Chapter 2

And now he had the nerve to call me a bully?

Looking at Elmer's face, twisted with resentment, I couldn't help thinking back to the day he'd first arrived at school. He'd been stooped and hunched then, wearing clothes so worn and washed-out they'd gone gray, hanging off his skinny frame. We'd ended up in the same dorm room.

The rest of us had all bought nicer mattresses and pretty bed curtains, grumbling about how the room was too small to fit all our clothes.

Elmer slept on a bare, rock-hard bunk. He barely had more than a couple of shirts to his name.

Whenever he had a spare hour, he went looking for part-time work.

Forget enjoying college life—he could barely afford to eat. More than once, other students caught him picking food out of the trash cans.

After that, everyone kept their distance. Nobody would even sit next to him, afraid they'd catch whatever smell clung to him.

I felt for him—a kid that young, and he couldn't even get a decent meal. So I started helping him out.

Worried he'd feel too embarrassed to accept charity, I'd order a fresh meal every time and hand it to him, claiming I didn't want it and asking him to throw it away for me.

That was how I ended up covering his three meals a day. He stopped digging through trash cans, and slowly, the color came back into his cheeks.

A month into this, he came to find me, wanting to say thank you.

"Julian, I know you've been giving me freshly ordered food this whole time. I know you were just trying to help me. Thank you. But starting today, I don't need it anymore.

"My family's poor to begin with, and now my mother's gotten seriously sick. We can't afford for me to keep going to school."

I felt for him—so young, and already carrying the weight of his whole family. So I offered to cover his tuition and let him keep studying. To make sure he could focus completely on his classes, I covered his school fees and his living expenses too.

The only thing I asked in return was that he come with me whenever I went to class.

My private tutoring sessions were expensive, and they covered skills that actually mattered once you started working. I wanted him to learn alongside me—not because I wanted a servant, but because I didn't want him depending on other people for the rest of his life. I wanted to give him something of his own to stand on in this world.

Elmer had been so moved he'd dropped straight to his knees and thanked me.

"Julian, you're such a good person. I'll pay you back someday, I promise."

I never expected gratitude or repayment from anyone I helped. I pulled him back up quickly.

"We're classmates. Friends, even. You don't need to do that."

I'd never asked him to wait on me. It was his own idea—he kept saying he felt bad, so he insisted on bringing me meals and cleaning my room. Every time, I gave him extra money for his trouble, like a tip for running errands.

That was all the help I'd meant to give him at first. It was Elmer himself who kept dropping little complaints, digging for more.

One day, he'd grumble about how classes ate up all his time and left him no room to work a part-time job. The next, he'd sigh about how envious he was of the other guys who could afford game consoles, who could dress sharp and look their age.

So whatever he wanted, I gave him. I bought him a game console. I bought him new clothes. I even bumped his allowance up to fifty dollars a day.

Every time he took the money, he'd smile so brightly.

If it weren't for me, he would've dropped out long ago and be doing who-knows-what kind of odd job somewhere.

And this was the same person who now claimed I'd been bullying him, that I'd ruined his college years, that I'd treated him like a slave.

It was almost funny.

I let out a scornful laugh, but before I could say anything, Elmer cut in first.

"I bought everyone in this class a luxury bag, to thank them for looking out for me these past three years. Except one person, of course."

Elmer bought all forty-three of our classmates a luxury bag—each one worth tens of thousands of dollars, the kind of thing someone at his supposed station in life had no business affording.