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It was a regular late afternoon for Tree until got a strange text from his mom.
Tree, please be a dear and pick up the groceries for me.
Oh no…his mom never talked like that unless she was really mad.
Okay, but why?
I need to pick up your sister after she got SUSPENDED.
That was weird. Leafy wasn’t the type to get in that much trouble. At least he thinks so, between school, work, and a fresh break up, he hasn’t been paying attention to her lately. He thinks she was spending more time with her friends so maybe they could do something about it.
It’s not my business, he thought. Might as well get this over with so I can finish my homework.
As he was waiting in the check-out aisle, he glanced at a rack of magazines. Despite the flashy covers, there was nothing special about them. Just headline after headline of celebrities in scandals. Tree noticed a famous actress was plastered on most of them. This particular one always seemed to end up in drama, guess being that terrible is just part of the job for her.
Now Tree was in his room chipping away at some homework. He’s not keen on the subject, but he had to lock in if he wanted to finish it tonight. Buying the groceries ate up more time than he thought it would, and he was not interested in pulling an all-nighter. His mind kept drifting to earlier, when he got home. Tree had hoped he arrived before Mom so he could drop-off the groceries in peace, but the sight of her car in the garage quashed it quickly. His only chance to stay out of this was to do this discreetly, perhaps Mom would be too focused on Leafy to notice him. Groceries in hand, he tried to enter the kitchen quietly. He could hear Mom's voice in the other room, and it was unnerving how much anger was behind each word. He didn't know what Leafy did, but surely she didn't deserve that much fury.
He left the grocery bags in the kitchen without catching anyone's attention. He ready to go upstairs for good, until he noticed something was wrong.
Silence. And with it, a pair of eyes staring directly at him.
Mom's glare wasn't super intense, but he could still feel a quiet anger behind it. Tree knew it could flare up again at any moment. But Leafy was staring at him with...hope? Desperation? It almost felt like she was asking him to help her...
"I uh, got the groceries."
"Good," his mom replied. "If you don't mind, your sister and I need to talk."
So now he was in his room, trying to focus on his homework. He could still hear Mom's yelling for awhile, but it just wasn't his business. Whatever got his sister in trouble was between them, not him. Even if Tree was involved he wouldn’t have much to say.
Tree was making good progress, certain that this would be his last task of the day, when he got a message on his phone…it was from Black Hole.
Just great. The last thing Tree wanted to see tonight was something from his ex. He didn’t care if Black Hole tried to end things on good terms, the wounds were too fresh. He just wanted to ignore it…but he knew Black Hole wasn’t a bad guy. He was the one to break things off, but Tree could tell he was trying to let him down easy. Black Hole knew Tree wanted some space, so if he was texting him this soon, it had to be for a good reason...
Did you see the video?
what video
With your sister. She got into a fight with someone, it’s all-over social media.
Before Tree could ask about that, he sent him the clip. The thumbnail matched what he told me word for word. Leafy, fighting with a red-haired girl. They were surrounded by a crowd of students, so it was clearly a big deal.
He played the clip, and it wasn't pretty. Both girls hurled insults at each other, claiming this and that about Leafy cheating(wait she was in a relationship?). The other girl showed her something on her phone to prove it, and when Leafy dropped it, things got physical.
Tree had seen enough. No wonder Leafy got in trouble for this, it was nasty.
He opened the comment section to get more context, but he got more than he bargained for.
-Context: the brown-haired girl was caught cheating on her boyfriend with red-haired girl's boyfriend, then tried to deny it.
-Damn now I'm glad that girl broke her nose
-Same. I felt bad at first, but she deserves it for being a cheating bitch.
-"WhAt aRe YoU tAlKiNg AbOuT, i DiDn'T cHeAt!" shut up whore you had it coming.
-No idea how she got a boyfriend with a body like that
Tree tried to keep reading, but all these comments about his sister were so gross. The vitriol, the celebrations, the frankly disgusting insults about her appearance, did these people forget that she's a teenager?? Even the video's title had an icky vibe. “You get what you f*cking deserve”. Something about that told Tree this was about more than cheating...
What the hell made these people think they could say stuff like this? None of them knew about the real her, who was so good-natured the thought of cheating wouldn't cross her mind! If they actually talked to her, they'd know how uncharacteristic it was for to do this! Even if it was that wouldn't justify comments like this. One sentence from a random person online was all it took for these weirdos to spew such disgusting garbage. How could anyone make these assumptions off of one sentence-
He suddenly remembered the magazine rack. With all the headlines that were probably misleading. Full of articles he didn't even look at before jumping to conclusions.
oh. that was how.
Did anyone try to comfort Leafy about this? He didn't, he just took a glance at the situation and left like a coward. Mom didn't, she was too busy being angry to handle this with some tact. Her peers definitely didn't, most of them were in that video cheering for his sister's demise. It was all about confrontation, but that wasn't what she needed...
He would ask her about it tomorrow. This was a very delicate situation for Leafy and he had no idea how to address it. Waiting for the right time was the safest thing to do. After all of this she probably needed some space. With his goal set, Tree focused on his homework again.
Then he heard something familiar. Too familiar.
It was that video. Leafy was watching it in her room.
That couldn’t be good. Tree was no psychology expert, but he knew his sister was stuck on what happened. Seeing all the mistakes that briught her to this point, reading the countless hate comments against her...
He had to do something. Anything to keep her mind off this, but how? He barely acknowledged Leafy for months. He couldn’t just waltz in and pretend otherwise, especially after what happened in the kitchen.
And even if he could, what would he say?? Any positive sentiment would just ring hollow...but if he didn’t do it, who would? Mom wouldn’t, she was still pissed off. Her friends wouldn’t, whose to say none of them were in that crowd rooting against her? Tree was the least qualified person on earth to do this, but he had to try.
He approached her room door and knocked on it softly. No response. Well, time to use your words.
“Hey Leafy, it’s me. Can I uh, come in?”
“...sure.”
Tree opens the door and sees Leafy on the floor. She's hunched over, eyes locked onto her phone.
“So…that video…”
“You’ve seen it?”
“Yeah.”
She sighed, clearly exhausted. “I know you have thoughts, but I don’t wanna talk about it.”
“I see...”
“...so why are you here?”
“Well it looked pretty bad and I want to figure out what happened‐”
“You saw the clip, didn’t you?” Leafy asked, sounding very tired and angry. “Ask Mom, or one of your friends, or the thousands of people who saw it. I’ve had to hear about how awful I am all day, I don’t need more of that.”
“I-I’m sure you don’t, especially after the scuffle with that girl!”
Leafy paused. She finally faced Tree, but she did it with a pecurilar look.
“...do you know who she is?”
“She’s someone from your school, right?”
"It's Pin!" Leafy yelled. "My best friend! At least she used to be until this!"
Good god, this isn't helping at all. Why didn't he go in with some sort of plan?! Okay think, think! Leafy sounds really defensive, and she's probably assuming the worst right now...how do I convince her I'm trying to help?
Leafy took a deep breath before speaking again. "I'm sure you've got a ton of questions, but I just can't answer them tonight...I can't handle more judgement."
“I know," Tree said calmly, carefully choosing his next words. "That's not why I'm here.”
“Then what are you here for?”
“I’m here to listen. To you.”
She turned around, clearly surprised to hear him say that.
“You can tell me about everything, I won’t say anything, I won't judge anything." Tree said as he sat down next to her. "I just want to hear it from you.”
She was silent, still unsure if she he was being serious. Then she put her phone down and took a deep breath.
“I…I just went to school, thinking it would be like any other day. But everyone kept glaring at me, even people I never talked to. I tried to ignore it but the whole school had this weird resentment towards me. I tried talking with Firey about it but he just kept avoiding me. And well...you probably didn't know this but me and him started dating. Then Pin saw me and...Well, she drew even more attention by yelling at me, then accused me of cheating on him with Coiny of all people! Crazy, right? That my best friend would just believe something like that but…I told her that wasn’t true, but she wouldn’t listen. She was so angry that she made really personal digs, she even used that phrase. The sheer audacity to pass off a term from the lowest point of my life as a regular insult, and with a crowd that wouldn't know the difference! That really pissed me off, so I shot back with my own personal digs…I know it was wrong and that it made me look irrational, but I couldn’t just do nothing after all those insults, she made it too personal! Then she showed me the quote-on-quote proof that I cheated, and it was a picture of Coiny kissing someone with my sweater! The one I haven’t had in over a month! My face wasn’t even in the picture; everyone just assumed it was me because some drama account suggested it! I know I messed up, that there were a million better ways to handle this. I could’ve calmed down and left. But there was so much built-up pressure and ire that when I saw where it started, I just lashed out and now…” her head sank. “Everyone hates me."
She cried, face buried between her knees where no one could see it. Tree embraced her with his left arm, it was the most he could do.
“This is my life now,” she sobbed. "The second I go back to school, it'll be the same song and dance: dirty looks, hushed insults, exclusion...I can't go through that again. I could barely handle it in middle school!"
Tree thought long and hard about what to say next. He couldn't really help with empty promises about how things will get better. He needed proof, something he didn't have. All he did have was his own experiences, and they weren't anything like Leafy's...would that really be enough?
“Leafy…I can’t imagine how awful this is, I really can’t. But trust me when I say: this won’t last forever.”
She looked at him. The eyes on her tear-streaked face were filled with doubt, but also hope. Tree needed to convince her that hope was worth believing in.
“Remember those tabloid magazines in the grocery store, the ones with outrageous headlines? The drama they publish doesn’t last forever, and yours has even less evidence to fuel it. All of those weirdos online are screaming about it now because it’s fresh, give them a week and they’ll move onto something else.”
“Yeah,” she sniffed. “But what about everyone at school? They aren’t going to let this go in a week.”
“I know. It really sucks that so many people read that drama accounts’ headline and ran with it, but sooner or later they’ll realize how silly that was. At least one of them will…the ones that thrive on this stuff tend to be very loud about it.”
“okay…”
"What's the name of this account?"
"Um.. ?"
Tree pulled out his phone and searched for it, after scrolling through the thread about Leafy, he found what she needed."
"Look, some people didn't buy it."
-This scandal is very unfortunate. My condolences to the parties involved. It must be extremely sad to have your partner cheat on you; the lack of trust is not ideal.
However, I do note that Leafy is only speculated to have been the one cheating. Please notice that I am not accusing someone else of cheating, but notice that I do not think it was Leafy with this little amount of information. Do not rush to conclusions with unsatisfactory evidence. Although, it is certain that Coiny was involved, so I am sorry for Pin.
- i agree with gb, we shouldnt jump to conclusions just yet. maybe it'd be good if someone investigated the thing, just to give closure to the parties involved?
- is anyone else curious on who @ gh_dr4maa__ is?? just me? dm me ifyk
“And those are just the ones that spoke out about it, there has to be at least one person that agreed in silence.”
Leafy stared at the messages, contemplating what they meant, then let out a strained laugh. “I'm...scared to hope again. I spent the whole day doing that and it only made things worse. I don't want to believe in someone that could change their mind on a whim.”
"Don't have to," Tree assured her. "I believe you."
"Really? You're just going to believe me no matter what?"
"Yeah." He replied. "We haven't really...spent time together lately, but I know who you are. Cheating just isn't in your nature."
Leafy didn't respond. Her silence blank face told Tree she was completely focused on thinking. About what was anyone's guess. Could've been what happened today, what her brother said, or what she'd do next. Eventually she got up and turned her phone off, then tucked it away. “It’s not like someone’s going to message me anyway…”
“I can't promise your old friends will, that's up to them,” Tree admitted. "Sometimes you think you know people after spending time with them, but things don't work out the way you'd hope..."
"Is that really about me?" Leafy asked out of nowhere.
"Um, yes!" he insisted. "This is completely unrelated to Black Ho-"
She smirked, clearly amused with his slip-up.
"I don't mind if you're projecting," his sister said. "I didn't do anything when you were upset about that..."
"That's okay," Tree replied. "But my point is, there are also people that will reach out, will hear your side of the story. They aren't loud, but they're just as real...you get what I'm saying?"
“I do,” she laughed quietly. Leafy was still exhausted, but it seemed like she felt a bit better now.
“I’m going to bed now,” she said. "I finally feel like I can put this day behind me."
“Alright,” he said as he began leaving her room.
“And Tree...thanks. For trying to help.”
"No problem," He said. And he really meant it.