If jealousy had a filter, it would be the grainy kind people slap on their stories to make bad decisions look aesthetic.
By Wednesday, "Where I'm From" had a folder on Ms. Torres's desktop and a permanent corner in my brain.
We'd shot four interviews—me, Seraph, Niqua, and Mason—and the plan was to start editing after school. Nothing crazy. Just trimming awkward pauses, cleaning up audio, maybe adding some simple captions.
Then people found out.
Not internet people—school people.
"Yo, Santos," a boy from my Chem class shouted across the hallway. "I heard you're doing, like, a Netflix special or something?"
"Relax," I called back. "It's not that deep."
"Can I be in it?" a girl I barely knew asked, popping up beside my locker. "My mom's from Grenada. I have stories."
"Same," a kid from gym added. "But like, can I see my footage first? I'm not trying to look dusty."
By lunch, the project had turned into a rumor.
Tia plopped her tray down at the end of our table, eyeliner sharp, purple braids piled on top of her head.
"So," she said, sucking on her juice straw like a villain, "I hear we're doing a doc on 'where people are from.'" She did the air quotes with extra sarcasm. "You know that's my lane, right?"
I looked at Seraph, then back at Tia.
"You own… stories now?" I asked.
"I own content," she corrected. "I've been making videos since sixth grade. Y'all can't just skip the girl who built the tea pipeline for this school and pretend it's a 'serious project.'"
Seraph raised a brow. "We're not doing tea, babe. We're doing real life."
Tia scoffed. "Real life is tea. You think people are gonna watch a twenty-minute sob session about 'my heart lives in the water' if there's no drama?"
My jaw clenched.
"I'm not making this for people who want a mess," I said. "I'm making it for people who are tired of being the mess."
Her gaze flicked over me, calculating.
"So is Dan in it?" she asked sweetly. "Or Makayla? You can't tell 'your side' and leave theirs out, right? That's, like, unethical. Media bias or whatever."
Heat rushed up my neck.
"We're not doing their story," I said. "We're doing ours."
Tia shrugged, like she didn't care, but her eyes glittered.
"Just saying," she replied. "If you're gonna play journalist, don't get mad when the people you're narrating talk back."
She slid off the bench and sauntered away, pulling her phone out before she'd even taken three steps.
Seraph watched her go. "She's absolutely posting something about this."
"Let her," I muttered, but my chest buzzed with dread.
Niqua nudged my arm. "Don't let her live in your head, Jay. We have bigger things to worry about. Like the fact that I might cry on camera again if Mason asks me any more feelings questions."
"Facts," Seraph said. "That boy's a menace with a mic."
I tried to laugh, but the knot in my stomach stayed.
It got worse after school.
We were in the Media Studies room, curtains half-closed to block the worst of the glare. Mason sat at the editing computer, headphones on, eyes narrowed in concentration. On the screen, my own face stared back at me—paused mid-sentence.
"That frame makes me look like I just smelled something weird," I complained.
"Welcome to candid filmmaking," Mason said. "You'll survive."
Seraph was perched on a desk, swinging her legs, while Niqua lay on the floor, scrolling her phone upside-down.
"Okay," Mason said, hitting play. "Tell me you don't feel something when you hear this."
My video started.
"Home is… the water," my onscreen self said. "San Ángel. The pier…"
I listened, trying to detach. To pretend it was someone else—a girl I might root for instead of picking apart.
By the time it ended, the room was quiet.
"If this doesn't get at least one white boy to rethink his entire personality, I'll be shocked," Seraph said finally.
We all cracked up.
"This works," Mason said. "Yours, Seraph's, Niqua's, mine—we've got a solid four-piece. Once we cut in B-roll—hallways, lockers, stupid cafeteria pizza—you've got a pilot."
"A what?" I asked.
"A first episode," he clarified. "We show it in class, see who else wants in. Build from there."
My heartbeat kicked up.
"Show it in class," I repeated. "Like… tomorrow?"
"Or next week," he said. "Whenever you stop looking like you might throw up on the keyboard."
I groaned and dropped my head on the desk.
A knock at the door made all of us jump.
Ms. Torres pushed it open, holding a stack of papers.
"How's my team of revolutionaries?" she asked.
"Terrified," I muttered into the desk.
"Productive," Mason said at the same time.
She smiled. "Good combination."
She set the papers down and leaned over Mason's shoulder to watch the screen.
After a minute, she nodded. "You have something here," she said. "Rough, but strong. When do you want to premiere?"
Seraph wiggled her fingers. "Tomorrow," she declared.
"Next week," I countered.
"Friday," Ms. Torres said, cutting between us. "Gives you two days to polish and me two days to emotionally prepare for teenagers crying in my classroom."
"Deal," Mason said.
My stomach swooped.
Friday.
Two days until the school saw me—not the messed-up clips from Dan, not Tia's live reactions. Me. And my friends. On purpose.
"What about, um… permissions?" I asked. "We should get people to sign something if they're in it, right? So they can't say we used their faces without consent."
Ms. Torres nodded. "I've got standard release forms," she said. "We'll have anyone who appears on camera sign before we show it. Protect yourselves. Protect them."
"See?" I said to the room. "Legal ocean girl. I'm growing."
Seraph patted my back like I was a toddler who'd eaten broccoli for the first time.
Another knock interrupted us.
This time, it wasn't Ms. Torres.
The door swung open wider—and Makayla stepped in.
My whole body went cold.
She looked exactly how she always looked: hair on point, gloss perfect, outfit chosen to whisper I woke up like this while also screaming I tried.
Behind her, hovering with guilty energy, was Tia.
Of course.
"Sorry to interrupt," Makayla said, eyes scanning the room until they landed on me. "We heard there was some kind of… film thing happening. Thought we'd check it out."
My jaw clenched.
"Media Studies is a class, not an open mic," Seraph said flatly.
Ms. Torres didn't move from where she stood by the desk.
"This is an after-school project," she said calmly. "If you're not part of it, ladies, I'm going to have to ask you to head out."
Makayla's smile tightened.
"I might be part of it," she said. "You're doing stories about 'where we're from,' right? And 'what people get wrong about us'?" She looked directly at me. "I'd say a lot of people have the wrong idea about me right now."
My hands curled into fists.
Tia leaned against the doorframe, folding her arms. "Feels kinda biased to let one side speak and not the other," she said. "Just saying."
They were using my own words. My own idea of fairness. Twisting it until it cut.
"First of all," I said, forcing my voice to stay level, "this is not the 'Jayla vs. Makayla Cinematic Universe.' This is about everybody. And second, you already told your side. Multiple times. On public accounts. With my @ in the caption."
Makayla's jaw tightened. "You did too."
"I never said your name," I snapped. "You had to tag yourself in to make it about you."
Ms. Torres stepped slightly between us, not blocking my view, but taking some of the heat.
"This isn't a courtroom," she said. "It's a classroom. I'm not obligated to give equal time to personal feuds, especially when there's already ongoing harm."
Makayla's eyes flashed. "So you're just going to let her spin everything?" she demanded. "Let her turn me into some villain on-screen while everyone claps for her deep lines about the ocean?"
I laughed once, sharp. "You turned yourself into the villain when you kissed my boyfriend," I said. "The ocean didn't do that."
Tia cut in. "Look, none of us are perfect," she said, trying for reasonable but landing on smug. "But if this is really about 'truth' and 'voice' and all that, why are you scared to let us speak on camera too?"
Scared.
The word hit right where it hurt.
Because I was scared.
Scared of giving them another platform to twist things. Scared of sitting across from a lens while Makayla cried in HD about how I left her. Scared that, no matter what we filmed, people would only see what they were already primed to believe.
Mason shifted in his seat. "This isn't a gossip doc," he said, finally speaking up. "We're not doing reaction videos to TikTok drama. We're asking people where they're from, what they carry, what people get wrong about them. Not 'who cheated on who.'"
"Those are the same thing sometimes," Makayla muttered.
"Not here," I said. "Not in this project."
Her eyes found mine again—hopelessly familiar and suddenly so far away.
"You don't own pain, Jayla," she said softly. "You don't own being misunderstood."
Guilt pricked uninvited.
Because she wasn't wrong.
She'd lost things too. Friends. Reputation. Maybe even her version of love.
But then I thought of the videos. The way she'd leaned into the frame like it was a stage. The way she'd let Dan's lies sit untouched because they made her look less alone in what she'd done.
"I know," I said quietly. "I never said I did."
The room felt fragile. Like one wrong word could crack it.
Ms. Torres spoke into the silence.
"Makayla," she said, voice softer now. "Do you actually want to tell your 'where I'm from' story on camera? Not about Jayla. Not about Dan. About you. Your block. Your family. What people assume when they see you in the hallway."
Makayla blinked, thrown off.
"I…" She glanced at Tia, then back at Ms. Torres. "Maybe."
"Then we can talk about that," Ms. Torres said. "But not today. And not while tensions are this high. This project is not a weapon. If you come in here, you follow our rules."
Tia snorted. "Whose rules? Hers?" She jerked her chin at me.
"Mine," Ms. Torres said, steel in her tone. "I am the adult in this room. Surprising, I know."
Seraph snickered.
"Anyone who appears on camera signs a release," Ms. Torres went on. "They know what questions they're agreeing to. If you want to be part of that, Makayla, my door is open. But I will shut this whole thing down before I let it turn into a petty war."
Makayla studied her for a long moment.
Then she looked at me.
For a split second, I saw the girl from San Ángel—sitting on my bedroom floor, painting our nails, laughing at stupid videos. The one who knew my whole life before Brooklyn.
"I'm not trying to ruin your little project," she said, quieter now. "I just… don't want to be the only villain in your movie."
"You're not," I said. "This isn't a movie about villains."
She huffed out a breath, somewhere between a laugh and a scoff.
"Could've fooled me," she said.
Tia tugged at her sleeve. "Come on," she muttered. "We got enough for a story."
The way she said it made my stomach twist.
"Don't record this," Ms. Torres warned Tia, catching the look. "I see one clip from inside my classroom on your page and I'll have your phone living in my desk till June."
Tia rolled her eyes but slipped the phone into her pocket.
"We're going," she said.
Makayla hesitated.
"Think about what I said," Ms. Torres added, softer. "The offer is real. But not if it comes with conditions."
Makayla nodded once, then turned and left.
The door clicked shut behind them.
For a second, no one moved.
Then I sagged back onto the chair like my strings had been cut.
"Well," Seraph said, breaking the silence. "On a scale of one to ten, that sucked."
"Eight point five," Niqua said. "Would not recommend."
Mason blew out a slow breath. "We should lock this room," he muttered.
Ms. Torres pinched the bridge of her nose. "Welcome to storytelling," she said. "The minute you start shaping a narrative, someone will try to reshape it for you. Or through you."
I swallowed the lump in my throat.
"Did we… do the right thing?" I asked. "Telling her no? I mean, doesn't that make us hypocrites? Saying this is about giving people a voice and then—"
"Jayla," Ms. Torres cut in. "You are not obligated to hand your abuser—or your ex-best friend—the mic in your own project to prove you're fair."
The word abuser made me flinch.
"She hurt you," Ms. Torres said firmly. "Repeatedly. In private and in public. She is allowed to tell her story somewhere. She is not entitled to use your space, your labor, and your healing process as her stage."
My eyes stung.
"Balance isn't always about hearing 'both sides,'" she added. "Sometimes it's about finally hearing the side that's never gotten a full sentence."
Seraph snapped her fingers. "Tattoo that on my forehead," she said.
I took a shaky breath.
"I just don't want this to become another thing they say I weaponized," I whispered. "Another reason to call me crazy. Controlling. Whatever."
Niqua hopped off the desk and came to stand beside me.
"Listen," she said. "They called you all that when you were silent too. They'll twist anything. If you spend your whole life editing yourself in case it hurts them, you'll cut out everything that saves you."
Her words slid under my skin and settled there.
"I used to beg people to see my side," I thought, the earlier line echoing in my head. "Now I'm busy living it."
Out loud, I said, "Okay. We keep going. With or without them."
Mason lifted the SD card again, turning it between his fingers.
"We keep going," he echoed.
Ms. Torres checked the clock. "You've got thirty more minutes before they kick us out for the robotics club," she said. "Use it. Rough cut by Friday, remember?"
She left us with a small, encouraging smile.
Seraph clapped her hands once. "Alright, trauma babies," she said. "Back to work. Tia's probably already drafting 'docu-exposé' in her Notes app as we speak. We better be better."
We laughed, but we all knew she wasn't entirely joking.
Mason slid the headphones back on and pulled the timeline up on the screen.
"Ready?" he asked me.
I looked at my frozen face in the first frame.
Not the desperate girl from Dan's storytime.
Not the party girl from random snaps.
Just… me.
Scared.
Stubborn.
Trying.
"Yeah," I said. "Let's roll."
As the footage played, my heartbeat finally started to slow.
Makayla and Dan could keep posting. Tia could keep spinning. People could whisper in hallways, twist screenshots, share half-truths.
But in this tiny room, with these ridiculous people and this glitchy computer, we were building something they didn't control.
For the first time in a long time, that felt like power.
Not the loud, showy kind.
The quiet kind.
The kind that doesn't need everyone to believe it to be real.
The kind that says: I am not what they did. I am what I did next.
And this—this messy, scary, beautiful project—was what came next.
Whether they liked it or not.