I watched her face change and said nothing.
Fine. If nobody here was going to make this right, I'd do it myself.
How Susan impersonated me to con people, why the faculty advisor rushed to cover for her—I was going to dig up every piece of it.
And when I did, everyone who owed something was going to pay.
After I left the campus security office, Susan kept fishing for information, trying to sound casual about it.
I kept my voice flat.
"I didn't do it, so obviously I'm not paying anything."
Her face visibly changed. She forced out a thin, dry smile.
"Oh… well, good then."
Of course she was disappointed. If this didn't go away, Mr. Pierce would keep pushing—and the more noise he made, the closer the trail got to her.
So she'd come for me again. That was a given.
I wasn't afraid. The more she tried, the deeper she'd bury herself.
That night, I finished washing up and headed back to the dorm.
A crowd had gathered at the door—seven or eight girls clustered together, craning to see what was going on.
Inside, Susan was tearing through drawers, her voice thick with tears.
"It's really gone! I left it right on the desk!"
The moment I walked in, she looked up, eyes red-rimmed.
"Rebecca, you're back? Have you seen my lipstick? The one in the silver case? I just bought it—it was over five hundred dollars."
I laughed to myself. So this was her next move.
The scam angle hadn't worked, so now she needed me labeled a thief.
And if people bought that, the money thing from before would be even easier to believe.
One of our roommates sighed:
"No idea where it went. The door's been locked the whole time, the window was shut—nobody from outside could've gotten in…"
The implication couldn't have been louder.
The thief had to be someone already inside the room.
I didn't take the bait. I walked straight to my desk and sat down.
A few minutes later, Susan drifted over.
"Rebecca, it's just us in here, right? I've already gone through everyone else's stuff."
"So… you don't mind if I peek in yours too? That way we can all just clear the air and nobody feels weird."
I said nothing.
This was obviously a setup.
But the second I hesitated, the whispers started buzzing around me.
"Right? Like, just let her look. If you won't even open it, that kind of says something."
"An innocent person wouldn't think twice. Just pop it open and prove everyone wrong—what's the problem?"
I knew that if I refused to let her search, the label "thief" would land on me right here, right now.
When Susan saw I wasn't pushing back hard, a flash of triumph slipped through her eyes.
She didn't wait for permission. She reached over and yanked my drawer open.
She knew exactly where to look—fingers diving straight to the very back, digging around—
Her expression stiffened.
I stood beside her with my arms crossed.
"Find anything?"
She pulled her hand back empty.
Nothing. She'd found nothing.
I'd expected this. The moment I noticed something extra had been planted in my drawer, I'd thrown it away.
Susan wasn't about to let it go that easily.
She suddenly crouched down, scooped up a black lipstick tube from under my chair, and held it up with exaggerated shock.
"Isn't this my lipstick?!"
"Wasn't the one you lost supposed to have a silver case?"
