My roommate claimed he didn't even have enough money left to buy groceries, begging me to pass along one of my private tutoring clients. Instead of handing over a contact, I simply forwarded a generic message into our department group chat: "Brett is looking for private tutoring gigs. If anyone has open slots or leads, please reach out to him." In my previous life, I had been the consummate nice guy. I gave him the eighth-grade student I’d spent an entire year mentoring. A week later, Brett burst into the conference room during my direct-track master’s fellowship interview, his clothes torn and disheveled. "Evan set me up! He told me they were a lovely family, but the minute I walked in, the mother accused me of inappropriate conduct and tried to extort me for thousands..." "He even took a three-hundred-dollar referral kickback behind my back..." Right there on the spot, our academic advisor suspended me, threatening to call campus security over alleged conspiracy and fraud. I lost my fellowship. I was forced to withdraw. My face was plastered all over campus confession boards, drowned in relentless vitriol, until even my parents stopped answering my calls. It wasn't until after I died that the truth surfaced: Brett had targeted that wealthy mother from the very beginning. He had tried to seduce her, and when she threatened to call the police, he scrambled for a scapegoat—and destroyed me to save himself. In this life, I wanted to see who he would pin it on when my name was nowhere near the paper trail. 1 "Evan... do you have some kind of problem with me?" Brett’s face was dark, pinched with resentment. Dustin and Troy flanked him like personal bodyguards. Dustin tossed an arm over Brett’s shoulder, glaring across the room at me. "Evan, if you didn't want to help, you could've just said no. Was it really necessary to humiliate him in front of the whole cohort?" Troy chimed in, nodding vigorously. "Seriously. You’re already giving up your slots because of your grad prep anyway. Why not just pass your client to Brett? Why make a massive public spectacle out of it?" I set my phone face-down on the desk, meeting their eyes with flat, unbothered composure. "Why put all your eggs in my basket? The cohort has better connections than I do. More people, more opportunities." Dustin pointed an accusatory finger at me, choking on his own indignation. Brett’s jaw twitched. A sour smile crept onto his lips. "Forget it. It's my own fault for being useless. I shouldn't have burdened anyone." With a dramatic flourish, he shook off Dustin’s arm and stormed out of the dorm. Dustin and Troy immediately scrambled after him. Before disappearing down the hall, Dustin shot a venomous glare over his shoulder. "You’ve really crossed a line this time, Evan." The next morning, a notification popped up in the dorm group chat. "Hey guys, mind helping me out with a quick referral discount for this ride-share app? Thanks a ton!" Brett attached a promotional link. Dustin replied within seconds: "Where are you headed so early, Brett?" Brett: "First session with a new student. Just locked down a private tutoring gig." Troy jumped in immediately: "Damn, man! That was fast! How's the pay?" Brett's response carried an unmistakable smugness: "Fifty an hour, plus covered travel expenses. Gated community in the hills. The parents are loaded and super generous." Dustin: "Fifty? Isn't that what Evan used to charge?" Troy: "Talk about luck. First try and you land a gold mine." The group chat exploded with envious praise. Over the days that followed, Brett became a ghost, slipping in late and leaving at dawn. Dustin kept preaching to anyone who would listen about how Brett was "grinding like crazy" just to stay afloat. A week later. The graduate fellowship interview room. Across the mahogany table, the lead professor listened to my research proposal and nodded, a look of genuine approval in his eyes. "Your logic is rigorous, Evan, and your theoretical foundation is remarkably broad. Well done." Just as the knot in my chest began to loosen, the heavy double doors at the back of the auditorium slammed open. Brett stood in the threshold. His button-down was ripped halfway open, red scratches streaking his neck and collarbone. His hair was matted, his eyes wild with calculated fury. The moment he spotted me, he charged down the center aisle. "Evan! Why the hell did you set me up?!" The room plummeted into absolute silence. The panel of professors stiffened. The lead interviewer frowned deeply, his voice cutting through the chill. "What is the meaning of this? Who authorized you to interrupt this session?" Brett pointed a trembling finger straight at my face, his voice cracking with theatrical anguish. "Professors... I’m Evan’s roommate, Brett. I am formally requesting that his fellowship eligibility be revoked immediately. He’s morally bankrupt. He tricked me into taking a tutoring gig, but the moment I arrived, the woman there assaulted me, screamed at me, and threatened to ruin my life by accusing me of harassment if I didn't pay her off!" He swallowed hard, tears brimming in his bloodshot eyes. "Evan took a three-hundred-dollar broker fee from her. He’s running a predatory extortion ring targeting students!" A collective gasp rippled through the room. Our academic advisor, Mr. Briggs, hurried in right behind him, his face pale and furious as he grabbed Brett by the elbow. "Evan Murphy, step outside. Right now." I remained where I stood, my feet planted firmly, my tone ice-cold. "I never referred him to a single client. Are you telling me a baseless accusation is enough to disqualify me from a fellowship I've spent three years earning?" Brett snapped, his eyes flashing with raw malice. "Who else could it have been?! The kid is an eighth-grader—the exact same boy you spent the last year tutoring! Nobody else on this campus had their address or contact info!" In the back rows, a couple of student proctors began whispering. "Wait, didn't Evan post in the group chat asking around for tutoring jobs for him last week?" "Holy shit... is that actually true? I thought Evan was the department golden boy." Every gaze in the room turned on me like needles—doubt, disgust, malicious schadenfreude. It was an exact, suffocating mirror of the nightmare that had swallowed me whole in my past life. 2 The professor who had been nodding with warm approval just moments before now looked at me with deep, bitter disappointment. He set his pen down on the evaluation sheet, exchanged a grim glance with the committee chair, and gave a faint shake of his head. "Students these days... so desperate for shortcuts. Throwing their futures away before their careers even begin." An older female faculty member sighed, her tone carrying just enough weight to carry across the quiet hall. "It’s a shame. Top of his class every semester, and he resorts to something so sordid. A fellowship would be utterly wasted on someone lacking basic integrity." A few careless sentences, and my guilt was already etched in stone. I turned to Brett, locking eyes with him. "You insist I introduced you. Where is the proof? Do you have a single text message? An email? A paper trail?" He hesitated for a fraction of a second before shouting louder, leaning into his righteous outrage. "You set the whole thing up in person in our room! Of course you’re going to deny it now that the cops might get involved!" He turned toward the open doorway, clutching his chest with an expression of performative remorse. "I’m so sorry, everyone... I didn't mean to disrupt the interview schedule... I just couldn't sit by and watch him trap another innocent student..." The candidates waiting in the hallway outside, already fraying from competitive anxiety, seized on the disruption. "Can you take this outside? Some of us have been preparing for this interview for eight months!" "Why should our futures be delayed because of his dirty laundry?" "Blame Evan! He's the one running scams on his own roommates!" The chorus of resentment grew, neatly shifting the blame entirely onto my shoulders. It seemed that as long as I accepted the blame, everyone else’s orderly little world could return to normal. Mr. Briggs grabbed my arm, his grip uncomfortably tight. "Enough! We are taking this to the administrative office. Do not make another scene!" I was marched down the hall to the department suite. Brett was escorted by a campus paramedic to the health center for an evaluation. The moment the office door clicked shut, Mr. Briggs turned on me, his voice trembling with suppressed rage. "Evan, do you have any idea how catastrophic this is? Sponsoring extortion? Shaking down private clients? If this leaks to the press, our entire department’s accreditation and reputation will be dragged through the mud!" "I didn't do it." "If you didn't do it, why would Brett single you out?!" Mr. Briggs slammed a hand onto his desk, cutting me off. "The preliminary decision from the dean's office is clear: you are suspended pending investigation. You will vacate your dorm room immediately." I looked directly into his eyes. I had heard these exact words before. In my previous life, I was terrified, riddled with unwarranted guilt, wondering if I had somehow misjudged the family and inadvertently caused Brett's suffering. I had even visited Brett at the infirmary, bowing my head and apologizing through tears. I complied with the suspension. I packed my bags in shame. I quietly signed the withdrawal papers. And the more I yielded, the deeper they buried me. By the end, the label of "predator" and "extortionist" was glued to my skin. My degree vanished. My family disowned me. And when I finally swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills in a drafty, rented studio, I died believing I was the one who had failed. It was only when my soul lingered in the air after death that I heard Brett bragging over drinks with his fraternity brothers: "Did Evan really scam you back then?" "Hell no. But how else was I supposed to snatch that fellowship? I wanted that rich MILF's money, but the bitch turned me down and threatened to call the cops. Evan was just the easiest collateral." By then, he had graduated with honors and stepped into a six-figure consulting firm—living the life he had stolen from my corpse. The memory burned through my veins like ice. "I demand a formal evidentiary review," I said, my voice steady and immovably calm. "Until an official investigation concludes, I will not accept a suspension, and I will not withdraw from the fellowship selection." Mr. Briggs froze, clearly unprepared for defiance. Before he could unleash another tirade, his phone began buzzing incessantly on the blotter. I didn't need to look. The student message boards, the cohort threads, the campus social media pages—it was spreading like wildfire. Mr. Briggs scrambled to answer, desperately barking orders to take down threads and delete posts. I reached down, picked up my backpack, and slung it over my shoulder. It was useless. Some fires cannot be smothered in the dark. In my past life, they tried to bury the truth to preserve the university's image, and the rumors festered until they consumed me. This time, I was going to let the blaze burn as high as it wanted. 3 When I reached the door of room 402, my footsteps came to a halt. My suitcase lay open on the hallway linoleum. Textbooks, class notes, and toiletries were scattered across the floor, kicked and trampled. Inside, my mattress had been stripped, smeared with dirt and black boot prints. Dustin was perched on the edge of his bed. When he caught me standing in the doorway, his gaze darted away in shame. "What happened here?" I asked quietly, kneeling to gather my scattered notebooks. "Earlier... Brett brought some guys from the rugby club up here," Dustin muttered, staring at the floorboards. "They called you a scammer. They said if Troy and I kept letting you live here, they'd jump us too." He swallowed, his voice barely audible. "Evan... maybe you should just crash at a motel for a few days? Just until things blow over..." I lifted my head and looked at him. "Until things blow over? Dustin, we’ve lived together for three years. Do you really believe I’m capable of this?" In my past life, Dustin had been my closest friend on campus. I had saved seats for him in lecture halls, brought him takeout when he was sick, and tutored him through organic chemistry. Yet he had been the very first person to post a public statement disavowing our friendship. Dustin’s mouth twitched, but he couldn't bring himself to meet my eyes. I didn't waste another breath. I packed my belongings into the suitcase, item by item, snapping the latch shut. That night, Brett posted on his Instagram story. It was a close-up of an IV drip stand in a sterile hospital room, capturing his pale, limp wrist in the foreground. "I just hope kindness still means something in this world. Watch who you trust." Within an hour, dozens of comments poured in, showering him with sympathy while cursing the "nameless broker" to hell. I opened the campus Reddit board. The anonymous threads were dozens of pages deep. Someone had compiled a meticulous "master timeline." They included a screenshot of my generic group chat message, followed by fabricated testimonials claiming I had previously trafficked male students into "high-paying escort gigs." Combined with Brett's hospital photo, the outrage was explosive. My full name, student ID, major, photos, and even my parents’ small-town business addresses were doxxed and posted in public threads. "Expel this piece of trash before he stains the whole university." "Apples don't fall far from the tree. Look at his parents' shop—boycott them." "@CampusAdmin do your damn job and give the victim justice!" I quietly took screenshots of every single post, every username, and every timestamp. I zipped them into a folder and sent them directly to the legal counsel I had retained two days prior. The cowards hiding behind anonymous handles were going to learn what consequences felt like. The next morning, Mr. Briggs summoned me back to his office. He slid a pre-printed document across the desk. It was a standard template for a formal confession and voluntary withdrawal. "Evan, I spent all night advocating for you with the dean," Mr. Briggs said, rubbing his temples with an air of exhausted benevolence. "Sign this statement of regret, make a formal public apology to Brett, and submit your voluntary withdrawal." He leaned forward. "If you withdraw voluntarily, we won't put disciplinary misconduct on your permanent transcript. It won't follow you into the workforce." I looked down at the crisp white paper and let out a soft, humorless laugh. "I did nothing wrong. Why would I sign a confession?" Mr. Briggs’s face darkened instantly. "Don't be reckless, Evan! If the disciplinary board convenes, you will be formally expelled with a permanent record of moral turpitude. Your academic life will be over!" "Then let the formal investigation proceed." I pushed the paper back across the mahogany desk. "If that’s all, Mr. Briggs, I have an appointment." As I stepped into the carpeted corridor, I found Brett waiting at the far corner. He was wearing an oversized, wrinkled gray sweater, his fringe hanging low over hollow, shadowed eyes. He looked like the picture of a broken victim. In my past life, that exact performance had completely dismantled my defenses. During our sophomore year, when his financial aid fell through, I spent two weeks running between administrative offices to secure him an emergency grant. When he was hospitalized with acute gastroenteritis, I stayed by his bedside for three days straight, fetching water and keeping him company. He used to call me his brother. And then he threw me off a cliff without blinking. Seeing me approach, Brett gritted his teeth and lowered his voice to a desperate whisper. "Evan... just sign the paper and take the hit." He reached out, his fingers clutching at my sleeve. "You’ve always had top grades. You have options. You can transfer, you can start over. But I have nothing... I need this fellowship, Evan. Can't you just help me one last time?" I ripped my arm out of his grasp with enough force to make him stumble back. "No." I stared down at him, my voice devoid of warmth. "Brett, don't confuse my past decency for an obligation. I don't owe you a single thing." I brushed past his shoulder without looking back. Behind me, I could feel his gaze burning into my spine—raw, poisonous malice that wished I would simply cease to exist. 4 On the third morning, the auxiliary conference room was packed to capacity. Mr. Briggs was there, alongside student government representatives, the department chair, and two counselors from the university psychological services tasked with "evaluating my mental stability." The moment I stepped through the double doors, every pair of eyes locked onto me. The chairs had been arranged in a wide semicircle, leaving a single wooden seat isolated in the exact center. A modern-day pillory. Brett sat in the front row beside his girlfriend, Kayla, his left wrist wrapped in a thick, dramatic layer of white gauze. Muffled whispers drifted across the room. "I heard Brett tried to slit his wrists two nights ago... his roommate barely found him in time." "God, that’s horrifying. Imagine facing criminal charges and massive debt before you even graduate because your own roommate pimped you out." "I'd lose my mind too. Evan is a sociopath." I walked past them without a flicker of emotion and sat down in the center chair. Mr. Briggs cleared his throat, adjusting the stack of files before him. "We have convened this hearing to announce the department's preliminary disciplinary actions regarding Evan Murphy’s alleged involvement in predatory referral schemes resulting in physical and psychological trauma to a fellow student." Before he could finish, Brett pushed himself up from his chair, his eyes red and brimming with tears. "Mr. Briggs... I want to ask for leniency for Evan." He choked back a sob, looking around the room with noble martyrdom. "He probably just made a terrible mistake in judgment. I... I don't hold a grudge against him." A collective wave of sympathetic murmurs rippled through the spectators. "He’s actually an angel... defending the guy who destroyed him?" "Brett has always been too soft-hearted. That’s why Evan took advantage of him." I sat with my hands folded in my lap, watching his performance with clinical detachment. Mr. Briggs nodded approvingly. "Student Brett’s magnanimity is commendable. However, university policy and legal boundaries must be upheld." He paused, casting a cold, authoritative glance across the room at me. "Following department deliberation, the board recommends that Evan Murphy be formally dismissed from the university and that all relevant findings be forwarded to law enforcement for criminal review. He is instructed to complete his campus exit procedures within seventy-two hours." A smattering of self-righteous applause broke out in the back. "Finally! A decisive call." "Get him off our campus!" I stood up. "I reject this ruling." The room snapped into sudden, suffocating silence. Mr. Briggs’s brow furrowed, his voice rising in sharp reprimand. "Evan, are you still refusing to show remorse?" I turned, addressing the entire room. "Why should I show remorse for something I did not do? You have produced no material evidence, no digital footprint, and no independent corroboration. You are passing an expulsion decree based entirely on the unverified testimony of one person." Mr. Briggs slammed his palm onto the table. "Brett is physically injured! We have his testimony, the medical report, and your own post in the group chat! What more do you want to dispute?!" "A unilateral accusation without due process cannot strip a student of their constitutional right to education," I replied, my voice slicing through the room with absolute clarity. "I have already filed paperwork for injunctive relief with the district court, and a formal complaint has been submitted to the State Department of Education." I turned my gaze directly onto Brett, my eyes narrowing. "Furthermore, I have filed a criminal complaint against Brett for intentional defamation and fraudulent misrepresentation." Brett’s face drained of color. He stood up hastily. "Evan, stop bluffing... I know you're stressed, but—" Before he could finish, the heavy wooden doors of the conference room were violently shoved open from the outside with a deafening "bang". I allowed a faint, quiet smile to touch my lips. Right on time. My witness had arrived.
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