Chapter 2
“Aunt Chloe,” Nora began, her measured tone cutting through the air with the cold, unyielding precision of a seasoned magistrate delivering a final judgment. “You swore to Grandma and Grandpa that you spent all of last Tuesday inside the university amphitheater, defending your doctoral thesis in molecular biology. You insisted you practically lived inside the research archives for four sleepless nights.”
“Because I was!” Chloe shrieked, the pitch of her voice spiking as pure desperation overtook her composure. “You insolent little brat, what ridiculous nonsense are you—”
“Yet according to the forensic metadata, encrypted server timestamps, and embedded GPS geo-tags,” Nora continued smoothly, slicing through her aunt’s unraveling facade, “you were actually sunbathing aboard a chartered superyacht off the coast of Dubai, downing high-end liquor and posing as an influencer for a detox beverage campaign.”
Nora tapped a single key on the remote.
The imagery on the right quadrant expanded instantly across the high-definition display. There, unmistakably caught in the background of a verified celebrity’s beachfront post, was Chloe herself—timestamped to that exact Tuesday afternoon. She was lounging in a neon bikini, clutching a premium spirit bottle, visibly intoxicated on the deck of a luxury vessel halfway across the globe.
“You malicious little liar! You doctored those files!” Chloe screamed, completely losing her sanity.
She lunged violently forward, arms flailing through the air. Her designer sunglasses were dislodged in the frenzy, crashing against the hardwood floor with a sharp, brittle crack.
Nora executed a calm, calculated sidestep, deliberately placing the heavy solid oak coffee table as an impenetrable barrier between herself and the hysterical woman.
Then, with absolute poise, she triggered the next slide.
The projection shifted instantly. The screen now illuminated an internal, restricted university database. Chloe’s complete legal name, administrative ID, and graduate enrollment credentials stood out in stark monochrome.
Yet running across the header, glowing in severe, unignorable scarlet lettering, was the definitive verdict on her academic career:
ACADEMIC STATUS: PERMANENT EXPULSION.
GROUNDS: CHRONIC UNEXCUSED ABSENCE / COMPREHENSIVE INSTITUTIONAL FAILURE.
May you like
EFFECTIVE DATE: OCTOBER 14TH — PRECISELY THREE YEARS AGO.
The living room descended into a suffocating, dead silence, broken only by the ragged, terrifying rasp of my father’s breath as his gaze locked onto the damning red letters.
