They Told Me To Endure Her, Until They Faced Her Nightmare Too Chapter 09

The next morning, Hannah showed up at the basement office with her mother.

Her mother stood behind her chair, arms crossed.

“Summer, right?” her mother said. “Hannah made a mistake, but she’s young. Did you really need to call the police and risk her record over this?”

I slid two invoices across the desk.

“She spent night after night pounding on my door with a brass wedge.”

“The door didn’t break,” her mother countered.

“Does it have to before you take it seriously?”

Her mother bristled.

Wendy cut in from the corner. “She did it deliberately to keep the floor awake.”

“And you put up an industrial door just to provoke her,” her mother snapped.

“I installed the door,” I said. “I didn’t pound on it.”

I tapped the receipts. “Locksmith and frame repairs. Who’s paying for this?”

Hannah stared at the invoices. “You can’t be serious-”

Her mother nudged her hard.

Karen checked her watch. “Sort out the damages between you two. As for the lease, Hannah, you have three days to hand over the keys.”

Hannah didn’t argue.

Miller witnessed her sign the termination agreement. She pulled out her phone and sent the money via Venmo.

I checked the notification on my phone.

“Since I paid,” Hannah said, “can’t you just tell people it was a misunderstanding?”

Still fishing for an out. If it was a misunderstanding, it was just two girls being petty.

“I took your money for the damage,” I said. “I’m not rewriting what happened.”

Her mother glared. “You really just want to ruin her, don’t you?”

Derek muttered from the door, “Hannah didn’t leave anyone a way out at 2 AM.”

I turned to Hannah. “Now post the retraction in the group chat. Word for word.”

Her hands shook as she typed:

[Hannah Shaw from 4A. I was awake when I hit 5A’s door-the sleepwalking was fake, done to get back at

Summer for reporting my stream. She never provoked me. I paid the damages and I’m moving out.]

She hit send.

The chat stayed dead silent. No one defended her.

Hannah gathered her things and headed for the door. At the threshold, she turned back. “I paid. I apologized.

What else do you want?”

I swung my laptop bag over my shoulder.

“Nothing from you.”

At 2:50 PM, I set up in the booked room.

The client joined the call on time.

I took them through the deck slide by slide, fielding the budget queries without hesitation.

Forty minutes in, the lead partner nodded on screen. “Solid work, Summer. Cut the appendix down by two

slides and send over the final for sign-off.”

“Will do.”

I opened my notebook to write down the edits.

In another life, the margin had been filled with a frantic scribble: Don’t mess up next time.

This time, the page was clean.

I jotted down the two notes in a steady hand. Without someone grinding me down, the work was effortless.

(The End)