Even the friends I'd once gotten along with started quietly pulling away after they heard.
I ran into Rachel on campus more times than I could count, trying to explain, but she just walked right past me every time, as if I didn't exist.
It wasn't until graduation that I learned she'd failed her grad school entrance exams and gone straight into the workforce. The guilt nearly broke me. I came close to dropping out myself.
That was when Jacob stepped in, staying by my side through it all.
When almost no one around me believed I was innocent, he was the only one who did. He told me I hadn't done anything wrong.
Looking back now, of course he believed me. He was the one who'd done it.
I'll admit it: at the time, I was genuinely moved.
Jacob and I grew much closer during that period. I confided in him constantly, and he comforted me again and again.
But now I realized that wasn't what it was at all.
Jacob wrote impatiently in the thread: "Honestly, shouldn't she be thanking me for getting that recommendation slot? Walking around looking half-dead all the time. I don't even know who that performance was for."
"If I hadn't helped her, what would she even be doing right now? Unemployed and expecting me to support her?"
Someone in the comments asked: "But what does this have to do with winning her over? She didn't actually fall for you because of it, did she?"
Jacob replied immediately: "You're exactly right. She was so wrapped up in that whole mess back then, it never even crossed her mind that I was being nice to her because I wanted to date her."
"And here's the thing. The whole reason I went after her in the first place was to make my childhood sweetheart's crush stop being interested in her. But even after her reputation tanked that badly, the guy still couldn't let her go."
"So I came up with a new plan."
"You want to know where that guy lost? He was too careful. Too cautious to make a real move. Same way I am with my childhood sweetheart, actually."
"But that's normal, I guess. When a guy truly likes someone, that's how he acts."
"He was worried about my girlfriend's mental state, so he kept having people deliver gifts to her. Good thing I intercepted every single one."
I never knew Ferdinand had done any of that.
Then Jacob shifted gears: "But that wasn't enough. My goal wasn't just to get with her. I needed him to give up on her completely."
"Around that time, my girlfriend couldn't take the passive bullying from her roommate and classmates anymore, so she wanted to move off campus. She picked up a new tutoring gig to cover the rent."
"The kid she was tutoring came from an insanely rich family, and they treated her well. Before every session, they'd send a driver to campus to pick her up."
"I didn't do much. I just happened to walk by with my roommate one time when she was getting picked up, made sure people saw her climbing into a luxury car."
"She'd suddenly moved out of the dorms, and now she was getting into expensive cars. Given that she was on financial aid, it wasn't hard for people to jump to conclusions."
"That night I went back and posted about it anonymously on the campus forum. The rumor spread fast. Within hours, people were saying she had a sugar daddy."
"She had plenty of guys chasing her at school, so I posted that she liked stringing people along. Combined with everything before, she was already completely isolated. Public opinion turned on her overnight." By the time I read this far, I was gripping my phone so hard my knuckles ached, forcing down the nausea clawing up my throat.
Near graduation, I'd thought I would finally escape those looks, finally start over. Instead, all I got was more abuse.
During that time, no matter where I went, the people around me watched me with undisguised malice.
