That One Item Changed Everything
Chapter 3
A Villain Named
She looked at me with a triumphant smile. "Apologize? Why should I? Tell me, what part of what I said wasn't true?"
As she spoke, she casually picked up a bottle of cold cola beside her.
"Oops! It's so hot, my hand slipped." She gave an exaggerated gasp and tipped the bottle in a deliberate arc. Cola drenched my white jacket from shoulder to hem, staining it instantly.
"Oh no, Mallory, I'm so sorry," she said, stepping closer with fake concern. "I didn't mean it. Look how dirty it is. Let me help you take it off and wash it."
Seeing her fingernails about to brush the neckline of my jacket, I refused to tolerate it further. I lifted my foot and drove it into her stomach.
Louisa let out a shriek, doubling over as she crashed to the ground. She clutched her stomach and wailed, "Help! Mallory hit me! "
A roar came from not far away. "What's going on over there?"
The drill instructor ran over.
He saw Louisa writhing on the ground, glanced at me once, and pointed without asking a single question. "Mallory Leighton! Assaulting a classmate and disrupting formation? Twenty laps. Now!"
I didn't move.
He was seconds from exploding when the student counselor rushed over and whispered into his ear.
The instructor's face shifted through several emotions before settling into reluctant restraint. He shot me a hard glare and waved me back into line, but that was only the beginning.
…
Two days later, the entire department held a general assembly. I was ordered onstage to make a public apology for "unprovoked assault".
I stood there without saying a word while thousands of eyes bore into me from below. Louisa, as the "victim," stepped up beside me and took the microphone. She bowed deeply before tears started rolling down her cheeks.
"Good afternoon, everyone. I come from a small mountain village, and I'm the first in my family to attend college. My parents always told me to be kind and get along with my classmates… but I don't know what I did wrong."
Her voice cracked. "My roommate, Mallory Leighton… everything she uses is incredibly expensive. A washbasin, a bottle of skincare—each one could be a year of my family's savings. I was curious and wanted to take a look, but she slapped me.
"She threw a face cream worth tens of thousands into the trash, and when I told her not to waste it, she accused me of humiliating her. During orientation camp, I accidentally spilled some soda on her jacket that cost tens of thousands, and she kicked me in the stomach."
A wave of shocked gasps spread across the hall.
"Oh my God, that's insane."
"She thinks money makes her invincible."
"How did someone like her even get into our school?"
"Poor Louisa… getting out of the mountains is hard enough without being bullied."
…
By the time she finished, I had officially become the campus villain.
That night, a pinned and trending post shot to the top of the school forum—'Expose Finance Freshman Mallory Leighton and Her Bald Middle-Aged Sugar Daddy.'
The anonymous thread claimed I was being kept by a fifty-year-old man. My silver basin was labeled a fetish prop. My skincare was "payment". The jacket was a "bonus after exercise".
It even included a blurry photo of me outside the dorm, taken secretly. And the tone—there was only one person who would write something like that: Louisa.
When I returned to the dorm, Louisa looked up with a mocking grin. "Well, look who's here. Our celebrity."
I shoved my phone screen in front of her. "You did this. Delete the post. Delete the messages. Apologize."
She burst into shrill laughter. "So what if I did? Got proof? What's wrong? Afraid your sugar daddy will find out? Go call him. Let him deal with me. Oh wait… you won't. All you can do is bully a poor student like me."
Then, she cranked her phone volume to maximum and blasted a playlist of gold-digger anthems.
"Oh, she's a gold digger, way over town that digs on me…"
She sang along, eyes glittering with provocation. Our other roommate put on headphones and pretended to disappear.
I didn't respond. I simply opened the recording app.
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