Part Three: “Your Daughter Didn’t Tell You Everything”
The call came on a Wednesday afternoon. I nearly let it go to voicemail — too buried in work — but something made me pick up.
“Hello?”
“Candice? This is Mr. Paulson, vice principal at Kathleen’s school.”
My hand tightened around the phone. School wasn’t even in session; I was only home because I’d arranged to be, for her.
“Yes, this is she.”
“I’d like you to come in and speak with me, if you’re able.”
“Did she leave something at camp? I can just—”
“Candice.” His voice stayed level, but each word landed like it had been chosen on purpose. “Please come to the school. Alone.”
I sat up straight without meaning to.
“Your daughter didn’t tell you everything about camp,” he said, quietly, before I could ask why. “I think you and I should talk before we bring her into this.”
I don’t remember hanging up or standing. I only remember looking down the hall at Kathleen’s door — closed, as it had been for eight straight days.
“Sweetheart, I need to run out for a few minutes! Mandy’s going to come sit with you,” I called.
“Okay, Mom!”
Mandy was already on my porch with her laptop by the time I reached my car — she worked from home and never minded the company. The drive to school felt like it happened to someone else. The building was too quiet for a weekday afternoon; my sandals slapped against the tile the whole way down the empty hall.
Mr. Paulson met me at his office door with a nod that gave nothing away. He slid a printed page across the desk before I’d even sat down.
I looked at it and my hand flew to my mouth.
It was Kathleen’s face, pasted onto a humiliating image, a cruel caption mocking her drawings and her clothes stitched underneath, heart emojis lined up along the bottom like the whole thing was one big inside joke everyone was in on.
“This circulated in a private group chat the girls made at camp,” he said. “A counselor confiscated a phone over a separate incident, and the original file turned up in the process.”
“I knew it.” The words came out before I could stop them. “Brenda. She’s been strange with Kathleen for weeks — Kathleen even told me something was off.”
He let me finish. Then he folded his hands on the desk.
“Candice. It wasn’t Brenda.”
I blinked.
“The edit history was intact. The file was created and sent by the new girl — Maya.”
I actually laughed, a short disbelieving bark. “Maya? Kathleen’s been saving that girl a seat since the day she arrived. She’s the one who pulled her into the group when nobody else would. That doesn’t add up.”
“I know,” he said gently. “But it’s what happened. And from what the counselors pieced together, Brenda was the one pushing Maya to delete it. When Maya wouldn’t, Brenda stopped speaking to her entirely. That’s the argument the girls had.”
I sank back. The chair suddenly felt too small for me.
Every conversation with my daughter over the past week rearranged itself in my head, click by click, into a different shape. An argument with a friend over one photo. The tight little smile. The sketchbook that hadn’t moved in eight days.
I had cast the loud girl as the villain and walked straight past the quiet one.
“She’s been carrying this by herself,” I said, more to myself than to him.
“I’d like to set up a meeting tomorrow morning,” Mr. Paulson said. “Maya, her mother, Kathleen, and you. If your daughter’s willing.”
I drove home with my hands shaking on the wheel, the folded printout on the passenger seat somehow seeming to breathe.
