"Dumping trash AND vandalizing? That's disgusting."
"I literally just defended her. I feel like such an idiot."
The same neighbors who'd been ready to crucify me instantly switched sides.
Overnight, everyone's target shifted—from me to Mrs. Lawrence.
She'd obviously seen the video too. She panicked.
Voice messages flooded the group chat, her pitch climbing with each one.
"It wasn't me! That wasn't me!" "It's fake! That Lin guy set me up!" "Don't believe him! He's just a petty villain!"
I ignored her dying struggle.
Instead, I sent another recording.
Everything she and her son had said the day the power company came—how they'd cursed me out at my own door.
"Bottom of society." "Trash." "Mud." Those filthy, unbearable words echoed through the group chat.
And Josh's line—"Once I get into Harvard, I won't ever have to be neighbors with this kind of trash again"—set the whole crowd ablaze.
"Oh my god, the 'future Harvard genius' really said that?" "That level of character... getting into Harvard? Don't embarrass Harvard." "Too scary. He always looks so refined. Who knew he was this kind of person."
"Mrs. Lawrence's parenting is really something else."
Public opinion reversed completely.