The Annoying Sleepwalker Chapter 13
“I just told the truth.”
Her voice was shaking.
“You just wanted to ruin me.”
I closed my book and looked at her calmly.
“I’m not the one who ruined you.”
“Your own actions did that.”
Blair started playing sick.
She skipped class for a day and stayed in bed.
One minute she said she had a headache, the next that her chest felt tight.
Then she claimed we were pressuring her so much she couldn’t breathe.
At first, Tessa still felt a flicker of sympathy.
But every time she looked at her shattered iPad, that sympathy vanished.
“No matter how bad she feels, she has to pay up first.”
Mallory was even more direct.
Every day, she hounded Ms. Albright:
“When are her parents coming?”
“My headphones can’t be repaired. She has to buy me a new pair.”
Genevieve was also getting pressure from the housing office about the camera, and her expression grew more strained by the day.
I didn’t pressure anyone.
I focused on my own work.
Since the laptop couldn’t be fixed right away, I borrowed an old desktop in my professor’s lab.
My project lead sent me the files that had been synced to the cloud.
I stayed up for two straight nights, rebuilding all the missing content piece by piece.
I did the same with my internship portfolio.
Last time, I’d fallen apart because I never imagined she would target me a second time.
So I’d kept all my materials in our room.
This time was different.
I backed up everything I had.
One copy on Google Drive. One on a flash drive.
One more locked in my professor’s office cabinet.
I would never again leave my future anywhere Blair could destroy it.
On the third day, Ms. Albright called us into her office.
Blair sat in the chair with a pale face, tears ready at a moment’s notice.
“I really think I might have a sleepwalking disorder.”
Ms. Albright asked, “Where is the medical documentation?”
Blair lowered her head.