Chapter 6 - GRACE HAD ANOTHER SECRETThe commission interviewed Grace privately.
With her mother present.
Afterward, Dr. Shaw asked me to wait.
An hour passed.
Then Laura came out crying.
Grace followed.
I stood.
“What happened?”
Grace looked tired.
“There’s more.”
My stomach sank.
A month earlier, Caroline Wells had taken Grace’s cane near the science wing.
Madeline stood nearby.
They moved furniture around her.
Then recorded Grace trying to orient herself.
The video had been posted to a private student group chat.
Caption:
BLIND MAZE CHALLENGE.
I felt sick.
Grace had not reported it.
“Why?”
She looked down.
“Because the first six reports did nothing.”
That sentence should have been framed and placed in every administrator’s office.
When reporting fails repeatedly, silence is not proof the harm stopped.
Sometimes it means the victim stopped believing the system.
Dr. Shaw asked whether Grace had the video.
No.
But another student did.
Once the investigation became public, a sophomore named Maya Chen submitted a screen recording.
She had kept it for weeks.
“Why didn’t you report it sooner?”
Maya started crying.
“Madeline said my dad would lose his contract.”
Her father owned a small catering company.
Westbridge used it for events.
Madeline had turned donor culture into social currency.
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Children learn adult power structures quickly.
Sometimes too quickly.
