Life Of A Bitch

29

"She might be crossing you any moment," Stephanie replies, concerned.

"But I don't have Instagram right now," I shush her and bark at her to tell me clearly what's going on.

"Majority of the students don't like Mrs. Randall, it turns out. Even the nerds! People say her teaching is oppressive, goes above the head and totally boring."

I don't like English that much, but Mrs. Randall's teaching is awesome.

Wow, then I'm worse than the nerds.

"What Callaghan did today was— how do I put it? Brave. Inspirational. Something which even Aiden wouldn't dare to do, given Mrs. Randall's temperament. And so, people are loving her for it. Let's say, she's the Joker who murdered Mrs. Randall."

Students are loving her for it. Teachers suddenly realize what material their pet is made of.

Students love her. Teachers hate her.

The characteristics of a bitch.

"Fuck, Steph. It wasn't supposed to happen!" I hiss through gritted teeth and kick my chair down. "Our plan backfired!"

"What do you wanna do now?"

"The hell I know!" I shout and hang up. 

She's the girlfriend of the student president.

She won the SQ this year.

Her video is viral, but in a good way.

It looks like she'll be the most popular chick at school now, not me.

Oh my God, I can not let that happen.

My phone rings again and it's an unfamiliar number this time.

"Who's it?" I snap.

"Brandon," he mutters. "No need to be so snappy. I don't need you. You need me."

"Why're you calling so late?" I ask him, trying to calm down.

"Brenna called. She thinks it's someone from the school."

"Of course it is!" I shout at him in disgust. "It took you that long to figure out that it was a school student? I've got several haters at school, all nerds. Hell, it may be possible that Brenna and whats-his-name are behind this!"

"Will you let me complete!" Brandon yells. "Jesus, you're so difficult to work with!"

"Well, it doesn't help that my co-workers are dumbasses!"

"What do you think of yourself?"

"Definitely better than what I think of you!" I yell into the phone.

I am so glad I'm in a relationship with Aiden. He is stupid but he isn't this irritating.

There's silence at both ends of the phone. I try to breathe deeply and calm myself. This isn't the time. I need to find my phone and the person who did this. And I can't lose Brandon. Not now.

"Continue," I say quietly.

He takes a deep breath and starts. "It's a school student because they used the school's Wi-Fi to hack into your account. And they leaked the photos much later, after the school was empty. But the problem is, our school doesn't have a Python course."

"There are thousands on the Internet," I say, resisting the urge to say 'duh'.

"Yeah, right. But as far as my circle goes, which includes all programmers, they know Python, but not as strong as the hacker who did it."

"Maybe they're lying," I argue.

"I know them since we were kids. Plus, I'm a programmer too. And this is professional level hacking," he says and chuckles. "That's what happens to people who make others' lives miserable."

I roll my eyes. "Whatever. So that means it's not a school student?"

"I don't think so."

"It's not a school student but he or she used the school's WiFi to hack into my account?" I ask him, staring at the Calculus sum which I just solved.

"Yup," he says.

That's perplexing.

Then who can it be? Hacking into my Instagram account and leaking some of my worst photos feels very personal; like someone who knows me did this.

I guess, strangers like to do this too.

"Anyway, since it's not a school student, we may need to take external help." He interrupts my thoughts.

I grunt in response and proceed to hang up.

"Good night, Jennifer."

I smile a bit— don't know why. "Good night, Brandon." I say and hang up. But as soon as I do so, a steely determination gets into my head.

I need to stop whatever this is happening to Callaghan. And my brain comes up with an idea.

I'm a genius.