Chapter 2

Chloe walked in carrying a cardboard carrier of sodas, a sweet, radiant smile plastered across her face.

"Mia, here’s your Diet Coke. Emma, regular for you."

She handed them out, then stopped right in front of my desk with the last can in her hand.

"Oh, oops. I totally forgot yours."

Her voice was sickly sweet.

"Then again, you never drink soda anyway, right? You're always obsessing over your figure."

Mia and Emma exchanged awkward glances and kept quiet.

I leaned back in my chair and stared at her. "Chloe, are you done performing?"

Her smile stiffened.

"Do you want to repeat what you wrote in the group chat to my face?"

"What is there to repeat?"

She crossed her arms defensively.

"I only said the truth."

"The truth?"

I stood up.

"The truth is that you begged to tag along with me. The truth is that I rewrote three drafts of your resume for you. And the truth is that you dumped your own coffee, tried to sabotage me, and ended up ruining your own paper."

"You—"

"What about me? Did you really think a single cup of coffee could stop me?"

"I had three backup copies printed in my bag. You didn't even know that, because you were too lazy to print your own and didn't even know what mine looked like."

Chloe’s cheeks flushed crimson.

Mia stifled a snort of laughter, quickly covering her mouth.

Emma added softly, "Chloe, did you misunderstand something? Harper has always been really good to you."

"Good to me?!"

Chloe's voice suddenly turned shrill.

"She's good to me? If she cared about me, would she let me embarrass myself in front of the interviewer? If she cared about me, wouldn't she have told me today was business formal?!"

I couldn't help but scoff.

"Business formal? Last Wednesday, I said three times right in this room that today's interview required a suit. You literally answered, 'Yeah, yeah, got it.' I even reminded you in the group chat!"

"I—"

"What else do you want to lie about? Do you want me to pull up the chat history right now?"

Chloe’s lips trembled.

She spun around toward Mia and Emma. "Are you going to believe her or me?!"

Mia clutched her Diet Coke, looking thoroughly uncomfortable. "Guys, please stop fighting..."

Emma tried to play peacemaker too. "Let's just calm down. It’s probably a misunderstanding."

Chloe stood frozen in the middle of the room, her chest heaving.

I sat back down and opened my laptop.

"Get out. I need to prep for another interview next week."

She bit her lip, stood there glaring for a few seconds, then slammed the door on her way out.

The dorm went quiet.

Mia leaned in. "Harper, what is wrong with her? You helped her so much, why is she acting like this?"

"I don't know."

My fingers hovered over the keyboard.

Ever since freshman year, I had treated Chloe well.

Her family struggled financially. During our first month, she couldn't even afford meal points, so I covered her groceries.

She didn't know how to use PowerPoint, so I taught her step by step.

When finals came around and she had no idea what to study, I photocopied all my study guides and gave them to her.

On her birthday, when nobody else remembered, I took her out for a nice dinner.

I thought she remembered those things.

Now I realized she only remembered the things I supposedly didn't do for her.

Whatever.

I had no classes that afternoon, so I spent hours studying in the library. By the time I walked back, the sun had already set.

When I opened the door, Mia and Emma looked even more stressed than they had that morning.

"What happened now?"

Mia handed me her phone, whispering, "Look at the class group chat."

My stomach dropped. I unlocked my phone.

The entire class GroupMe was blowing up.