The Fatal Delivery

Someone stole my food delivery. I asked about it in the building's group chat. Rhonda fired right back. "You're already huge.

Why are you even drinking boba?" That same night, her daughter drank that exact cup of boba and got wheeled straight to the morgue. Rhonda actually called the cops.

She pointed the finger at me and screamed intentional murder. Funny how things work out. Her daughter, Leighton, had been making my life a living hell for three solid years.

Chapter 1 On my eighteenth birthday, my best friend Tess sent me a massive gift. She didn't give me a headsup, and I jumped straight into the tub the second I got home.

By the time I checked my phone and scrambled down to the lobby, there was nothing waiting for me but a bare table. Tess texted me the details.

She’d spent the entire day before making a custom peanut butter cake and a peanut boba tea.

The cake base and frosting were heavily loaded with crushed peanuts—a total peanut explosion. The delivery driver hadn't messed up. Someone just swiped it.

Tess brushed it off and took the loss. Luckily, she had extra ingredients and whipped up a replacement in record time. She sent a photo of the new box.

It had a white label slapped on the side with some blurry text scribbled at the bottom.

Not wanting to get robbed twice, I planted myself in the lobby and waited a solid thirty minutes. Finally, the driver pulled up.

With the box safe in my hands, I dropped a quick, casual message in the building's group chat. [ Lost track of time in the bath. My food delivery went missing from the lobby.

Wonder who got so lucky. ] I attached Tess's photo, but my message got buried almost instantly under a flood of replies.

The older neighbors jumped at the chance to lecture me. [ Stop eating that delivery junk, kiddo! It's all chemicals and processed garbage! ] [ Delivery is filthy.

Cooking at home is so much healthier! ] [ Look at it this way, Maren. Think of the thief as taking a bullet for you.

You don't know how unsanitary that stuff is. ] [ Link: The Ugly Truth Behind Food Delivery Apps ] Right as the chat turned into a massive echo chamber about dirty takeout, a woman with a selfie profile picture chimed in. [ You're already huge.

Why are you even drinking boba and eating cake? Skipping a meal is basically a diet for you. ] I stared at the screen. I hadn't said a single word about boba or cake.

How did she know? The answer was painfully obvious. I didn't even bother calling her out directly. I just tapped out a dry response. [ You're so right!

It's all just chemicals anyway. Thanks for taking that bullet for me, ma'am. ] Less than three minutes later, a scream ripped through the ceiling.

Heavy footsteps pounded right above me. Ceramic shattered against the floor. Plates clattering. Pure chaos. I tilted my head, frowning at the noise. Then, sirens wailed.

An ambulance tore into the complex and slammed to a halt right outside my building. Wailing drifted down the stairwell, followed by someone pounding on my front door.

I unlocked the heavy wooden door and peered through the metal security gate. It was Rhonda. The woman from upstairs. Leighton’s mom.

Her fingers dug into a crushed, fancy purple box. She thrust it toward the metal bars. "Did you give this to her?" I shook my head.

Her eyes bloodshot, she clamped both hands onto the iron gate. She threw her entire body weight against the metal. Bang. Bang. Bang. The frame rattled.

Her vocal cords strained to the point of snapping. "Give me my daughter back! You killed her! You murderer! I'm going to make you pay!" My heart hammered against my ribs.

I yanked out my phone, thumb hovering over 911.

Before I could dial, her husband grabbed her by the arms and dragged her backward. "We need to get to the hospital!" he yelled, hauling her toward the stairs. "What the hell are you doing down here?" He dragged her away.

The screaming faded down the hall. My apartment fell dead silent again. So, Leighton stole my food.

She stole it, ate it, triggered whatever reaction just sent her to the ER, and her mother still had the nerve to hunt me down.

Her daughter was dying, and her first instinct was to find a scapegoat to foot the bill. Standard extortion mindset.

Chapter 2 The news of Leighton's death blew up the class group chat that same night.

The screen filled with endless messages. [ I can't believe it. ] [ This is so sad. ] My phone buzzed relentlessly, but I felt absolutely nothing.

I just flipped the page of my textbook and kept studying. Final exams were less than a hundred days away. I didn't have time to waste on someone else's funeral.

I figured the whole mess had nothing to do with me. But showing up at my door wasn't enough for her family. They decided to drag me in the building's chat, too.

Rhonda uploaded a photo of the crushed delivery box.

Then she unleashed hell, typing paragraph after paragraph, accusing me of premeditated murder and demanding I be locked up for life. [ That was a birthday delivery I sent to Maren!

How did Leighton end up with it? ] Tess shot back in the chat. Leighton was clearly the one in the wrong.

But our homeroom teacher jumped into the chat, playing the "respect for the dead" card to shut Tess down.

She was going after me even harder than Rhonda, acting like she was Leighton's real mother. [ Leighton had a severe peanut allergy.

She lost her life because she accidentally ate your food. You must take responsibility for this, Maren. ] I slammed my pen down on the desk.

I grabbed my phone. [ Take responsibility? For what? I didn't beg her to eat it. The food wasn't poisoned.

Show me the law that says delivery orders can't contain allergens. ] I pulled up the photo Tess had sent me earlier.

I zoomed in on the label, cropped it, and dropped it into the chat. The printed text was crystal clear. [ WARNING: Contains peanuts.

Do not consume if you have a peanut allergy. ] [ Leighton stole my food. She knew she had an allergy and shoved it in her mouth anyway.

Don't you dare try to pin this on me. ] The warning was right there. Leighton just ignored the risk. [ The text is so small! Who could even read that? ] Rhonda fired back.

I rolled my eyes. I pressed the power button, tossed the phone onto my nightstand, and went to sleep.

Back at school the next day, the whispering started the second I stepped into the classroom. "See her?

Leighton died eating her food, and she’s acting like nothing happened." "How can someone be that twisted?

Leighton is dead, and she doesn't even care." I wasn't going to just sit there and take it. I grabbed a heavy textbook and slammed it flat onto the desk. Smack.

The whispering died instantly. I scanned the room. "She stole my food, ate it, and died. And somehow that's my crime?

Do you even hear yourselves?" I stepped toward the closest group. "What am I supposed to do? Put on a show?

If I squeezed out a few tears right now, you'd just call me a fake anyway." The room stayed dead silent. Everyone looked away.

Everyone except Mara, Leighton's loyal little sidekick. Mara lifted her chin. "Oh, please. Who knows if you left it there on purpose just so Leighton would take it?

The whole class knows you two hated each other." I stepped right up to her desk. With one swipe of my hand, I shoved her entire stack of books onto the floor. "So what?

Because we hate each other, I'm not allowed to eat peanuts? If she hadn't been a thief, would she be dead right now?

She couldn't keep her hands to herself." "She stole someone else's food. Whatever happened to her after she swallowed it is her own damn fault." Mara looked around the room.

Nobody moved to help her. Her shoulders slumped. She dropped to her knees to gather her books, her hands trembling slightly as she wiped at her eyes.

First the tough act, now the victim card. Mara and Leighton really were cut from the exact same cloth. I turned around. Our homeroom teacher was standing in the doorway.

She didn't ask a single question. She just pointed a rigid finger toward the hallway, ordering me out.

Then she rushed over to Mara, patting her shoulder with an exaggerated look of sympathy. Right. Mara's parents practically funded the teacher's holiday bonuses.

No wonder her heart was bleeding for her. Chapter 3 The second the teacher left the hallway, I strolled right back into the classroom. Mara’s eyes went wide.

She pointed at me. "What are you doing in here? You're supposed to be standing outside!" I ignored her, walked to my desk, and sat down.

Honestly, today was the best day I’d had since high school started. Not having a toxic, obnoxious person breathing down my neck felt amazing.

One pest died, but unfortunately, it seemed to have attracted a whole swarm. Walking home after school, I found Rhonda's entire family staking out my building.

The grieving mother clearly hadn't slept. She had camped out all day just to ambush me. Her makeup from yesterday was smeared across her face.

Black eyeliner bled down her cheeks, lipstick smeared past her mouth, and her hair was a tangled rat's nest. I took one look, and my stomach dropped.

Her eyes were bloodshot, vacant. The second she spotted me, she lunged. She looked like a zombie sensing fresh meat. "Grab her! That's the little bitch! She killed my daughter!

I'll kill you!" she shrieked over her shoulder to her relatives. She swiped at me. Her fingernails actually grazed my jacket sleeve. Every nerve in my body fired at once.

I pivoted and bolted toward the courtyard. I might not be skinny, but I was young. I dusted Rhonda in seconds.

I sprinted into the underground garage, hopped the elevator in the next building, and crossed the roof to get to my own wing. I slammed my apartment door shut.

I leaned back against the heavy wood, sucking in oxygen. I barely had time to down a glass of cold water before the pounding started. Bang. Bang. Bang.

I checked the smart doorbell monitor. Over a dozen people choked the narrow hallway outside my unit. Their faces were twisted, fists raised in the air.

If I opened that door, they would literally tear me apart. I lived alone.

My parents worked out of state, and since I couldn't transfer to a school in their district, I stayed behind.

Knowing I was by myself, they had installed a topoftheline security door—a heavy wooden slab backed by an iron gate. The mob outside realized I wasn't going to budge.

The cursing grew louder. On the monitor, Rhonda’s face twisted in rage. Spit flew from her lips. She reached into the crowd and pulled out a heavy red fire ax. Crash.

She brought the blade down right on my digital lock. The screen glitched, then went dead black.

But the yelling bled easily through the metal. "Open the door, you murderer!" "You killed my daughter!

I'm calling the cops to lock you up!" Right before the camera died, I had seen her punching numbers into her phone, screaming into the receiver. "I need to report a murder!

My daughter was poisoned! I have all the evidence! Send someone to arrest this killer right now!" Less than ten minutes later, I heard new voices.

Two uniformed officers stood in the hallway. Perfect. Rhonda was going to have to pay for my broken lock. The officers held up their badges. Only then did I unlock the wooden door.

I kept the iron security gate firmly shut and locked between us. My hands trembled slightly as I gripped the bars.

The second Rhonda saw me, she shoved her finger at my face. "That's her! She killed my baby!

She fed my daughter a peanut boba and triggered her allergy!" The lead officer, Marcus, looked at me. He clicked his pen. "Did you give her the drink?" I didn't hesitate.

I pulled out my phone and loaded up last night’s chat history. I held the bright screen up to the bars. "I didn't give her anything. My friend ordered that delivery for me.

It got stolen from the lobby. I didn't even make a big deal out of it." "I guess Leighton was the one who took it.

But I had absolutely no idea she was allergic to anything." Chapter 4 Marcus took my phone, scrolled through the chat history, and then pulled up the lobby security footage on his tablet.

The conclusion was undeniable. Leighton saw my delivery sitting there, decided she wanted it, and took it. She consumed the peanuts, went into severe anaphylactic shock, and died.

Her death had absolutely nothing to do with me. Her family refused to accept reality. They demanded a full autopsy.

They screamed at the cops to confiscate the leftover boba for lab testing, swearing up and down that I had poisoned it.

Rhonda shoved her finger in my face, unhinged. "I've watched every season of CSI!

If you did this, you are not getting away with it!" The lab results eventually came back exactly as expected. Peanut butter blended into the boba.

Crushed peanuts dusting the frosting. Peanut flour baked directly into the cake base. Tess had customordered it specifically for my birthday. Why would anyone blame her?

And considering I hadn't even touched the boxes, why would anyone blame me? Leighton took it upon herself to steal it. No matter how you spun it, this wasn't my fault.

But Rhonda wouldn't let it go.

She insisted I harbored murderous intent because her daughter had bullied me for years. "You purposely covered that food in peanuts," she hissed, "and you purposely left it out where she could see it!" I stared at her. "And then?" Rhonda’s mouth opened, but no sound came out.

I sighed and pulled up my Venmo QR code on my phone. "Ma'am, you owe me four hundred bucks for the smart lock.

Scan it." She looked like she was about to pop a blood vessel, but she pulled out her phone and paid up. The next day, our homeroom teacher pulled me out of the middle of class.

She marched me straight to the administrative office. The room was packed. The second I stepped through the door, a dozen sets of eyes locked onto me, cold and hostile.

I knew Rhonda wouldn't just drop it. She was determined to drag a confession out of me.

My teacher shoved me hard between the shoulder blades, like a prison guard throwing an inmate into solitary.

Everyone else in the room stared down at me like an execution squad, just waiting for the order to fire. Instead of catching my balance, I let my knees buckle.

I hit the linoleum hard. The rough floor scraped a layer of skin right off my kneecaps. "Why did you push me?" I asked, keeping my voice shaky.

The principal and the dean of students were standing right there. Their expressions immediately darkened.

Assaulting a student in front of a room full of witnesses wasn't exactly great for the school's public image. The homeroom teacher glared daggers at me.

I kept my eyes fixed on the floor. There was someone else in the room, too. Someone who definitely didn't work for the school and wasn't related to Leighton.

She held up a DSLR camera. The shutter clicked rapidly as I lay on the floor. A reporter. Rhonda must have called the local press to turn this into a media circus.

My teacher grabbed my arm and roughly yanked me up. "Leighton's death," she demanded. "Did you have anything to do with it?" I shook my head frantically, widening my eyes in pure panic.

Nobody bought it. The heavy, suffocating weight of their stares pressed down on me. They were just waiting for a slipup so they could drag me out back and hang me.

Leighton had made my life a living hell when she was alive. Why was she still haunting me when she was dead? What did I even do wrong?

I forced tears to well up and spill over my lashes.

I looked straight at Rhonda. "She stole my food," I whispered, my voice breaking perfectly. "How is that my fault?" Chapter 5 The principal and the dean of students traded stunned looks. "Leighton's mother said you handed her the drink yourself, fully loaded with peanut butter!" The dean of students pulled out his phone, the screen filled with Rhonda's furious text walls accusing me.

I pulled out my own phone and opened the text thread with Tess. I held it out for them to read. [ Tess: Bestie, I stayed up all night making this cake for you!

Image ] [ Me: Love you! I'm making you one for your birthday! ] [ Tess: Kiss face. Holding you to that! I want sea salt caramel! ] [ Me: Ugh, crying. Someone stole my delivery.

I'm so sorry you did all that work for nothing. ] [ Tess: It's fine! I saved some ingredients just in case you couldn't finish it.

I'll cut you another slice and whip up an extraloaded boba to go with it. ] I lowered the phone. "If I had handed it to her, the cops would have hauled me out in handcuffs last night.

Leighton's death was an accident.

It has absolutely nothing to do with me." I kept my voice small, letting my eyes flick toward Rhonda. "Didn't you ever teach her not to take things that don't belong to her, ma'am?" Rhonda's face went purple.

Her husband clamped his hands down on her shoulders, anchoring her in place before she could launch herself across the desk. Click. The reality was clear as day.

This was entirely on Leighton. Honestly, I'd noticed a pattern in our building for a while: only expensive drinks and desserts went missing from the lobby, never actual meals.

I swiped at the corners of my eyes, meeting the gaze of every single person in the room.

I bit down hard on my lower lip, letting my shoulders shake, forcing a steady stream of silent tears down my cheeks. Rhonda pointed a trembling finger at me. "Drop the act!

You little bitch! You killed my daughter and now you're playing the victim! You murderer!" Click. She thrashed, fighting to break her husband's grip.

I brushed a tear off the bridge of my nose and looked right at her. "Ma'am, I understand you're grieving. I even understand why you turned a blind eye every time she bullied me.

But what did I ever do to you? Why are you trying to frame me for murder?" The tears flooded out now, a perfect picture of a broken, helpless teenager.

My words hit like a lit match in a powder keg. Rhonda wrenched her arms outward with explosive force. Her husband lost his grip and stumbled backward, hitting the floor.

She didn't even glance down. She closed the distance between us in three strides. Before anyone could move, her hand shot out and clamped around my wrist.

Her other hand swung in a wide, vicious arc. Her palm connected with my cheek. A highpitched ringing pierced my ear. The skin on the left side of my face instantly caught fire.

I could feel the flesh swelling under my fingers as I instinctively clutched my face. Click. "You killed my daughter!" She shoved me backward with both hands.

I let my feet slide out from under me. I slammed into a tall metal shelving unit stacked with exam papers.

My stomach hit the sharp edge of a shelf, and I crumpled sideways to the linoleum. A heavy glass paperweight slipped off the top tier and clipped my forehead. Click.

The metal shelf tipped forward, collapsing right on top of me. Hundreds of test papers rained down like snow.

The dean of students finally scrambled out of his chair and rushed over to pull the metal frame off me. But I was already out cold, blood pooling hot and sticky against my hairline.

Click. Click. In the sudden, breathless silence of the office, the rapidfire shutter of the camera was the only sound left.

Chapter 6 Leighton's freak accident made the local news fast.

Thanks to keywords like "bullying" and "stolen delivery," the internet tore her apart, completely ignoring the whole "respect for the dead" rule.

The comment sections were ruthless. [ Karma never misses. ] [ Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. ] If Leighton could read them, she’d probably jump right off the metal slab in the morgue.

The second my parents heard I was hospitalized, they rushed back from the city.

Mom brushed her fingers lightly over the bandage on my forehead. "Sweetie, we're not letting you stay in that apartment anymore.

Let's move you back to our old house." Dad went straight to the school administration to demand answers. "How is it my daughter's fault that her food got stolen?" Back when I started high school, I had moved into Leighton's apartment complex, using the excuse that it was a closer commute.

The school was right across the street, and there was a grocery store nearby. It was incredibly convenient.

I just never expected I'd end up in the exact same building as her. "Mom, the old house is way too far from campus," I said. "Just let me apply for the dorms." After signing my dorm paperwork, my parents rushed back to their jobs in the city.

They were always working, barely even having time to catch their breath. While I was recovering, a few locals who had followed the news actually stopped by my room to visit me.

But of course, Rhonda hadn't been locked up. Instead, she showed up at the hospital to throw another tantrum.

She marched into the main lobby holding a massive piece of cardboard. [ A Life for a Life! ] She stood right in the middle of the atrium, screaming her accusations to a crowd of sick patients and their families. "My daughter had straight A's!

She was beautiful! She was only eighteen!

Maren did it on purpose!" "She left that drink in the lobby just to bait my daughter into drinking it!" A bystander—looking like a hospital orderly—scoffed. "Then go call the cops!

What are you screaming in here for? Let the patients rest." I stood hidden in the back of the crowd, watching the whole scene play out.

Rhonda whipped her head around to glare at the orderly, and her eyes locked onto mine. Seeing me standing alone, she charged. I caught a flash of cold metal in her hand.

I also saw two massive security guards running up right behind her.

The second she got close enough, I leaned in. "Her death," I whispered right into her ear. "I really did do it on purpose." Her eyes went feral. She raised the knife and lunged