always been a quiet man, but now his silence screamed. Carol no longer looked forward to the sound of the front door opening—because it never did. He was gone in all the ways that mattered, and his absence whispered a bitter truth: she was on her own.
What had once been a quiet protective instinct toward Amy withered into something darker. Bitter. Amy still received adoration and rewards—shiny new pointe shoes, lavish dance trips, weekend spa outings with Sarah. Meanwhile, Carol's achievements—winning a regional coding challenge, acing math exams—were treated as background noise. "That's nice, dear," Sarah would mutter, flipping through a dance brochure. Amy would snicker. "Of course Carol won. She's a nerd. Who else even tries that stuff?"
One evening, Carol heard Sarah on the phone with Aunt Clara. "Amy's just thriving," she said, voice dripping with manufactured affection. "We've invested so much into her talent—it's really paying off." Carol's hands clenched. So that's where the laptop money had gone. The silent promise, broken. The injustice simmered like cold fire in her chest.
Even school, once her haven, became treacherous ground. Carol had worked hard to form friendships—Debbie, who loved astronomy; Jamie, who shared her obsession with science fiction; Maxine, her quiet chess partner. But slowly, Amy began to chip away at them. A sarcastic comment here. A whisper there. Carol would approach Delilah at lunch only to find her surrounded by a group Amy had conveniently infiltrated. "Sorry, we saved these seats," Debbie would say, eyes not quite meeting hers.
Jamie stopped inviting Carol to sci-fi movie nights. Carol later learned Amy had casually joked that Carol "judged everyone's taste in movies" and was "super intense about everything." The accusation stuck, even though it wasn't true. One by one, her friendships wilted. And Carol, who had never had many to begin with, felt the loss like a deep ache under her ribs. Loneliness crept in slowly, stealthily, until it wrapped around her like ivy.
Then there was Liam.
He sat across from her in AP Science—tousled brown hair, curious eyes, hands always ink-smudged from sketching diagrams. His laugh was quiet and sincere, like something private. He listened. He noticed when she made an obscure programming reference. He smiled when she corrected the teacher's miscalculation on the board. And sometimes, when she allowed herself the luxury of hope, she thought he might actually like her.
But Amy noticed too.
One afternoon, Carol turned a corner and froze. Liam stood by his locker, clearly uncomfortable, as Amy leaned in too close. Her hand brushed his arm. She tilted her head, her voice laced with flirty sweetness. Carol couldn't hear what was said, but she saw Liam glance her way—guilt flashing across his face like lightning. Amy followed his gaze and smirked.
After that, Liam became distant. He still nodded at her in class, but his voice lost its warmth. The inside jokes stopped. He declined her invitation to partner on the science fair project with a weak excuse and was later spotted working with someone else. Carol didn't cry. She simply closed the door on that fragile, foolish hope—and locked it.
What remained was ambition. Controlled. Cold. Ruthlessly focused.
That was when she found it: Crestwood Academy.
An elite boarding school tucked deep in the Smoky Mountains, Crestwood wasn't just prestigious—it was legendary. The school was built like an old monastery, ivy crawling up stone towers, libraries with stained-glass windows, and classrooms that looked more like scholarly sanctuaries than public school halls. It promised independence, intellectual rigor, and best of all, distance.
No Amy. No Sarah. No shadow cast over everything she did.
Carol read everything she could find about it—their robotics program, their coding competitions, their alumni who went on to change the world. Crestwood was more than a school. It was escape. It was freedom. It was breath. It was everything her current world was not.
She threw herself into the application process. The essays weren't just responses—they were revelations. She wrote with fierce precision, pouring years of unspoken pain and determination between the lines. She didn't mention her family. She didn't have to. Her drive was its own story.
She included her black belt in karate—earned through sheer discipline and a need to channel her anger. She submitted her self-built app that helped track volunteer hours for local shelters. Her extracurriculars weren't handed to her—they were claimed, fought for, and forged in solitude.
When it came time for the virtual interview, she wore her cleanest blouse and sat with her laptop propped up on stacked books. The headmistress, an elegant woman with steel-gray hair and a kind but penetrating gaze, asked, "Why Crestwood, Carol?"
Carol didn't flinch. "Because I want to build something no one can take away from me."
When the interview ended, she closed the laptop with shaking fingers. The seed had been planted. Now all she could do was wait.
Each day after, she checked the mailbox like it held her heartbeat. She imagined the envelope—thick, official, bearing the school's silver crest. In her mind, it gleamed like a sword in stone.
And as she waited, she kept building her escape, line by line, code by code, step by step—because whether or not Crestwood accepted her, Carol had already made her choice:
She would never be a shadow again.