At the Top Ten Outstanding Undergraduates award ceremony, I had just stepped onto the podium when the giant projector screen suddenly went black. A second later, dozens of explicit, damning text message screenshots popped up on the screen. The audience of two thousand students and faculty erupted into a massive uproar. The sender was me. The recipient was Liam Sterling, the brilliant, undisputed golden boy of the Finance Department, sitting right in the front row. The screenshots were filled with my texts: [Out of cash, Venmo me $1,000.] [I’m crashing at your apartment tonight, leave the door unlocked.] [If you don’t give me money, I’ll harass you every day until your reputation is ruined.] The sorority president grabbed a microphone, stormed the stage, and pointed at me with righteous fury: “Everyone, look closely! Harper isn’t some innocent straight-A student. She is a gold digger who has been shamelessly harassing and extorting Liam for money!” “A toxic, shameless parasite like her doesn’t deserve to stand on this stage and accept an award!” Countless eyes stabbed into me like knives, filled with absolute disgust. The university administrators’ faces turned pale with fury. The sorority president glared at me triumphantly. Chapter 1 At the Top Ten Outstanding Undergraduates award ceremony, I had just stepped onto the podium when the giant projector screen suddenly went black. A second later, dozens of explicit, damning text message screenshots popped up on the screen. The audience of two thousand students and faculty erupted into a massive uproar. The sender was me. The recipient was Liam Sterling, the brilliant, undisputed golden boy of the Finance Department, sitting right in the front row. The screenshots were filled with my texts: [Out of cash, Venmo me $1,000.] [I’m crashing at your apartment tonight, leave the door unlocked.] [If you don’t give me money, I’ll harass you every day until your reputation is ruined.] Chloe Vance, the campus queen bee, grabbed a microphone, stormed the stage, and pointed at me with righteous fury: “Everyone, look closely! Harper isn’t some innocent straight-A student. She is a gold digger who has been shamelessly harassing and extorting Liam for money!” “A toxic, shameless parasite like her doesn’t deserve to stand on this stage and accept an award!” Countless eyes stabbed into me like knives. The administrators looked furious. Chloe glared at me triumphantly. “Harper, Liam might be too polite to call the cops, but today you are going to publicly confess your disgusting, predatory behavior!” I stared at those “extortion” texts on the screen and rubbed my temples in sheer exhaustion. Wait a minute. Liam Sterling is my biological uncle. My grandma had him incredibly late in life. I was just shaking my own uncle down for my allowance and crashing at his place for free food. How did that make me a shameless sugar baby? …… Liam Sterling is my biological uncle. Nobody at school knew this. It wasn’t that I was intentionally hiding it. It was because on my very first day of college, Liam cornered me outside the library and laid down three strict rules with a totally deadpan face. “Don’t call me Uncle on campus.” “Don’t tell anyone we’re related.” “Why?” “I’m a junior. If you walk around calling me Uncle, what does that make me sound like?” “Like a senior citizen.” “Go tell your grandmother she should have had me twenty years later.” He turned to leave. I yelled after him. “What am I supposed to do when I run out of food money?!” Without even looking back, he tossed a sleek black debit card over his shoulder. “Text me. Let me know when it’s empty.” From then on, we acted like total strangers on campus. He was the absolute ceiling of the Finance Department. He swept the national merit scholarships every year, was ridiculously handsome, and was basically worshipped as the campus god. I was a freshman in the Journalism program, as painfully average as a plain bagel in the dining hall. No one would ever associate the two of us. Until Chloe Vance fell hard for Liam. I don’t know how she managed to get her hands on my text thread with him. Most likely, she found someone to snoop through his phone when he had to surrender it during the Finance Department’s locked-in Case Competition Week. She found out that Liam transferred money to me every month. She found out I went to his luxury apartment every other day. She found out I used his credit card to buy three cases of oat milk at the grocery store. But she didn’t find out how we were related. And she didn’t care. A freshman girl frequently going to the campus golden boy’s apartment and spending his money—that was all the evidence she needed to brand me. The award ceremony was abruptly canceled. The university administrators called me into the office. My academic advisor, Mr. Davis, sat to the side looking like he had just swallowed a box of chalk. “Harper, explain these text messages.” I said, “That is a completely normal conversation between family members.” “Family members?” Mr. Davis frowned. “You are not listed anywhere on Liam’s emergency contact or family info.” “He’s my…” “Are you going to try and claim he’s your boyfriend?” Chloe Vance had slipped into the office at some point. She sat down, her eyes perfectly rimmed with fake, sympathetic tears. “Mr. Davis, she’s been telling people she has a ‘special relationship’ with Liam for weeks. We all tried to warn her to stop, but she wouldn’t listen.” Mr. Davis looked at her, then back at me. “Harper, Chloe is the Vice President of the Student Government. She has no reason to frame you.” “Go back to your dorm and write a formal statement explaining your actions.” “Your award eligibility is officially frozen.” I opened my mouth. I wanted to say that she was the only one who had a reason to frame me. But Chloe had already kindly pulled the office door open for me. She stepped aside and whispered: “I’m not targeting you, underclassman.” “I just think some things need to be brought into the light.” She was a sophomore. She sounded as polite as a court subpoena. When I walked out of the office, my phone was already blowing up. The top trending post on the campus Reddit page: [SHOCKING! Top Student Harper Exposed as a Gold Digger Harassing Liam Sterling! Texts Inside!] The top-voted comment: [No wonder she’s always wearing such nice clothes in the dining hall. Now we know how she pays for them.] I looked down at the oversized coat I was wearing. It was a coat Liam threw at me because he claimed it was the wrong size. He said it made him look fat. A guy who is 6’2″ with 10% body fat told me it made him look fat. When my grandmother gave birth to him, she must have accidentally left his brain in the delivery room. I pulled out my phone and texted Liam. [Uncle, emergency. Your crazy fangirl just blasted our texts on the projector screen.] The message bounced back with a red exclamation mark. Message Not Delivered. His phone was confiscated for Competition Week. He had basically vanished off the face of the earth. Great. My biological uncle is MIA. His niece is socially executed. This family is falling apart. Chapter 2 Early the next morning, someone taped a piece of printer paper to my dorm room door. [Please have some self-respect and stay away from Liam Sterling. Stop embarrassing the Journalism Department.] It was signed: “All the Women of the Journalism Department.” I ripped the paper off the door and flipped it over. The back was blank. Perfect. I needed scratch paper for calculus anyway. During my morning lecture, I sat in the very back row of the auditorium. Every single student in front of me collectively moved three rows forward. Like I was emitting lethal radiation. Mia, one of Chloe’s loyal sidekicks, specifically walked all the way to the back to place an iced matcha latte on my desk. “Chloe said to buy you a drink.” “Don’t need it.” “She also said,” Mia lowered her voice. “If you post a public apology on the campus forum today, she’ll help you suppress the trending posts.” “Apologize for what?” “Admit that your behavior toward Liam was highly inappropriate.” “What exactly is inappropriate about my perfectly normal interpersonal relationships?” Mia sighed. “Those texts are out there. The whole school saw them.” “No one is going to believe anything you say now.” “You might as well just bow your head and take the out.” I slid the matcha latte back toward her. “I’ll bow my head.” “Right after she gives me my Top Ten Student award back.” Mia took the drink and left. At noon, I went to the dining hall. The card reader beeped: Insufficient Funds. Liam’s debit card had been confiscated by Chloe as “evidence” and handed over to the Student Government. And my own personal bank account had exactly $47 left. There were nineteen days left in the month. That averaged out to about $2.40 a day. I grabbed a bowl of plain white rice and sat in a corner. My roommate, Zoey, slid half her chicken teriyaki onto my plate. She assumed I had blown through my allowance and couldn’t afford food. To be fair, she wasn’t entirely wrong. “Eat mine.” “I’m good, I’m on a diet.” “You weigh 100 pounds. What are you dieting for?” “I’m trying to lose enough weight so the wind blows me away and I never have to deal with this school again.” That afternoon, I marched into the Student Government office to get my card back. Chloe was sitting at a desk, organizing files. She looked up at me, her expression perfectly blank. “I can’t give you the card right now.” “That is my living expense money.” “This card is under the name Liam Sterling.” She held the black card up. “Until he personally confirms it, we cannot hand it over to you.” “You have no legal right to confiscate it either.” Chloe calmly dropped the card into her drawer and locked it. “This is to protect Liam’s financial assets.” “What if you really are extorting him?” She said it so smoothly, her tone as steady as if she were reading from a textbook. Like she was the true victim. And I was the dangerous predator that needed to be contained. I reached out and grabbed the handle of the drawer. Chloe instantly slammed her hand down hard over mine. “Harper, are you going to rob me?” “There are three Student Government officers right outside that door.” “If you get physical with me, your expulsion papers will be drafted by tomorrow.” I pulled my hand back. Her acrylic nails had left a long, red scratch across the back of my hand. “Liam finishes his competition and gets back to campus the day after tomorrow.” “You can confront him face-to-face then.” “If he says this card was actually meant for you, I’ll return it without a second thought.” She smiled warmly and opened the office door for me. “But if he doesn’t…” “I will personally recommend that all your academic honors and scholarship eligibilities be permanently revoked.” I walked out of the office and stared at the stinging red scratch on my hand. When she slammed her hand down on mine, the three male officers outside saw the whole thing. None of them thought anything was wrong. Because in their eyes, I was a gold digger. A gold digger getting scratched was just poetic justice. I scrolled through my phone contacts. My parents were on a business trip in Europe, a twelve-hour time difference. My grandmother didn’t know how to use a smartphone. Liam was still entirely unreachable. A new post went up on the forum. [DEEP DIVE on Gold Digger Harper: Using Upperclassman’s Card for Luxury Goods, Spotted Sneaking Out of His Penthouse.] Attached was a photo of me from last weekend, wearing that oversized coat Liam didn’t want, walking out of his luxury apartment building. The camera angle was deliberate, the lighting dim. It genuinely looked like a shady sugar baby doing a midnight walk of shame. The top comment read: [If the school doesn’t expel trash like this, our university’s reputation is going to be ruined.] I locked my phone. Just last month, my grandma called Liam and explicitly told him to take good care of me. He had agreed instantly. “Don’t worry, Mom. I’ll treat her like my own daughter.” Well, your daughter can’t afford lunch, her bank card was stolen, and her reputation is shredded to pieces. Thanks for taking such good care of me, Uncle. Chapter 3 Friday rolled around. Every Friday at noon, the university hosted a “Student Voice” open mic in the main quad. Anyone could sign up to speak on the soapbox. I planned to use the opportunity to grab the mic and explain the whole situation. But when I got to my morning lecture, there was an envelope sitting on my desk. It was an official document with the university’s red letterhead. [Notice Regarding the Revocation of Harper’s Award Eligibility.] Reason: Involved in severe moral controversy. Following a report from the Student Government, all honors and scholarship eligibilities are indefinitely suspended. It was dated yesterday. Chloe’s efficiency was faster than Uber Eats. From reporting me to issuing an official punishment, it took less than twenty-four hours. I took the document straight to Advisor Davis. He was eating a bagel at his desk. “Harper, this incident blew up way too fast.” “The department is just trying to do some damage control with the optics.” “Once Liam comes back and clears things up, I’ll help you get it reinstated.” “He doesn’t get back until tomorrow, and I’m already officially punished today.” “The protocol is perfectly sound.” “Is it standard protocol for the Student Government to confiscate my bank card without authorization?” Mr. Davis’s hand paused halfway to his mouth. “That… you’ll have to negotiate that with the Student Government.” When it comes to public outrage, “protocol” is just playdough. Whoever screams the loudest gets to mold it. At noon, I went to the quad to sign up. But Chloe had already tampered with the “Student Voice” clipboard. My name was violently crossed out with a black Sharpie. Next to it was a note: This student is currently under moral investigation and is unfit for public speaking. I stood at the edge of the quad and watched Chloe step up to the microphone to deliver the keynote speech. “We must bravely say no to inappropriate harassment.” “Everyone has the fundamental right to refuse unwanted advances.” The crowd erupted into thunderous applause. People threw disgusted glances in my direction, whispering to each other. Chloe noticed me. She smiled gracefully into the microphone. “Of course, we should always give those who make mistakes a chance to reform.” “I sincerely hope a certain someone takes this time to truly reflect on her actions.” Her eyes locked dead onto me. Two thousand people followed her gaze, all staring right at me. I stood in the bright sunlight, but it felt like I was standing on a public scaffold. Zoey grabbed my sleeve, trying to pull me away. “Don’t stand here. She’s doing this on purpose.” I shook off her hand. “Take a picture for me.” “Of what?” “The sign-up sheet on the table. The one where my name is crossed out.” Zoey snapped the picture and AirDropped it to me. I saved the photo and marched straight to the Dean of Students’ office. The secretary there told me that revoking an award eligibility required a formal vote by the Faculty Disciplinary Board. And the board had absolutely not convened yesterday. Which meant the official university letter I received was completely rogue and procedurally invalid. But the secretary quickly added an addendum. “The department said they’re holding an emergency retroactive meeting on Monday to officially finalize the decision.” “The meeting is on Monday, but the official punishment letter was issued yesterday?” “It’s a preliminary notice pending procedural fulfillment. It’s a special circumstance.” Special circumstance. Translated into plain English: Execute the punishment now, forge the paperwork later. When I walked out of the Dean’s office, Mia appeared out of nowhere. She handed me a freshly printed apology letter. “Chloe said, as long as you post this on the forum today, she’ll pull strings to get your punishment revoked.” I took the paper and skimmed it. It was an 800-word essay. The highlight reel read: “I admit to systematically harassing Liam Sterling through inappropriate means, causing severe distress to his personal and academic life.” “I have deeply realized the severity of my mistakes.” I folded the paper neatly and shoved it into my pocket. Mia let out a sigh of relief. “So, you’re posting it tonight?” “No.” “Then why did you take it?” “As a souvenir.” “Chloe had someone stay up all night writing this…” “The prose is excellent.” I paused. “But I will not admit to a single word of something I never did.” Mia’s face instantly dropped. She pulled out her phone and furiously typed a message. Ten seconds later, Chloe’s reply popped up on her screen. I saw it plain as day. [Then don’t blame me. Tomorrow, when Liam gets back, I’ll make him tell the whole school to her face that he doesn’t even know her.] I stared at that line of text for three seconds. Doesn’t know me? If he actually dares to say he doesn’t know me tomorrow. I will call Grandma on speakerphone. Let’s see what happens first: his social execution, or Grandma’s flying sandal making contact with his skull.
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