I barely lasted a few days before the foreman kicked me off the site and kept every cent of my pay.
Then the hospital called.
My mother was dying. They told me to prepare myself.
That last thread inside me snapped, and I had nothing left.
Late one night, I climbed to the hospital rooftop and stepped off the edge.
I never expected to open my eyes again—days before the writing contest, back in a life I'd already lost.
Even now, there were things I still couldn't make sense of.
Clementine was my own sister. How could she have set me up?
Clara had grown up alongside me. She had a sharp tongue, sure, but she'd always had my back.
Once, when someone talked trash about me, she nearly got into a fistfight over it.
So what changed? What made them turn on me like that?
Where did it all go wrong?
I'd won first place in a children's writing competition when I was a kid.
In college, I published regularly in literary magazines.
My mentor said it straight: first place in this contest was mine to lose.
So when the plagiarism accusation broke, most people believed me.
On top of that, I'd already serialized a novel and published it as a book. Sales were solid.
I had no reason to plagiarize anyone.
But then Geoffrey released screenshots showing the exact timestamps of our submissions.
His was an hour earlier than mine.
And a full week before the contest, he'd posted his inspiration and outline on his social media account.
His contest entry followed that outline to the letter.
The organizers moved fast. They sent people to check every piece of evidence Geoffrey had—the surveillance footage, the social media posts. All of it came back clean. Nothing altered, nothing faked.
And then they said it: I was the one who'd plagiarized Geoffrey Harrington.
My mind went blank.
That story was mine. I wrote every word. How could I have plagiarized it?
But I had no evidence to prove otherwise.
What I couldn't understand was why Geoffrey's contest entry was identical to mine.
Had Clementine shared her material with him too?
The questions kept piling up, and not a single one had an answer I could reach.
For now, though, Clementine and Clara weren't acting any differently than usual.
The only lead I could follow was Geoffrey's social media account.
By my count, he should have already posted the inspiration and outline.
But Clementine and Clara wouldn't leave my side, so I scribbled out a rough outline just to keep them satisfied.
Then I faked a stomachache and said I needed the bathroom.
A flicker of annoyance crossed Clara's eyes.
"God, you're so high-maintenance. Clem handed you everything—the inspiration, the material—and you're *still* trying to slack off!"
Clementine quickly signed to smooth things over.
"There's still a week before the contest. Don't rush him. There's plenty of time."
"As long as he follows my plan, he's taking first. Guaranteed."
But time to find the truth was running out.
I locked the bathroom door behind me and pulled up Geoffrey's social media account.
Just as I expected, he'd posted something new.
He said he wanted to share his inspiration and novel outline with everyone.
One look, and I went rigid.
This was Clementine's material. The exact same material she'd given me.
And his outline—it was identical to the one I'd just dashed off minutes ago. Word for word.
Maybe the inspiration and source material overlapping was coincidence. Fine.
But Geoffrey's outline matching something I'd only just written? How?
A chill crawled up my spine.
I walked out of the bathroom. Clementine and Clara were still in the room, waiting—and the second she saw me, Clara was already pushing me back toward the desk to write.
