Chapter 5 - The TikTok Counter-Strike
By noon on Monday, the internet had officially entered my family drama.
David arrived at my workshop carrying two iced coffees and a bag of bagels. He set them on the worktable, pulled out his tablet, and laid it in front of me.
“You’re viral,” he said dryly.
I looked down at the screen.
It was a TikTok video posted by one of Madison’s middle-school friends who had been sitting on the velvet couch during the party. The video was fifteen seconds long, shot from a low angle, but the audio was crystal clear.
It captured the exact moment the phone struck my face.
It showed the crack of the glass against the floorboards, Madison smirking behind her mother, Ruth shouting “Look what you made her do!”, and me standing there holding my swelling cheekbone.
The caption read: “Worst birthday ever. Spoiled kid throws non-Pro iPhone at her aunt’s face after her mom texted her to do it 😳 #drama #spoiled #familytok.”
The view count was sitting at 1.2 million.
The comment section was an absolute bloodbath:
@User8839: “The mom literally instructed her to assault the aunt?! Call the cops!”
@HorrorFanatic: “Wait, is that Harriet Vance?! She does special effects for Swamp Bride! She’s a legend!”
@MidwestMama: “The grandmother saying 'Look what you made her do' is peak toxic narcissism.”
@UFO_Watcher: “Is that Lauren Vance from the Alien Disclosure channel?! I’m unsubscribing right now!”
I stared at the screen, my jaw slightly open. “One point two million?”
“One point four now,” David corrected, refreshing the page. “And your sister’s little UFO channel is getting decimated. Her subscriber count dropped by fifteen percent overnight, her sticker store page is flooded with one-star reviews, and her comment section is entirely people posting phone emojis.”
Before I could process the digital carnage, a loud banging rattled the heavy wooden doors of my workshop.
It wasn't a polite knock. It was someone throwing their entire body weight against the oak panels.
“Harriet! Open this door right now!” Lauren’s voice shrieked from the driveway. “Open this damn door!”
David looked at me, raising an eyebrow. “Want me to call the police?”
“No,” I said, standing up and smoothing my apron. “I’ll handle this.”
I walked over to the side door, slid the heavy iron bolt back, and pulled it open.
Lauren was standing on the gravel driveway, her hair disheveled, her makeup smeared, holding her phone like a weapon. Behind her, sitting in the passenger seat of her dented SUV, was Grandma Ruth, looking pale and furious.
“You ruined my life!” Lauren screamed, stepping into the doorway before I could block her. “My channel is destroyed! People are sending me death threats! Sponsors are canceling my sticker contracts!”
“You ruined your own channel, Lauren,” I said calmly, blocking her path into the main workshop floor. “You instructed your daughter to assault me on camera in front of four teenagers with smartphones.”
“It was a private family matter!” she yelled, her voice cracking. “You had no right to let that video stay online!”
“I didn't post it, Lauren. One of Madison’s friends did.”
“Then tell them to take it down!”
“I don't control fourteen-year-old girls,” I replied. “You should know that—you couldn't even control your own daughter without promising her an eight-hundred-dollar phone.”
Lauren’s face contorted into a mask of pure, unadulterated rage. She raised her hand, fingers clawed, as if she were about to strike me across the face just like her daughter had.
David stepped up behind me, holding his phone at chest level, the red recording light glowing brightly.
“Go ahead, Lauren,” David said in a cool, professional voice. “Strike her. We’re currently live-streaming this interaction to a secure cloud server. The local police department is three minutes away.”
Lauren froze. Her hand trembled in the air, inches from my cheekbone. She looked at David, then at the phone, then back at my swelling, bruised face.
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“You’re monsters,” she whispered, tears finally spilling over her mascara. “Both of you. You’re cold, unfeeling monsters.”
“I build monsters for a living, Lauren,” I said softly, looking her dead in the eye. “You just turn your family into them for free. Get off my property.”
