The first thing I noticed was the way Paige stood up.

Not the words—those came like knives, sharp and practiced—but the posture. The straight spine. The chin lifted like she’d been waiting for this moment all week. Like the café had turned into a stage and I’d accidentally wandered into the spotlight with my backpack still half open.

“I worked two jobs to pay my roommate’s bills while her parents sent her thousands the whole time,” Paige said, loud enough that the woman at the next table stopped stirring her latte. “Are you seriously acting like I stole from you?”

It hit the room like a siren. Forks froze midair. Someone’s iced coffee hovered, forgotten, in the space between the table and their mouth.

I was still sitting. My hands were wrapped around my phone like it might keep me anchored.

“Paige,” I said, and even to me my voice sounded wrong—small, thin, like it didn’t belong to the body it came from. “That’s not—”

She lifted her phone higher. Evidence. Exhibit A. “I trusted you,” she said. “I told you my parents cut me off and you said you’d help. And now you’re trying to make me look like some kind of fraud.”

Across the corner table, twelve faces turned toward me. Leah’s brows pinched in confusion. Jordan’s jaw tightened. Becca’s mouth flattened like she was already deciding what kind of person I was.

I had come to the café expecting a normal Friday lunch. A little noise, too much caffeine, the kind of small talk that makes college feel like it’s supposed to. Instead, it was an ambush.

Paige must’ve told everyone I was coming.

Of course she did.

“Wait,” Leah said, leaning forward. “What’s going on?”

“She’s trying to guilt me into paying her back,” Paige snapped, and the way she said it—like she was spitting out something rotten—made a couple people recoil. “For rent I couldn’t afford. She knew my situation. She knew my parents disowned me after I came out. And now she’s acting like I’m some kind of scammer.”

The air shifted. It always did when Paige said the words my parents disowned me. Like a lever she could pull that made everybody’s faces rearrange into sympathy.

I felt it happen again: Jordan’s shoulders softening, Sam’s eyes filling, even the girl I barely knew from biology nodding like she’d just been handed the moral of the story.

Paige was good at this. She’d always been good at this.

She’d been selling the same narrative since freshman year: tragic abandoned daughter, working through trauma, barely surviving, held up by the generosity of friends who “believed in her.”

And I… I had been the easiest donor. The roommate with the lease in my name. The one who’d rather skip a meal than listen to someone sob at 2:00 a.m. about not knowing where they’d sleep.

“That’s not true,” I said, and my words dropped to the table like a pebble into a lake. They barely made ripples.

Paige’s eyes flashed. “Then what is true?” she demanded. “Because I have receipts. I have messages where you said you didn’t mind covering things. I have proof you offered.”

She scrolled fast, thumb flying. She turned her screen toward the table like a lawyer showing the jury a smoking gun.

I couldn’t even see it from where I sat, but I knew what she was showing them—my own kindness, my own naïveté, turned into ammunition.

Messages from two years ago. When I still believed her.

Don’t worry about it. We’ll figure it out.

It’s fine. You can pay me back when things are better.

Because I thought I was helping someone in crisis.

I didn’t know I was financing a performance.

My hands shook as I pulled out my phone.

I’d been carrying this evidence for weeks. Not because I wanted a fight, but because one night I’d finally sat on my bed and opened my bank statements, and when the numbers added up, my stomach had flipped like I’d stepped off a ledge.

Three years of payments.

Rent. Utilities. Groceries. Internet. Her textbooks, when she said the bookstore wouldn’t take payment plans. The vet bill for the cat she “rescued” and then cried about because she couldn’t afford the checkup. Even the cleaning service we hired once because she was “too depressed to pick up the apartment.”

I opened Venmo and scrolled until my finger hurt.

“Here,” I said, and my voice surprised me by not breaking. “September. Two years ago. I paid your half of rent. Eight hundred dollars.”

Paige’s face didn’t change.

“Because I couldn’t afford it,” she said smoothly. “I told you that.”

I kept scrolling.

“October. Another eight hundred. November. December. January. February.”

The glowing list felt like a confession. Not hers—mine.

I was the one who had done it.

I was the one who’d held myself together with tape and caffeine and double shifts at the campus bookstore while she posted photos of “self-care” and brunch plates.

“I was broke,” Paige said, but her voice had thinned, like paper stretched too tight.

And then Leah’s voice cut through, quiet but sharp.

“You posted a shopping haul that week,” Leah said.

It was like someone opened a window and cold air rushed in.

Everyone turned toward Leah.

Leah was staring at her phone, face pale. She looked up slowly, like she couldn’t believe the words were coming out of her mouth.

“You tagged me in it,” she said. “You bought a Kate Spade bag and those boots you wore to Jordan’s party. That was March.”

Paige’s mouth opened and closed.

“I saved up,” Paige said quickly. “It was a birthday gift to myself. I’m allowed to have nice things even when I’m struggling.”

Leah’s eyes didn’t leave her screen.

“You went to Coachella,” Leah said, and the café went so quiet I could hear someone’s straw squeak in the lid of their drink. “That same month. You posted like forty stories.”

The silence landed heavy.

I didn’t say anything. I just held my phone out, Venmo history glowing between us like a long, undeniable scar.

Paige stared at me.

Her jaw tightened.

Then she did what she always did.

She cried.

Not messy, not ugly, not real in the way crying usually is. The tears came fast and clean, perfect crystalline streaks down her cheeks. She didn’t wipe them away. She didn’t even blink them off. She just let them fall while her shoulders shook in a delicate rhythm that made everyone lean in.

“I can’t believe you’d do this to me,” she whispered.

Jordan stood up. Really stood. He walked around the table like he’d been called by instinct and put a hand on her shoulder.

“Hey,” he murmured. “It’s okay.”

Becca slid closer. Sam was already digging tissues out of her purse.

And just like that, the moment flipped.

I wasn’t the girl who’d been robbed.

I was the villain who made Paige cry in public.

“This isn’t about money,” Paige sobbed, voice breaking like it was made of glass. “This is about you humiliating me in front of everyone because I couldn’t pay you back fast enough.”

“You never paid me back at all,” I said, and it came out steadier than I felt.

Paige’s tears doubled. “Because I don’t have it!”

Then she reached for the one story that never failed.

“Do you know what it’s like to have your parents abandon you?” she cried. “Do you know what it’s like to wake up every day knowing your own family doesn’t want you?”

The table went quiet. Faces softened. Pity moved through the group like a warm tide.

Paige had always known exactly which story to tell.

I grabbed my backpack.

Leah said, “I’m sorry this happened,” but she was looking at Paige when she said it.

I stood up. My legs felt like they belonged to someone else.

“I have three years of payments,” I said. “I can show you all of them.”

Paige shook her head, tears flying. “You’re obsessed. You’re cruel. You’re—”

I didn’t let her finish.

I turned and walked out.

No dramatic exit. No final speech.

Just cold air and the sound of the café door shutting behind me like a verdict.

By the time I made it six blocks, my hands had stopped shaking enough to unlock my phone.

Seventeen texts.

Most from numbers I didn’t recognize.

Is it true you’re making Paige pay back gifts?

Wow. Didn’t know you were like that.

I opened Instagram.

Paige had posted ten minutes ago: a blurry selfie with red eyes and a caption that said, Sometimes the people you help the most are the ones who hurt you worst.

Four hundred likes.

The comments were already pouring in.

You deserve better.

We love you.

What happened??

She didn’t name me. She didn’t have to.

Everyone who was at that café would connect the dots.

Everyone who followed both of us would notice my absence in her group photos.

The story would spread without her saying a word, because Paige had never needed to say the name of the villain. She just needed to cry loud enough for the room to fill in the blanks.

My phone buzzed again.

Jordan: That was really harsh. She’s going through a lot.

Becca: I don’t think you meant to hurt her, but maybe you should’ve talked to her privately first.

Privately.

Like I hadn’t spent three years talking privately. Like I hadn’t whispered into the dark while she sobbed in our shared apartment about rent and trauma and abandonment.

I sat on a bench outside the library and stared at my Venmo history.

$26,000.

The number glowed on the screen like a bruise.

Rent. Utilities. Groceries. Textbooks. Vet bills.

Three years of paying someone else’s life forward because I thought that was what friendship meant.

And then, like a punchline, the weekly hangout group chat lit up.

Someone had changed the name to spring break planning.

Jordan: Thinking we do the cabin again this year.

Becca: Yes. Same one as last time.

Sam: I’m in.

Paige: You good for March?

Paige: If I can afford it lol. Money’s tight.

Leah: We’ll figure it out.

I scrolled up to last year’s spring break.

I hadn’t gone. I’d told them I had to work.

What I hadn’t said was that I’d just paid Paige’s rent again and couldn’t afford the cabin fee.

I spent that week doing double shifts while they posted photos from a hot tub.

No one asked if I was coming this year.

I wasn’t sure they even remembered I was still in the chat.

Then an email popped up from my RA.

Can you swing by my office when you get a chance?

The subject line was blank. The tone was careful. The kind of careful that meant someone had complained.

Probably Paige.

Probably the version of Paige who cried to authority figures about hostile environments and manipulation, and never once mentioned the landlord’s name attached to rent receipts.

I turned my phone off and sat in the cold, watching students pass by in clusters, laughing like the world was still normal.

Leah found me three days later.

Not in the dining hall—I’d stopped going there because every time I walked in, conversations paused, eyes tracked me like I was something contagious—but outside the science building, where she caught up to me like she’d been running for blocks.

“Hey,” she said, breathless.

I almost kept walking.

Then I saw her face.

Not angry. Not suspicious.

Sick.

“Can we talk?” she asked.

We ended up at the coffee place off campus—the one Paige had been showing up at lately, like she was colonizing every corner of my life. Paige wasn’t there this time. Leah ordered an Americano and didn’t touch it. Just wrapped both hands around the cup like she needed something to hold.

“I saw something,” she said finally.

“What?” My heart thudded like it already knew.

Leah swallowed. “Paige and I have that bill-splitting app from sophomore year. We never disconnected it.”

She pulled out her phone and turned it toward me.

The screen showed deposits. One after another.

Monthly. Like clockwork.

Each one labeled with her mom’s name.

$800. $1,000. $1,500.

Some notes were vague. Some weren’t.

Rent help.

Utilities.

Groceries.

Spending money.

My throat went tight.

“She told everyone her parents cut her off,” I said.

“I know,” Leah whispered. “That’s why I feel… disgusting. Like, what if I’m misunderstanding something? What if there’s an explanation and I make it worse?”

I thought about the nights Paige cried in our apartment. The way she clung to my arm like she was drowning.

I thought about my bank statements.

“You’re not wrong,” I said. “She’s been lying.”

Leah looked down at her untouched coffee. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Show people,” I said. “Tell them the truth.”

Leah flinched like the word truth was a weapon.

“If they don’t believe you,” I added, “then they were never really your friends either.”

It landed heavy.

But it was true.

That night, Leah came over with her laptop.

We sat on my bedroom floor, backs against my bed, because the living room felt like enemy territory now. The apartment had become a stage for Paige’s silent performances: her sad tea mugs, her Instagram captions about safety and home, her laughter through the wall like none of it mattered.

Leah scrolled through the deposits while I pulled up my own records. We lined them up side by side.

January of sophomore year: Paige’s mom sent $1,200 labeled Love you, sweetie.

That same month, I paid the full rent.

February: I covered utilities and groceries.

Her dad sent $1,000 labeled School expenses.

Every time I covered something, money appeared in Paige’s account within days—sometimes the same week.

The pattern was perfect.

It wasn’t an accident.

It was a system.

We built a document. Four pages long. Chronological. Methodical. Dates, amounts, notes. My payments on one side. Her parents’ deposits on the other.

When Leah finished, she hovered over the send button in the group chat.

“Once I do this,” she whispered, “there’s no taking it back.”

“Send it,” I said.

She did.

The chat exploded.

Becca: ???

Sam: Wait, what?

Jordan: Holy—

Paige was silent for five minutes.

Then:

Paige: I can’t believe you’re doing this to me.

Leah: Doing what? Showing the truth?

Paige: Those are private transactions. You had no right.

Leah: It’s a shared app. And you’ve been lying for three years.

Paige’s typing bubbles appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again.

Finally:

Paige: My parents sending me money doesn’t mean I wasn’t struggling.

Leah: Explain the one labeled “November rent plus extra.” $1,500. The same month your roommate paid rent in full.

No response.

Then Paige tried a new story:

Paige: They were paying me back for loans I gave them for medical bills and car repairs. The labels don’t tell the whole story.

It was almost impressive.

If I didn’t have three years of receipts, I might’ve believed it.

Leah dropped one more screenshot into the chat: a text thread between her and Paige.

March 15th: Paige complaining she didn’t know how she’d make rent.

March 12th: Venmo deposit from Paige’s mom. Note: March rent.

Three days apart.

That wasn’t “out of context.”

That was the context.

Paige didn’t reply after that.

The next day, Paige burst into the common room like a storm.

“Are you happy now?” she demanded, voice sharp, eyes red.

“You couldn’t just let it go,” she said, pointing at me like I was a crime scene.

“I didn’t turn anyone against you,” I said. “I showed them what you did.”

“You showed them lies,” she snapped.

Leah stood up, phone in hand. “Then give us the context.”

Paige’s face twisted, furious and cornered. “I don’t owe you an explanation.”

“Yeah,” Jordan said quietly, leaning forward on the couch. “You do.”

For the first time, Paige’s weapon—tears—didn’t land the way it usually did.

She looked around, searching for an ally, and found mostly stunned faces and closed mouths.

When she couldn’t find the opening, she did the only thing left.

She ran.

The door slammed so hard the frame rattled.

The common room stayed silent long after she left, like the air needed time to rearrange itself.

Two days later, Jordan came to my door.

He sat on my desk chair like he didn’t know where to put his hands.

“I don’t know what to think,” he said.

“That’s not my problem,” I told him, but my voice wasn’t cruel. Just tired.

He looked up, really looked, like he was seeing me for the first time in years.

“If it’s true,” he said, “why didn’t you say something sooner?”

I laughed once, sharp and bitter. “I did. In the café. In front of all of you. You just didn’t want to hear it.”

He didn’t argue.

He left without a goodbye.

And I heard him stop outside Paige’s door, heard her open it, heard their low murmuring voices. Paige explaining. Paige reassuring. Paige rewriting reality in real time.

My phone buzzed.

Leah: Jordan says he talked to you. I’m scared.

I stared at the message, my stomach tight.

Because I was scared too.

Not of Paige exactly—she was just one person with a talent for manipulation.

I was scared of what happens when someone like that gets caught.

People don’t always collapse when their lies are exposed.

Sometimes they explode.

Then Monica called me.

“This is Monica Chen,” the message read. “I’m your landlord. Do you have a minute to talk?”

I met her at her office, expecting something small—an administrative mix-up, a paperwork question.

Instead, Monica turned her monitor toward me and showed me three years of rent payments.

Every single one came from my bank account.

Month after month.

My name. My routing number. My money.

“Your roommate never paid?” Monica asked, brows raised like she couldn’t believe she had to ask.

“She was supposed to pay me her half,” I said. My throat tasted like metal. “I’d submit the full amount.”

“And did she?”

“No,” I whispered. “Not once.”

Monica printed the records and handed them to me in a neat stack, crisp pages that felt heavier than they should.

“If you need this for a dispute,” she said, “it’s documented. I can write an official statement.”

I took the papers like they were the first solid thing I’d held in days.

As I walked back to campus, the winter wind cut through my coat, but for the first time in weeks, I felt something besides humiliation.

I felt grounded.

Because screenshots could be argued away.

Memories could be twisted.

But a landlord’s ledger didn’t care about Paige’s tears.

Leah decided to go public.

She texted me Tuesday morning while I was in the dining hall forcing down oatmeal like it was a chore.

I’m posting it today.

Posting what? I wrote, already knowing.

Everything. The timeline. The receipts. The pattern. I’m making it public.

My spoon froze halfway to my mouth.

“Are you sure?” I texted.

She’s still telling people we’re exaggerating. Chris showed up in my class asking me to ‘talk it out like adults.’ She won’t stop unless everyone knows.

Do it, I wrote back. I’m with you.

At 11:00 a.m., Leah’s thread went live.

By noon it had two hundred shares.

By one it had five hundred.

By the time my economics class ended, the notifications were so constant my phone looked like it was vibrating itself off the desk.

Leah didn’t write it like drama.

She wrote it like a case file.

Claim. Evidence. Dates. Amounts. Screenshots.

Venmo deposits labeled rent and groceries that landed the same week Paige cried to us about being cut off.

Text messages where Paige said, Honestly, I just tell people what they want to hear. Works every time.

Instagram posts of Paige in Cancun during the same month she’d told classmates she was working double shifts and couldn’t afford groceries.

Monica’s letter confirming only my account ever paid rent.

And then the comments started coming.

Not just sympathy.

Stories.

A girl from Paige’s sorority: She borrowed money for dues and never paid it back.

A guy from her class: She told me her dad was in the hospital. I sent her $200 for a flight. He was fine.

Someone from study abroad: She claimed hardship for a scholarship, then traveled every weekend.

By midnight, the thread had thousands of shares.

Someone made a TikTok reading it aloud over screenshots. Forty thousand views and climbing.

Paige deleted her Instagram.

Then she deleted everything.

Then she disappeared.

And still, the story kept moving without her—because once a lie cracks, the truth pours in like floodwater.

The next day, the dean called.

“Dean Richardson’s office,” the voice said. “The dean would like to speak with you and Miss Paige Brennan regarding a conduct matter. Can you come in tomorrow at two?”

My stomach dropped.

Conduct matter meant official.

It meant the story had left the group chat and entered the system.

I confirmed. Hung up. Texted Leah.

Dean wants me and Paige tomorrow.

Leah responded with a string of stunned emojis and then: Holy hell. They have everything.

When I walked into the administration building the next afternoon, Paige was already there.

She sat in the waiting area with her mom.

Her mom looked exactly like her—same posture, same controlled expression, the same eyes that could turn warmth on and off like a switch.

“You must be the roommate,” Paige’s mom said with a tight smile. “I hope we can resolve this misunderstanding quickly.”

Misunderstanding.

Like three years of theft could be smoothed over with polite language.

In the dean’s office, Dean Richardson didn’t waste time.

“Multiple students have filed complaints regarding financial misconduct,” she said, flipping open a folder. “The complaints involve Miss Brennan borrowing money under false pretenses and failing to repay it.”

Paige’s mom leaned forward. “My daughter has been going through a difficult time. If there were misunderstandings about loans between friends, I’m sure we can work something out.”

“These aren’t misunderstandings,” the dean said, calm as granite. “We have documentation showing Ms. Brennan received regular financial support from her parents while simultaneously claiming hardship to peers.”

Paige’s voice came out small and shaky. “They’re all lying. They’re ganging up on me.”

Dean Richardson looked at her over her glasses. “We have Venmo records. A landlord statement showing you never paid rent. Text messages where you admit to lying to get sympathy. Multiple witnesses. This is documented misconduct.”

Paige’s mom’s jaw set. “What exactly are you accusing her of?”

“Theft by deception,” Dean Richardson said. “Violation of the student conduct code. Academic dishonesty, given a scholarship based on false financial need.”

Paige shook her head like the motion could undo the words. “You can’t prove that.”

The dean’s gaze flicked to me. “Did Ms. Brennan ever pay you back for rent?”

“No.”

“Did she acknowledge owing you money?”

“She said she’d pay me back when her parents sent money,” I said. My hands were shaking under the table. “They were sending money the whole time.”

Dean Richardson nodded and made a note.

Then she looked at Paige again.

“You have two options,” she said. “Accept responsibility, work out repayment plans with those you owe, and face disciplinary probation. Or contest the findings and move forward with a formal hearing.”

Paige stared at the desk like it might open up and swallow her.

Her mom squeezed her arm. “We’d like time to discuss this privately.”

“You have until Friday,” Dean Richardson said. “After that, the decision moves forward without your input.”

Outside, Paige’s mom turned to me like she was about to deliver a final verdict.

“We think it’s best if she finishes the semester from home,” she said clearly. “This living situation isn’t healthy.”

“She stole from me for three years,” I said, my voice steady now in a way it hadn’t been at the café.

“That’s your perspective,” she replied smoothly.

“It’s documented fact,” I said.

Paige turned then, eyes blotchy, face wrecked, but her voice still sharp. “You ruined my life.”

I stared at her and felt something unclench in my chest.

“You ruined your own life,” I said. “I just stopped cleaning up the mess.”

That night, I came home to boxes in the hallway.

Paige’s mom was packing her clothes with brisk efficiency. Paige sat on the bed, silent, staring at her phone like it had betrayed her.

When the apartment door finally slammed two hours later, the silence that followed felt… clean.

Like stepping out of a room where someone’s been smoking for years and realizing you can finally breathe.

I walked into the kitchen.

Paige had left dishes in the sink.

One last mess.

I washed them anyway.

Dried them.

Put them away.

Because this time, I wasn’t doing it to keep the peace.

I was doing it because it was my space again.

My phone buzzed.

Jordan: She’s gone. You coming to the dining hall? Everyone’s meeting up.

I stared at the message for a long moment.

Then I grabbed my jacket.

The dining hall was loud, crowded, normal. The way it always had been before Paige made my world feel like a courtroom.

Jordan, Sam, Becca, Leah, Rachel, and a handful of others were at our usual table. Someone had bought real pizza—actual pizza, not the sad dining hall kind.

“You okay?” Leah asked.

I nodded. “Yeah. I’m okay.”

Sam’s eyes were red. “I feel sick,” she confessed. “I told you to apologize. I told you you were cruel. And she—she was lying the whole time.”

Jordan pushed a plate toward me. “Forget her,” he said. “You’re free now.”

I took a slice and bit into it.

It tasted like relief. Like the first real breath after being underwater.

Two weeks later, Paige’s mom’s lawyer delivered a check.

Eighteen thousand dollars.

Three years of rent plus interest, and the letter made it clear it was a one-time payment to avoid further action.

The university opted not to pursue formal charges after Paige agreed never to return.

She withdrew.

She vanished.

And then, quietly, life returned to its usual shape.

Not the same life—something sturdier.

I moved into a new apartment with Leah and Jordan and a girl named Iris from our stats class who argued about outlet placement like it was a sport and then laughed when she lost. No drama, no guilt trips, no tears used as currency.

The new apartment smelled like fresh paint and someone else’s garlic.

We ordered Thai food and split the bill four ways.

Everyone Venmoed their share within five minutes.

No extensions. No stories. No performances.

We ate on the floor because our table hadn’t arrived yet.

Leah told a story about her chemistry lab partner setting something on fire for the third time, and Jordan laughed so hard he nearly spilled his pad thai.

My phone buzzed with an Instagram notification.

I opened the app.

Paige’s account no longer existed.

No profile picture. No follower count. No captions about being used.

Just emptiness where she’d once curated a whole life out of other people’s sympathy.

I closed the app and took another bite.

For the first time in three years, I didn’t check my bank account before saying yes to plans.

Because the number there was mine.

Earned and kept and spent on my own terms.

The apartment was warm. The people were real.

And I wasn’t carrying anyone but myself.

Part 2 — The Week the Truth Got Loud

The first quiet morning in the new apartment felt like a trick.

No crying through the wall. No heavy footsteps that meant Paige was pacing, rehearsing a new version of herself. No sudden slam of cabinets to remind me she existed. Just the soft hiss of the radiator and Iris humming while she made coffee like the world had never been set on fire.

I kept waiting for something to happen.

Because people like Paige didn’t just vanish.

They regrouped.

They plotted.

They came back with a better story.

I was halfway through hanging my secondhand curtains when Leah’s phone buzzed on the kitchen counter.

She glanced at the screen, and the color drained from her face.

“What?” I asked.

She held it up.

UNKNOWN NUMBER: This is Paige Brennan’s attorney. Please have your counsel contact me. This matter involves defamation and unlawful distribution of private financial information.

My stomach dropped so hard it felt like it hit my ribs.

“That’s… not real,” Iris said, coming in with her mug, eyes widening as she read it. “Is that real?”

Jordan leaned over my shoulder. “Paige has an attorney?”

Leah’s mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. “Her mom does,” she said finally. “Her mom has an attorney.”

A memory flickered—Paige’s mom’s tight smile, the way she said misunderstanding like it was a magic word that turned theft into bad vibes.

I didn’t respond to the text. I stared at it until the letters blurred.

Then another message came through, this one in the group chat that had gone quiet since Paige moved out.

Chris—Paige’s ex—had dropped a link.

A Google Doc with a neat title like a school assignment:

STATEMENT REGARDING RECENT HARASSMENT AND DEFAMATION

Becca typed: Oh my god.

Sam: No.

Jordan: Are you kidding me?

Leah clicked the link, and her face changed the way mine did when I used to open my bank account in Paige’s presence—tight, bracing for impact.

The statement was everything Paige was good at: elegant, wounded, and just vague enough to invite imagination.

She didn’t deny the deposits. She reframed them.

She didn’t address the rent ledger. She called it “a misunderstanding with a roommate.”

She described herself as “a student in crisis” who had been “targeted by a mob” and “publicly shamed over private financial matters.”

She wrote about mental health—about spiraling, about trauma, about being “abandoned by family,” without saying who.

And then, like a blade hidden in lace, she wrote one sentence that made my lungs stop working:

The roommate who initiated this harassment has a history of instability and manipulation and has made my living environment unsafe.

I stared at the line until my vision tunneled.

Instability.

Manipulation.

Unsafe.

Those were words campus took seriously. Those were words RAs and deans and conduct boards used when they wanted to make a problem disappear.

Jordan swore under his breath. Iris’s mouth fell open.

Leah’s fingers shook as she scrolled. “She’s—she’s trying to turn it back around,” Leah whispered.

“No,” I said, and my voice surprised me. It came out low and steady, like something inside me had finally hardened into bone. “She’s trying to punish us for catching her.”

The worst part wasn’t the statement itself.

It was the comments under it—people reacting like Paige had handed them a map back to the version of reality that felt easiest.

A girl from Paige’s sorority: We need to protect survivors.

A guy from my econ class: Mob mentality is real.

Someone I didn’t know at all: This is why you don’t air private stuff online.

And then, like a slap, a message from my RA popped up.

RA: Hey. Can you come by today? There are some concerns about online conflict spilling into the residence community.

Even though I didn’t live there anymore.

Even though Paige didn’t either.

Even though the whole thing should’ve been over.

My hands started shaking. Not the old shaking—the powerless kind.

This was rage.

This was my body remembering every ramen dinner, every forty-minute walk to my second job, every time I told myself I was a good person for sacrificing.

I set my phone down very carefully, like it was a glass I might shatter.

“I’m not doing this again,” I said.

Leah looked up. “What do you mean?”

“I mean she doesn’t get to cry and rewrite reality and make us the villains,” I said. “Not after all of it. Not after the check. Not after she got caught.”

Jordan nodded slowly, like he was assembling the courage to agree out loud. “Okay,” he said. “So what do we do?”

I stared at the wall for a beat, the way you do when you’re trying to see something that isn’t there yet.

Then I said the sentence that felt like pulling a pin.

“We make it official.”

That afternoon, Monica—the landlord—answered on the first ring.

“This is Monica,” she said briskly.

“Hi,” I said, and my voice wobbled once before it steadied. “It’s me. Paige’s roommate. Former roommate.”

There was a pause, like she recognized the tone.

“You have more trouble,” she said.

“Yeah,” I admitted. “She’s threatening legal action. Her mom’s attorney. Defamation.”

Monica exhaled. “Of course she is.”

“What do I do?”

“You do what people who get robbed do,” Monica said. “You document. You file. You stop handling this like it’s friend drama.”

Friend drama.

Like it wasn’t three years of calculated theft.

Monica’s voice softened just a little. “Do you want me to draft that official statement I offered? With payment records and dates and confirmation she never paid a dime?”

“Yes,” I said immediately. “Please.”

“I’ll have it ready by tomorrow.”

When I hung up, Leah was watching me like she’d never seen me move with purpose before.

“What are you thinking?” she asked.

“I’m thinking Paige is counting on us being scared of being mean,” I said. “She’s counting on us being too polite to call it what it is.”

“And what is it?” Jordan asked.

I didn’t hesitate.

“Fraud,” I said. “Theft. A pattern.”

Iris let out a low whistle. “I can’t believe she’s still trying.”

“Oh, I can,” Sam said from the couch, her face tight. She’d come over after class, still carrying the haunted look of someone who’d realized she’d been used. “People like that don’t stop because they feel guilty. They stop when there’s no more room to maneuver.”

Leah’s eyes flashed. “So we remove the room.”

The next morning, we walked into the Student Conduct Office like we were carrying an entire storm in a folder.

Monica’s statement was on crisp letterhead. Two pages. Neat. Brutal.

Every rent payment: from my account.

Zero payments: from Paige.

Dates and amounts: consistent for three years.

Leah had printed the timeline again, but this time it wasn’t formatted like a social media thread. It looked like what it was: evidence.

Jordan brought screenshots of Paige’s messages to him asking for money for “a hospital emergency.”

Becca had dug through her old Venmo and found the textbook transfer, complete with Paige’s note: I’ll pay you back when my parents send money.

Sam brought the text where Paige wrote, It’s not my fault they believe it.

When the conduct coordinator—a woman with a bun so tight it looked painful—asked why we were bringing this now, I slid Paige’s attorney text across the desk.

“She’s trying to claim defamation,” I said. “She’s trying to make this about harassment and not about what she actually did.”

The coordinator read it, expression unreadable.

Then she looked up. “Do you feel threatened?” she asked.

My stomach tightened. The word threatened was a trap. If I said yes, it sounded dramatic. If I said no, it sounded like it wasn’t serious.

I met her eyes.

“I feel like she’s trying to ruin my reputation because she can’t control the narrative anymore,” I said. “And I feel like she has resources—her mother, an attorney—that I don’t. So yes. I feel threatened.”

The coordinator nodded slowly, like she was filing the word into a drawer.

“Okay,” she said. “This becomes part of the existing case.”

“There’s an existing case?” Leah blurted.

The coordinator’s mouth tightened, the way administrators’ mouths do when they’ve said too much. “There are multiple complaints,” she said carefully. “As you know.”

But her eyes flicked, just once, to a folder on her desk.

A thick folder.

Not just ours.

My throat went dry.

Paige hadn’t just targeted me.

She’d been working the whole campus like a machine.

Two hours later, my phone buzzed with a notification from an unfamiliar email address.

Subject: REQUEST FOR MEETING — Financial Aid Compliance

I stared at it like it was written in another language.

Then I opened it, and my chest tightened.

We have received information that may involve misrepresentation of financial circumstances in relation to scholarship funds. Please schedule a meeting as soon as possible to discuss documentation.

I handed the phone to Leah.

Leah’s face went pale again. “Oh my god,” she whispered. “She got a scholarship.”

“Need-based,” Sam said, voice hollow. “She always said she did.”

I thought about the comment in Leah’s thread—the study abroad scholarship. The weekend trips. The way Paige had always been surrounded by money while insisting she was starving.

This wasn’t just stealing rent.

This was stealing help meant for people like me.

People who worked and skipped meals and still couldn’t breathe.

Something hot rose behind my eyes—not tears, not exactly. Something older, meaner.

I’d tried to be generous because I knew what it felt like to be cut off.

I’d tried to be the person I’d needed when my parents slammed their door.

Paige had taken that instinct and hollowed it out.

She’d worn my empathy like a costume and called it survival.

When Leah looked at me, her voice was small.

“Are you okay?”

I swallowed. “I will be,” I said. “But I’m done being quiet.”

That night, someone knocked on our apartment door.

Not a friendly knock.

Not the casual tap of a neighbor.

A hard knock. Three strikes like a gavel.

Jordan looked at me. “Do you want me to—”

“I’ll do it,” I said, because something in me had decided I wasn’t hiding behind anyone anymore.

I opened the door.

A woman stood there in a blazer too expensive for student housing. She held a leather folder against her chest like a shield.

“Are you—” she began.

“I know who you are,” I said, before she could say my name. My pulse thundered. “You’re here for Paige.”

Her eyes narrowed slightly. “I represent Miss Brennan.”

“Then you can email,” I said. “Or you can talk to Student Conduct. Or you can talk to a police officer. But you’re not doing this at my door.”

Her lips pressed together. “You’ve distributed private financial information and made defamatory statements that have resulted in harassment of my client.”

I almost laughed.

“My client,” like Paige was a corporation.

“You mean the screenshots of her parents sending money labeled rent?” I asked. “The rent she never paid? The rent I paid for three years?”

“That is a matter of interpretation,” she said smoothly.

I stepped back and gestured inside.

“Come interpret this,” I said, and held up Monica’s statement like a banner. “This is rent. These are dates. This is my bank account. It’s not interpretation. It’s arithmetic.”

Her eyes flicked to the paper, and for a fraction of a second, the lawyer-mask slipped. Not fear—calculation.

Then she regained control. “Regardless, your actions—”

“My actions were telling the truth,” I said. “And if your client wants to sue for defamation, she’ll have to explain under oath why she told everyone she was cut off while receiving money labeled rent and groceries. She’ll have to explain why she took money from students and didn’t repay it. She’ll have to explain the scholarship.”

The lawyer’s posture stiffened.

“You’ve been contacted by Financial Aid,” she said, and it wasn’t a question.

I stared at her.

So Paige knew.

Paige was watching.

Paige was trying to get ahead of it.

“You’re not here to protect her,” I said quietly. “You’re here to scare me.”

Her expression hardened. “I’m here to resolve this before it escalates.”

“It already escalated,” I said. “For three years.”

I didn’t slam the door. I closed it slowly, deliberately, like I was showing her I wasn’t panicking.

Jordan let out a breath behind me. “Holy—”

Leah sat down hard on the couch, trembling. “She came here,” she whispered. “She actually came here.”

Sam’s voice shook. “She’s still trying to make you feel like you’re the problem.”

I nodded, and my throat burned. “That’s what she does,” I said. “She makes the person who finally says ‘stop’ look cruel.”

Iris’s eyes were bright. “Okay,” she said, voice firm. “So we stop acting like this is a roommate fight and start treating it like what it is.”

Leah looked up. “Which is?”

I took a breath.

“An investigation,” I said.

The Financial Aid meeting happened two days later in an office that smelled like printer ink and stale coffee.

A man in a cardigan pulled up Paige’s file on his computer, then turned the screen slightly away from me like he didn’t want me seeing too much.

“We received documentation that suggests Ms. Brennan misrepresented her financial situation,” he said. “We’re reviewing her scholarship eligibility.”

I slid Leah’s timeline and Monica’s statement across the desk.

“My involvement is limited to being her roommate,” I said. “But if you’re asking whether she told people she had no support while receiving money—yes. And if you’re asking whether she took money from me under false pretenses—yes.”

He flipped through the pages, brows knitting tighter with every line.

“Did you ever give her cash?” he asked.

“Yes,” I admitted. “For utilities. Groceries. Bills. She said she was cut off.”

“And did she ever repay you?”

“No.”

He stared at the rent ledger, then looked up at me.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and for once it didn’t sound like the polite sorry people use when they want to exit a conversation. It sounded like the kind of sorry that comes from realizing how long someone held a weight that never should’ve been theirs.

When I left the office, the hallway felt too bright.

My phone buzzed.

A text from an unknown number.

You just couldn’t let it go, could you?

I stared at the message until my fingers went cold.

Then another text:

You’re obsessed. You ruin everything you touch.

My chest tightened.

I didn’t need to ask who it was.

It was Paige, without the audience, without the tears, without the performance.

Just the raw blade she usually hid.

I forwarded the messages to the conduct coordinator and blocked the number.

My hands didn’t shake this time.

Because now I knew something Paige didn’t understand:

When you stop being afraid of being disliked, manipulators lose their favorite weapon.

The hardest part came from somewhere I didn’t expect.

My family.

It was a Sunday night when my phone lit up with a number I hadn’t seen in two years.

My mom.

My thumb hovered over the screen, frozen.

I could still hear her voice the last time we spoke—flat, furious, like she was reading from a script.

We didn’t raise you to live like that.

Like what? Honest? Queer?

Like I was a stain.

I let it ring out.

Then a voicemail appeared.

I didn’t listen right away. I stared at it for ten minutes while Leah did homework at the kitchen table and Jordan played music too loudly like he was trying to keep the mood light.

Finally, I put in my AirPods and pressed play.

My mom’s voice poured into my ears like cold water.

“Hi,” she said. “It’s… me.”

Long pause.

“I saw something online,” she continued, and I could picture her sitting at the kitchen counter at home, her phone in her hand, her lips pressed tight. “Your aunt sent it. Something about… a roommate. Money.”

Another pause.

“You look… tired,” she said, and her voice cracked in a way I hadn’t heard before. “You look like you’ve been carrying something.”

I swallowed hard, staring at the kitchen wall like it might keep me standing.

“I didn’t call to fight,” she said quickly, as if she could sense my instinct to hang up even on a voicemail. “I called because—because I didn’t know you were struggling like that.”

I almost laughed. I almost cried. I almost threw my phone across the room.

You didn’t know because you didn’t ask.

You didn’t know because you didn’t want to know.

“My friend at church said you can’t trust everything online,” my mom continued, voice careful. “But… there were papers. Records. People commenting. And I thought… I thought maybe I should check if you’re okay.”

A tremor ran through me.

Two years ago, she couldn’t check if I was okay when I came out.

But now, when the internet was involved, she could.

Still… it was her voice. It was my mother.

And the part of me that had learned to survive without her still ached like an old injury when the weather changed.

“I don’t know what to say,” she whispered. “I don’t know what the right thing is anymore.”

Then, quieter:

“I’m sorry.”

Three words that should’ve hit like healing.

Instead, they hit like grief.

Because sorry didn’t rewind two years.

Sorry didn’t pay my rent.

Sorry didn’t sit with me on the nights I ate ramen and told myself I deserved it.

But sorry was also a crack in a wall I’d stopped believing could move.

The voicemail ended with her saying, “If you want to call, you can. If you don’t, I understand.”

I sat at the edge of my bed, AirPods still in, the silence loud.

Leah knocked gently and peeked in. “You okay?”

I opened my mouth and nothing came out.

Then I handed her the phone.

She listened, eyes softening.

When she finished, she handed it back carefully. “That’s… a lot.”

“Yeah,” I whispered.

“You don’t have to call her,” Leah said immediately, firm. “Not because she doesn’t deserve a chance, but because you deserve peace.”

I nodded, throat burning.

For the first time since Paige, the conflict wasn’t about money.

It was about family.

About the people who were supposed to protect you… and didn’t.

And the temptation to let them back in just because they finally noticed the damage.

Friday came fast.

Dean Richardson’s deadline.

Paige’s choice: accept responsibility or contest with a formal hearing.

That morning, the conduct coordinator emailed me:

Ms. Brennan has elected to contest the findings. A hearing will be scheduled.

My heart sank.

Of course she did.

A hearing meant she’d get a room. A panel. A microphone.

A chance to cry.

A chance to perform for authority.

Jordan found me staring at the email like it might change if I blinked.

“She’s doing it,” I said.

He swore. “She’s going to try to make this about feelings.”

“She’s going to try to make this about me,” I said quietly.

Leah’s jaw set. “Then we make it about evidence,” she said. “No speeches. No drama. Paper.”

The hearing was set for the following Tuesday.

I didn’t sleep the night before.

Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the café. Paige standing. Her phone raised like evidence. Twelve faces turning toward me.

I heard the way Jordan’s hand had moved toward her shoulder instinctively, like she was fragile.

I heard the word selfish like it was stamped into my forehead.

I got up at 3:00 a.m. and cleaned the kitchen because my body didn’t know what else to do with the electricity inside it.

At 7:00, I sat at the table with Leah and went through the folder one more time.

Monica’s ledger.

The timeline.

The scholarship email.

The texts.

The harassment messages Paige had sent from unknown numbers after she left.

“Look at me,” Leah said suddenly.

I looked up.

Her eyes were steady. “You’re not the villain,” she said. “Even if she cries. Even if her mom cries. Even if the whole room gets uncomfortable.”

My throat tightened. “What if I freeze?”

“Then I’ll talk,” Leah said. “And if I freeze, Jordan will talk. And if Jordan freezes, Iris will talk, and she’ll probably scare everyone with her stats voice.”

Iris raised her mug like a salute. “I was born for a hostile cross-examination,” she said.

A laugh burst out of me—small, surprised, real.

It felt like oxygen.

The hearing room was smaller than I expected.

Not a courtroom. Just a conference room with a long table and a panel of three university staff members, all wearing the same careful expression like they’d practiced neutrality in a mirror.

Paige arrived with her mother.

Not the lawyer this time.

Paige’s mom wore a pearl necklace. Paige wore a cardigan and no makeup, hair pulled back in a messy bun—an innocent-student look so strategic it made my stomach twist.

She didn’t look at me.

But I could feel her awareness like heat.

Dean Richardson opened with procedure. Rules. Time limits.

Then Paige spoke.

And it was almost impressive, how quickly she rebuilt the world.

She talked about mental health. About shame. About “complicated family finances.” About feeling isolated. About being “misunderstood.”

She said the deposits from her parents were “repayments” and “not consistent support,” and that labels like rent were “simplifications.”

She said the rent ledger didn’t account for “cash contributions” she had “made informally.”

And then she turned slightly toward me and said, voice trembling:

“I never meant to hurt anyone. But she… she became obsessed. She started tracking me. Screenshotting me. Watching my social media. She wanted me to suffer.”

There it was.

The flip.

The projection.

The part where the person who got robbed becomes the aggressor.

My hands went cold.

A panel member leaned forward, sympathetic. “Can you explain why your roommate’s bank account shows all rent payments for three years?”

Paige blinked rapidly. Tears pooled instantly.

“I gave her cash,” she whispered.

Monica’s ledger sat in my folder like a brick.

Leah squeezed my knee under the table.

When it was my turn, I stood.

For a second, the room tilted.

Then I remembered every ramen dinner.

Every double shift.

Every time Paige said, You’re the only one I can trust.

I took a breath.

“I’m not here to talk about feelings,” I said. My voice sounded steadier than I felt. “I’m here to talk about what happened.”

I handed out copies of Monica’s statement.

I watched the panel members’ eyes move line by line.

Jordan submitted his screenshots.

Sam submitted hers.

Becca submitted hers.

Leah slid the timeline across the table like she was laying down a weapon.

Paige’s mother’s face tightened as she read.

The panel asked questions.

Paige’s answers got smaller.

More vague.

More slippery.

And then the final nail came from the scholarship office representative—a woman who’d joined the hearing quietly and hadn’t spoken yet.

She looked at Paige over her glasses and said, “Ms. Brennan, can you confirm whether you reported receiving monthly financial support from your parents on your scholarship application?”

Paige’s mouth opened.

Closed.

Her mother’s hand gripped her wrist.

“I—” Paige began, voice thin. “I didn’t think it counted. It wasn’t… it wasn’t stable.”

The scholarship representative didn’t blink. “It was stable enough to arrive monthly,” she said. “And stable enough to be labeled rent.”

The room went quiet.

Not dramatic quiet.

Administrative quiet.

The kind that meant the performance had hit a wall.

Paige’s tears fell anyway, but this time they didn’t move the air. They didn’t rearrange the story.

They just landed.

Dean Richardson cleared her throat.

“Thank you,” she said. “We have sufficient information to make a determination.”

Paige’s mother leaned forward, controlled. “What are you saying?”

Dean Richardson’s voice was calm, almost gentle.

“We’re saying the evidence supports the finding of misconduct,” she said. “Significant misconduct.”

Paige let out a sound—half sob, half gasp—like she’d been punched.

Her mom’s face turned hard.

“This is outrageous,” she snapped. “My daughter is being bullied.”

Dean Richardson didn’t flinch.

“No,” she said. “Your daughter deceived peers for financial gain.”

I felt something in my chest loosen, like a knot finally giving up.

Not joy.

Not vengeance.

Relief.

The truth, spoken by someone with authority, without apology.

Paige’s mom stood so fast her chair scraped.

“This school is making a mistake,” she said sharply.

Paige didn’t move. She sat frozen, staring at the table like it was the first time she’d seen consequences.

As we filed out, Paige finally looked up.

Her eyes met mine for one second.

No tears in that moment.

Just pure, bright hatred.

And behind it, something like fear.

She’d always been certain the world would bend around her story.

Now it wasn’t.

Two weeks later, the settlement check arrived.

It came through a lawyer, crisp and official, with language about “no admission of wrongdoing” that made me laugh out loud in my kitchen because what else do you call three years of theft by deception?

But the check cleared.

My bank balance changed.

And the most surprising thing wasn’t the money.

It was how light my body felt when I realized my paycheck was finally mine.

That night, Leah and I sat on the floor eating Thai food, passing containers back and forth like we were building a new kind of normal.

Jordan was arguing with Iris about whether the couch should face the window or the TV.

Sam texted me a picture of herself in the dining hall with the caption: I’m trying to eat without guilt now. It’s weird.

I smiled.

And then my phone buzzed.

A notification from Instagram.

A new account had followed me.

No profile picture.

No posts.

Just a username made of random numbers.

I stared at it.

Leah noticed. “What?”

“I think she’s watching,” I said quietly.

Leah’s eyes sharpened. “Block it.”

I blocked it.

Then another followed.

Blocked.

Then another.

Blocked.

It went on for days.

Like Paige couldn’t exist in her new reality unless she still had access to mine.

Finally, I reported the accounts with the harassment texts attached.

Two days later, the conduct coordinator emailed me:

We have issued a no-contact directive.

A no-contact directive wasn’t dramatic.

It wasn’t a restraining order.

But it was something official.

Something that said, on paper, She doesn’t get to reach you anymore.

I printed the email and taped it inside my desk drawer next to the ledger.

Not because I needed to see it every day.

Because I needed to remember what it felt like when the truth finally had a spine.

A month after the hearing, I got another call.

My mom again.

This time, I answered.

My throat was tight as I pressed the phone to my ear.

“Hello?”

There was a sharp inhale on the other end, like she hadn’t expected me to pick up.

“Hi,” she said.

“Hi,” I echoed, voice careful.

Silence stretched.

Then, softly: “Are you… okay?”

It wasn’t an apology.

Not really.

But it was a question.

A door cracked open.

I looked at Leah across the room. She paused mid-unpacking and mouthed, You don’t have to.

I swallowed.

“I’m… better,” I said. “I’m safe.”

My mom exhaled like she’d been holding her breath for years. “I saw… I saw what people said,” she murmured. “About you. How you worked. How you helped her.”

Something in my chest ached.

“I didn’t help her because I’m a saint,” I said, surprising myself with the honesty. “I helped her because I know what it’s like to be alone.”

My mom’s voice cracked. “You were alone.”

“Yes,” I said quietly.

Another long silence.

Then: “I don’t know how to fix it.”

“You don’t have to fix it today,” I said. “But you do have to stop pretending it didn’t happen.”

A shaky breath.

“I’m trying,” she whispered.

And for the first time in two years, I believed she might be.

Not because she was suddenly good.

Because she sounded human.

I hung up after ten minutes, shaking, not from fear—just from the weight of possibility.

Leah came over and put her arm around my shoulders without saying anything.

Jordan pretended not to watch, but he turned the music down.

I sat there, letting the quiet be soft instead of sharp.

Spring arrived slowly.

The campus thawed. Students sprawled on the quad again like nothing had ever happened.

Paige’s name faded from conversation the way gossip always does—fast, hungry, then bored.

But something stayed.

A shift.

People were quieter about “poor Paige” stories now. More cautious when someone’s tragedy sounded too polished.

I started going to the dining hall again.

The first time I walked in, my shoulders still tensed, waiting for eyes to follow me.

But then Sam waved me over with a tray of food and said, “Sit. Please.”

And when I sat, no one paused their conversation.

No one flinched.

No one treated me like a villain.

Jordan talked about his summer internship. Iris complained about her stats professor. Leah showed me a meme about “emotional support lattes.”

Normal.

The kind of normal I’d forgotten existed.

Later, as we carried our trays back, Leah nudged me gently.

“Remember the first day at the café?” she asked.

My stomach tightened automatically.

“Yeah,” I said.

Leah’s expression softened. “I hate that happened,” she said. “But I’m glad you didn’t let it make you small.”

I thought about the version of me who’d left that café shaking and ashamed.

The version of me who’d sat on a bench outside the library staring at $26,000 like it was a personal failure.

The version of me who thought being kind meant being emptied out.

“I didn’t know I could be loud,” I admitted.

Jordan, walking behind us, snorted. “You weren’t loud,” he said. “You were factual.”

“That’s the loudest thing you can be to someone like Paige,” Iris added.

We all laughed, and it didn’t feel bitter.

It felt clean.

That night, as I walked home under streetlights, my phone buzzed one last time.

Not a new account.

Not an unknown number.

A notification from my bank app.

Paycheck deposited.

I opened it and stared at the balance.

It wasn’t huge.

It wasn’t magic.

But it was mine.

No mental math. No dread. No immediate subtraction for someone else’s rent.

Just a number that belonged to me, earned and kept and untouched by anyone else’s story.

I took a screenshot—not to post, not to prove anything to anyone.

Just to remind myself what freedom looks like in digits.

When I got home, Leah was on the couch with a blanket, reading.

Jordan and Iris were arguing quietly about whether we should thrift shop tomorrow.

I kicked off my shoes, dropped my bag, and breathed.

The apartment smelled like warm food and clean laundry and life that wasn’t built on guilt.

And for the first time in a long time, the quiet didn’t feel like waiting for the next explosion.

It felt like peace.

THE END