Every Time I Check My Score, It Resets to Zero Chapter 03

“Elena, don’t do this,” Ethan said, forcing his voice low. “This is my college acceptance party.”

“I just need one honest answer.”

He took a step back, putting distance between us.

“I…”

His Adam’s apple bobbed.

“I saw you sleeping the whole time.”

A loud buzzing filled my head.

“You’re lying!”

I grabbed the chair beside me and shoved it over.

It crashed to the floor with a deafening bang, and several girls screamed.

Mr. Hale set down the snack he had been picking at and rose from the main table.

“Elena, how long are you going to keep making a scene?”

He pulled out his phone and opened his photo album.

“Look for yourself.”

He shoved the screen in front of my face.

It was a screenshot from the test center’s surveillance feed.

Everyone else in the room had their heads down, working furiously.

Only I was slumped over my desk, fast asleep.

The answers in front of me was completely blank.

I stared at the picture.

Zoomed in.

Then zoomed in again.

The face in the photo was mine.

I was wearing the exact white tee from that morning.

Even the eraser I always kept at the corner of my desk was in the exact same place.

But I had not been asleep.

I had written until the very last second.

“This photo is edited!”

I pointed at Mr. Hale, my voice shaking.

“You did this, didn’t you?”

Mr. Hale sighed and put his phone away.

“A proctor sent this in the staff group chat. Your condition was off that day, so I even asked the proctors about it afterward.”

Then he turned toward the students around us.

“Everyone knows Elena has been under too much pressure these past few years. Her mental state hasn’t been stable.”

Whispers immediately broke out.

“No wonder she got a zero. She turned in a blank answer sheet.”

“Is she actually having some kind of breakdown?”

“Failing three years in a row would mess anybody up.”

“I heard she only looked smart in class because she copied answers. The second a real test came around, she fell apart. That’s honestly pathetic.”

Every word stabbed into my ears.

I looked toward Sophie Vale in the corner.

She was my closest friend.

But now she had her head down, picking at her nails, refusing even to look at me.

“Sophie.”

I walked over and grabbed her shoulders.

“The day before the test, we were still reviewing physics formulas together. You remember that, don’t you?”

Sophie jerked away from me, her face flushing bright red.

“I don’t remember! Elena, stop pressuring me, okay?”

She covered her face and started crying.

“Everyone is here celebrating. Why did you have to come ruin it?”

Her accusation froze me where I stood.

Even she thought I was insane.

I stood in the middle of the Country Club, looking at all those faces.

Their glares were dripping with pity and disgust.

What was the truth?

If security photos could be faked, if an entire class could repeat the same lie, then what was real anymore?

Ethan picked up his glass and turned toward another table.

Mr. Hale returned to the main table and went back to chatting with the parents as if nothing had happened.

No one spared me another glance.

I stood under the bright banquet lights, humiliated, wishing the floor would open up and swallow me whole.

I was backed into a corner.

Photos could be faked. People could lie.

But the original answer sheets locked inside the State Department of Education’s archive could not simply disappear.

As long as they pulled my actual work, every lie would collapse on its own.

I turned and stumbled out of the Country Club.

Then I ran down the street.

My destination was the county education office.

Night air rushed into my lungs, sharp and painful, but I did not stop.

As long as I requested a score audit and forced them to pull my original scantron sheet, the truth would come out.