Chapter 2

"These are my materials." I pulled the stack of papers out from Megan's bookshelf, confronting her at the same time.

She did not even look up. "You can't use them anymore, so I'm using them for you. You didn't get the recommendation anyway, so it would be a waste if we just left it there."

My fingers tightened around the papers, but I said nothing.

But what truly crossed the line for me was the day I came back to the dorm early.

The door was unlocked, and Megan was sitting in my chair as she went through my hard drive. My computer was switched on, and the screen showed the academic materials for another project. She was taking screenshots, page by page.

"What are you doing?" I stood in the doorway, my voice cold.

She lazily spun the chair around. "Just looking for some materials. Why are you so uptight?"

Then, she stood up and walked to my desk, tearing my dream university poster off the wall. She tore the poster in half, throwing it on the floor and stepping on it.

I had looked at it every night before going to sleep for three years…

"You think you deserve to go to this school?" She sneered.

I stared at the torn poster, and I could feel something inside of me crack.

That night, I pulled screenshots from the surveillance footage of Megan secretly using my meal card and hiding my math competition application form. After blocking out the private information, I posted them in the class group chat and demanded that she apologize and return everything within three days, or I would call the police.

After the message went out, the chat stayed silent for a moment.

Then, a message popped up.

Lily Smith, the department's admin, tagged me in the group: [@NellySullivan, you're slandering another student in the chat, and it's ruining the atmosphere in the college. Delete this immediately and make a public apology.]

I stared at the screen, sure I had read it wrong.

Then Megan sent me a private message. It was a string of smug reaction images, followed by one line: [My cousin works in the department. Do you really think you can beat me?]

I did not reply.

The next morning, I returned to the dorm and found that three months of research materials for the National Innovation Contest, which I had locked inside my drawer, were gone. I searched the whole dorm and finally found them in the hallway trash can. Every page had been torn to pieces.

Dawn Lynch, another of my dorm mates, saw me crouching there picking up the scraps. She sighed and said, "Megan threw them out this morning. She tore them up pretty thoroughly."

I crouched on the floor and picked them up, piece by piece.

Then, my phone suddenly vibrated.

I looked down. It was an email from the Patent Office. The utility model patent I had spent half a year applying for had passed preliminary review, and the official certificate would be issued within three days.

Holding my phone, I crouched in front of the shredded paper and laughed.

Megan came out of the dorm still in her slippers. As she passed by the trash can, she stepped on the scraps on purpose. "Oh? Those were your prep materials for the contest? I thought they were just useless scrap paper, so I threw them out for you. No need to thank me."

I gathered the scraps and stood up before stuffing them all into a trash bag. Then I looked up at her. For the first time, I did not look away. "Megan, every piece of paper you stepped on will become evidence against you."

She paused, then laughed. "Trying to scare me? Is that all you can do?"

I did not argue.

Because she would know that not a word I said was a joke three days later.

On the day of the National Innovation Contest's defense segment for the university level, I realized I had left the USB drive with my slides in the dorm.

I called my roommate and asked her to bring it over. The other end went quiet for two seconds. "Megan already went to the venue with the drive. She said it was hers."

My heart sank.

By the time I reached the lecture room where the defense was taking place, Megan was already onstage. My presentation was projected clearly on the screen, and the first slide read, "Project lead, Megan Williams."