Chapter 1

The semester had barely started and we'd just moved back into the dorm when my roommate, Daniela Delgado, turned her phone screen toward me.

"Babe, this sushi place is only a thousand a head. I've been dying to go for ages. I've been counting on you taking me once school started."

A year ago I'd already be dragging her out the door to check it out.

But now my face went a little stiff. "I can't treat you to meals anymore. My family went bankrupt."

I thought, with everything between us, she'd at least offer a few words of comfort.

Instead she just frowned. "You can't even cover a couple thousand?"

I stared at her, stunned. There wasn't a trace of sympathy in her eyes, only irritation.

"Ugh, so annoying. You could've said something sooner about the bankruptcy. I already had the caption picked out for my post."

I froze where I was, and she turned and walked off.

That night she collected everyone's share of the electric bill in the group chat, and mine was fifty dollars more than the others'.

I confronted her about it directly, and she just said, "You always paid the electric before. All I'm asking is fifty extra, not the whole thing. That's already generous."

Then she accidentally dropped a screenshot into the group chat: "Sucked up to her all this time just to get into her family's company, and now they've gone bankrupt!"

I didn't say anything. I just opened my phone and messaged my mom: "Mom, faking bankruptcy really does test people's hearts."

1.

Seeing that Daniela had sent the message to the wrong place, the other girl in the dorm, Selina Joyce, cleared her throat, signaling her to delete it fast.

Daniela glanced at her phone, rolled her eyes, and muttered impatiently, "What's there to delete? She can't even spring for a thousand-a-head sushi dinner anymore. I'm under no obligation to give her emotional support."

The sound of Selina turning a page stopped. She looked a little awkward and lowered her head, burying her face behind the book.

I turned over in bed with my back to them, but my eyes slowly went red.

For the past year and more, I wouldn't say I'd poured my heart out to them, but I'd never shortchanged them either.

Dropping a few thousand on a single meal was a regular thing.

Skincare and makeup, anywhere from a few thousand to over ten thousand, I handed over without a second thought.

Back then, Daniela was always cradling the skincare I'd given her and squealing, "Thank you, Lauren Walker, letting me use La Mer and La Prairie this young. I could cry."

Selina was different. When I took her out to eat,

she'd always stubbornly split the bill with me, only ever chipping in a few dozen dollars, but I never made an issue of it.

When I gave her skincare, she'd Venmo me ten bucks.

She'd always say, "Just consider it something I bought."

Even though what she gave wouldn't cover the empty jar, I only ever smiled and took it.

But since she was a financial-aid student with top grades, I just figured she had that scholar's pride and didn't want to accept a handout.

Today, though, it slowly came into focus for me.

Maybe she'd known the prices all along, and paying that little was her way of settling up so she'd owe me nothing.

She wanted my things and wanted to stay on equal footing with me.

It wasn't integrity. She just wanted it both ways.

The thought left me feeling nothing but bitter and cold.

I slowly wiped my eyes clean, opened my tablet, and started building a slide deck.

I typed out the first page: "Fake Bankruptcy Plan, Day One."

I filled the slides with the chat logs and both of their reactions.

And just as I was about to turn off the light and sleep, Daniela knocked on the railing of my bunk.

I leaned my head out, my eyes still a little red and swollen.

She was startled for only a second, then said something that chilled me even more.

"My birthday's next month. Can you still get me a gift?"

I stared at her blankly, opened my mouth, and couldn't get a word out.

Seeing my reaction, she knit her brows. "You promised me last year. For my birthday this year you'd get me a bag worth over ten thousand—"

I looked at that entitled face of hers, so angry my hands were shaking.

I wanted to smash the tablet over her head and tell her the bankruptcy was fake.

But remembering what my mom had said, I forced the anger back down.

Seeing that I couldn't speak, she clicked her tongue in distaste. "If I'd known, I would've had you buy it for me before break."

Her tone was matter-of-fact, and she looked at me as if I owed her that ten-thousand-plus.

My voice came out hoarse. "I don't owe you anything, Daniela."

"Then you shouldn't have promised. Did I force you to get it for me? You say it and then you can't do it, and I'm not even allowed to be upset?"

With that, she tossed her hair, turned, and climbed back into her own bed.

Daniela lay there typing fast on her phone, and I didn't have to guess that she was trashing me to someone again.

I stopped paying her any attention, switched off my bunk light, and went to sleep.

The next day, before it was even light, the dorm erupted in a clatter of banging, and Daniela flicked every light on with a loud snap.

I frowned, grabbed my phone, and looked. It was only five in the morning.

I leaned my head out and asked Daniela irritably, "Can you keep it down?"

She dropped her shower caddy on the floor with a bang.

"Still think you're some heiress? Your family's bankrupt. Can you quit the act? So I get up early to wash up like normal, and that's a problem for you?"

I came back to myself and stared at her coldly.

Selina, already awake, only opened her eyes slowly to glance at us, then rolled over and pulled the blanket over her head, saying nothing.

Daniela didn't say anything more. She picked the caddy up off the floor and strutted off toward the bathroom, chin in the air.

She slammed the door hard enough to shake the walls and blasted music inside.

I wasn't angry anymore. I quietly opened the deck and wrote down the second page.

Before, when they got up to wash up, they'd move so gently, terrified of waking me.

Daniela liked to shower in the mornings, and sometimes she'd rather feel her way to the bathroom in the dark than use a flashlight.

Because she knew I was a light sleeper. Once, she accidentally stubbed her toe on the table leg and let out a yelp.

Seeing that she'd woken me, she immediately felt so guilty she wouldn't stop apologizing.

I thought I'd just gotten lucky, that I'd landed two saintly roommates who respected boundaries.

But it turned out their sense of boundaries had rested entirely on my money.

When it was finally time to get up, I sat up, and my whole body went rigid.