The Anatomy of Almost (Jamilton)

Chapter 5: Aftershocks

The thing about humiliation is that it doesn't end when the crowd stops laughing.

It lingers.

It follows you in the echo of footsteps behind you, in the way conversations hush when you enter a room, in the phantom vibration of your phone even when it's silent. It lives in every glance, every whisper, every notification lighting up your screen like a reminder that you don't get to just move on.

By morning, my name wasn't trending, but it might as well have been. Joust was flooded with clips of Aaron's dramatic reading, memes of my words twisted into punchlines, and polls asking the campus to vote on "Who's the mystery man in Alex's notebook?"

Spoiler alert: they all knew.

I could feel it before I even stepped out of my dorm. The weight of being seen. Not the good kind, where someone notices your new haircut or compliments your shoes. No, this was the kind of being seen where you wished you could peel your skin off just to escape the feeling.

Herc tried to confiscate my phone after the third time he caught me doom-scrolling. Lafayette threatened to hack Joust and replace every post with thirst traps of himself in glitter and eyeliner. Angelica sent me a playlist titled "Songs for When You Want to Burn It All Down but Still Look Hot," followed by a text that read, "I'll kill them all if you ask."

None of it helped.

I skipped my first two classes, burying myself under blankets like they could shield me from the digital wildfire consuming my life. Herc eventually bribed me out of bed with coffee and the promise of minimal human interaction.

"You can't hibernate forever," he said, sliding a cup into my hands. "As much as I respect the emo aesthetic you've got going, you need fresh air before you start quoting The Smiths unironically."

"I need a new identity," I muttered, but I took the coffee anyway because self-loathing was easier with caffeine.

Walking through campus felt like walking through a glass tunnel. I could see them—the stares, the nudges, the way people whispered behind hands like that made it subtle. Every laugh felt like it was aimed at me, even if logic told me otherwise.

Lafayette flanked me on one side, Herc on the other, like guards escorting me through enemy territory. Laf kept his head high, daring anyone to say something out loud. Herc distracted me with nonsense talk about starting a band called "Public Meltdown."

"We could sell merch," Herc said, nudging me. "Black hoodies only, obviously."

"And our debut single would be 'Mind Your Business,'" Laf added with a wicked grin.

I appreciated the effort. I really did. But jokes couldn't drown out the tightness in my chest or the constant loop of he heard it, he heard it, he knows playing in my head.

By the time we reached The Hill, I was seconds away from either screaming or collapsing.

"Rooftop," Herc said, like it was a command.

We climbed the narrow staircase, the one no one but us really used. The rooftop was our escape hatch—a place above it all, where the noise faded and the sky felt close enough to touch.

The wind greeted us first, sharp and cold, carrying the scent of rain and dying leaves. The campus stretched below, deceptively calm from this height. Like if I squinted hard enough, I could pretend none of it was happening.

Lafayette sat on the ledge, legs swinging carelessly over the edge, while Herc unpacked a bag of snacks like we were settling in for a picnic instead of an emotional intervention.