spanng="EN"Tiffany’s POV

    spanng="EN"I looked at my attorney, giving him a pressing look. He needed to pay attention so he could get her to fold. Ana has always backed down when I applied pressure. I know she will again; he just needs to be smart about it. I’m not going to prison, no matter what Ana wants. She needs to calm the f**k down and shut up. This was it. He needed to make notes, so he could tear about her ount of things. I haven’t looked back at my parents since the guys were up there testifying. Everything waspletely falling apart. No wonder she pushed this; she waspletely prepared.

    spanng="EN"Just like in school, she always had everything so perfectly worked out. Always handed in her reports early. Always got perfect scores. It wasn’t hard to understand why I hated her. She didn’t even try to make me look bad, yet she always did. That was the worst part of it all; she wasn’t even trying to do it, it just happened. She was naturally gifted. I eventually gave up trying to best her. Despite her being a year younger than me, her talent was evident. My parents praised her for everything she did, big or small.

    spanng="EN"When I finally got the best of her, I was thrilled. I wanted her punishment to carry on, even after I graduated. I had made deals, even more deals than they knew about, and I stand by them. An deserved what she got, and I would do it all over again if I could. I would just n it out better. I saw how her parents, and mine, had reacted to her weight gain. They were disappointed in her. I managed to twist it around and im that she was just ming me and Holden because she was angry about gaining weight. They all believed me, and that only ended up pissing Ana off even more.

    spanng="EN"I had already told my attorney to mention that she had gained weight because of her jealousy of me. That I had done nothing wrong, but she always looked for a way to try to pin things on me. Now we will have to take a different route. That’s not going to work anymore. I was going to have to listen to what she had and try to find something that I could pick apart. She’s already got Gretchen and Heather in trouble. I need her to appear as if she had lied, too. There has to be some way to make her look bad. I’m not going down alone.

    spanng="EN"I have to admit that I’m much less confident now than I was before. I hadn’t realized that she had so much evidence against me. I know that she has some more surprises in store for me, and my heart is racing. This is likely to make me look even worse, although I’m not sure how that would work. I took a quick nce over at the jury while Ana was being sworn in. They were all staring at me. Some are angrier than others. The foreman, a middle–aged, heavyset female, was clearly the angriest of them all.

    spanng="EN"Ana was now seated and looking at her Attorney, waiting for him to begin. He didn’t speak for a minute; they seemed to be wordlesslymunicating. He finally spoke, “I know this is tough for you to go through. But could you tell us in your own words, why you brought this to trial after ten years had passed?”

    spanng="EN"“At first, I stayed quiet about it because I was being threatened,” Ana started to say.

    spanng="EN"My Attorney quickly jumped out of his chair and cried out, “Objection, facts not in evidence.”

    spanng="EN"Good, he’s finally doing something to stop her.

    spanng="EN"“Your honor, I have evidence to support. I was just wanting my client to give us some background on what she experienced. However, we can present the evidence at this time. I can let Ana go through it, piece by piece, before I let her give her reasons why we’re here today,” Rodney answered.

    spanng="EN"What evidence is he talking about? Is it possible that she has my text messages? Why would she keep them? This had to have been her n all along to one daye after me and get me back for what I had done to her. If she has what I think she has, my parents will never forgive me. I’m going to lose everything. I can’t let that happen, or I’m finished.

    spanng="EN"“Counselor Stevens, the evidence was submitted weeks ago. You’ve had this whole time to look at it and have it verified. Why you didn’t take advantage of doing just that is anyone’s guess. You can continue to speak, Mrs. Billingsley,” the judge advised.

    spanng="EN"I know why he didn’t check out what they submitted. He had believed me when I downyed it as regr teenage issues. I thought I had deleted the more recent incident, so I thought she had nothing. But my father is paying him for results. He should have checked instead of listening to me. He should have assumed that she might have something that could be used against me. That was on him, as he’s being well paid to provide me with some kind of defense.

    spanng="EN"“The abuse stopped when I went off to college. I made friends who cared about me and stood by me. But thosest two years of high school scarred me for life. At first, I stayed quiet because I was scared of what Tiffany would do if I actually spoke out. She is vicious. I didn’t want to suffer even more by trying to defend myself. The second reason, and really, it’s the reason I never said anything, was to protect my parents and the Vaughns. They have been best friends since before I was born. Tiffany reminded me quite often that if I spoke out, it would destroy their friendship,” Ana replied.

    spanng="EN"“That’s a lie. I never threatened you,” I cried out. She is trying to destroy me, and I won’t sit here and let her do that.

    spanng="EN"“Ms. Vaughn, you will have your chance to speak after Mrs. Billingsley gives her testimony. Do not disrupt her testimony again. Your attorney will have a chance to question the witness soon,” the judge advised.

    spanng="EN"“You alleged that Tiffany threatened you. Do you have proof of that?” her attorney asked.

    spanng="EN"This was it, where I found out if Ana had evidence or not. She might have a little, but I doubt it will be enough to prove anything. This happened a decade ago. What are the odds?

    spanng="EN"“I do. I couldn’t speak out about it at the time. So I just documented it. I saved her vicious texts. I waited. I didn’t want to be the one who destroyed my parents‘ friendship. My brother was best friends with her brother, Holden. It would have torn our families apart, so I just bore the abuse myself and waited to go to college. I made sure to avoid Tiffany and Holden for the next ten years as much as I could. My parents wanted me to pretend that I was happy to be around them. They pretended that myplete one–eighty was because of some kind of petty slight I’d received. That’s the narrative that Tiffany gave them, and they grabbed onto it with both hands. They tried to force me to act like I wasfortable around them, but I wasn’t. I will probably never befortable around Tiffany or Gretchen, ever again,” Ana replied.

    spanng="EN"“So, can you tell me what brought us here today, after you worked so hard to keep the peace between your families?” her attorney asked.

    spanng="EN"“During a forced reconnect, my father demanded I show up for a family dinner at Holden’s restaurant. I showed up, as requested, but was upset to see Tiffany and Gretchen had also been invited there. They were not happy to see me. Angry for perceived slights and for keeping them from getting their dream jobs at Fashion Forward. They didn’t get the jobs they wanted because they weren’t qualified for them. Instead of learning more about what it takes to get the jobs they wanted, they preferred to me me for being denied. That night, I left my bodyguards behind to go use the restroom. I hired them because I knew I needed them with a separatesue I was having. I’m thankful I hired them. They got me to the hospital and got me treatment quickly. They also helped me be prepared for confrontations. Which was how I was able to record the audio of what happened to me inside the bathroom,” Ana replied.

    spanng="EN"I knew it was her, but hearing that she was prepared for us toe after her makes me furious, isn’t that entrapment? She set us up. Her refusal to back down was why I went so far that night. If she had just taken her punishment and apologized, like she used to, nothing else would have happened. Instead, she pushed us Did she honestly think that I was just going to let that go? She knows better than that. That beh set me up. Next time, I’m going to make sure that I have an iron–d alibi. She won’t be getting off so easily the next time Ie for her.

    spanng="EN"“That was the night a month ago?” Rodney asked.

    spanng="EN"“Yes. The footage had been deleted from the system, but it was an amateur job. It was able to be restored and burned as evidence,” Ana answered.

    spanng="EN"I had to bite the inside of my cheek. Thatment was intentional. She knew I had deleted it and was trying to shame me. I have to admit it looked bad. We left that bathroomughing, and she was carried out a short timeter, a bloody mess. Even her bodyguard had a lot of blood on him. I wished I’d hurt her even worse now. I was already in trouble; I should have made it worthwhile. I never expected to be on trial for assault, or for what we did so long ago. How is he going to get that to stick? It’s been a decade. My attorney assured me that, regardless of what I had done, she had no recourse. Other than trying to make me look bad. There had been no point, other than that.

    spanng="EN"“So, that was the reason? Her assaulting you in a restroom less than fifty feet from where not just your family was seated, but her own family as well? She must have been very confident in the fact that she believed that you would continue to keep her secret,” Rodney asked.

    spanng="EN"“She was, as she mentioned it that night, and reminded me to keep my mouth shut. But I had had enough of listening to her. She’s just a bully. The only thing she has going for her is her appearance. She’s beautiful, but it hides how vicious she is on the inside. She goes around pretending to be innocent and kind, when in fact she is far from either. If she had applied her deviousness to other things, like finding out what she wants to do. She could have gone far. Instead, she let her anger and jealousy over something I couldn’t control destroy her. I didn’t plot or try to take attention away from her. She was a year older than me. Her parents adored her, as did mine. It was the very reason they listened to her when she twisted everything around to them,” Ana replied.

    spanng="EN"“That’s a lie. They were wrapped around your fingers, not mine. Stop lying. You’re under oath,” Tiffany eximed.