Chapter 7 Loving So Intensely

Rosalind was riding high now, and Linden was living it up. They'd teamed up to watch me crash and burn. But everyone had forgotten about one thing—I was the one who loved Linden most. Because I loved him, I bought him that studio, paid for his exhibitions out of my own pocket, and spent countless dollars promoting his art through every connection I had. I loved Linden so intensely that even when I wasn't with him, I wanted to watch what he was doing secretly. So, I gradually installed hidden cameras everywhere throughout that studio. I was afraid of missing a single moment of Linden's life. So I paid top dollar to have the camera feeds automatically saved to cloud storage in real time. Even though the fire destroyed everything, I could still access the footage. I logged into the cloud storage, entering Linden's birthday as the password. I pulled up the surveillance from the day of the fire and went through it room by room. Everything looked normal until Rosalind appeared. I watched them walk together and go into a room. That was when I knew I'd found my arsonist. … When the cyberbullying reached its peak, I made a move nobody saw coming. I registered an account under my real name and posted my first video demanding that Rosalind and Linden publicly apologize to me. I also announced that I'd hired a lawyer and was planning to sue them both. This made the attacks on me even worse. I gained a lot of followers, but they were all there to tear me apart, launching direct personal attacks on me. They thought I was completely shameless, that I was just a supposed arsonist demanding an apology from her victims. Rosalind and Linden immediately posted response videos. It was the same tactics as always, vague hints and sob stories that sent everyone into a rage. That was when I posted my second video. This time I smiled at the camera and said, "Rosalind, Linden, you're my dearest friends. But I have plenty of evidence about this situation, so I hope you'll think carefully before you act." When I mentioned having evidence, Rosalind and Linden went quiet. They were probably trying to figure out whether I actually had proof, and if so, what kind. But the users they'd riled up didn't care about any of that. They kept attacking me from every angle, screaming, "If you have evidence, then show it! Stop wasting everyone's time!" I wasn't wasting time. I was waiting to see how Linden and Rosalind would react. Linden called me privately, trying to get information out of me. But I kept my guard up and didn't reveal anything. By the end of the call, he was furious that he couldn't get what he wanted. "Just keep pretending, Aurora! The studio's been burned to ash, so what evidence could you possibly have? You're just trying to scare us, and I'm not falling for it!" He hung up on me, and I smiled. Sure enough, not long after, Rosalind posted another video. They were convinced I had no evidence, so they went all out, demanding that I apologize and pay them a hefty sum for emotional damages. I left a comment under that video with just three words—"See you tomorrow." Those simple three words became a ticking time bomb that kept them up all night. Netizens were waiting too, waiting for whatever "tomorrow" would bring. The next morning at 9:00 am, my scheduled video went live on social media.