I Traded Three Years of Love for One Perfect Revenge Chapter 05
I stared at my mother lying there, tubes running from her body, and felt something inside me tear apart.
The doctor had just spoken with me.
The surgery had saved her life, but her recovery and rehabilitation were going to cost far more than I had left.
Every dollar I’d managed to borrow was already gone.
I pulled out my phone, hoping to find some kind of remote job I could do from the hospital.
Instead, Brielle’s latest Instagram post appeared on my feed.
[Romantic European getaway, courtesy of Cole. Love you!]
The photo showed her posing beneath the Eiffel Tower.
The diamond pendant necklace Cole had given her hung around her neck.
She held the latest iPhone, worth well over a thousand dollars.
She was beaming.
And the money she was blowing on that study-abroad trip was money I’d earned working day after day until my legs were swollen and aching—money that was supposed to help save my mother’s life!
I bit down on my lip so hard I tasted blood.
I didn’t leave an angry comment.
—
I quietly took screenshots of the Instagram post and saved them with the bank-transfer records I already had.
Then I contacted a local legal aid clinic.
I was going to sue Cole.
I was going to get back every dollar that belonged to me.
Three days later, my mother’s condition finally stabilized enough for her to be moved to a regular hospital room.
I spent the last of my money on a private caregiver for a few days, then took an overnight bus back to campus.
Exams were coming up, but that wasn’t the only reason I returned.
The first-year dean had sent me message after message, all of them stern, ordering me to report to the office immediately.
Exhausted, I pushed open the office door.
A ceramic mug slammed into the floor at my feet and shattered, sending shards skittering across my shoes.
“You’ve got some nerve showing your face here!”
The first-year dean pointed a finger in my face and berated me.
I looked up and finally noticed Cole and Brielle standing in the room too.
Brielle’s eyes were swollen and red. She had obviously been crying.
Cole had an arm wrapped tightly around her shoulders and was staring at me like I was his worst enemy.
—
“Look what you’ve done!”
The dean flung a copy of the campus newspaper straight at my face.
The front page featured a photo of Brielle giving the first-year address.
Above it, black type on a red banner read:
“ALDERCREST FIRST-YEAR SPEAKER ACCUSED OF PLAGIARISM IN CONVOCATION DEBACLE”
I looked at the three of them without a trace of warmth.
“What does this have to do with me?”
“You’re the ones who took the speaking spot.”
Brielle suddenly lunged at me and grabbed the front of my shirt.
“Quit pretending you don’t know!”
“You were jealous of me, so when you handed over the speech materials, you deliberately slipped a plagiarized draft into my files!”
“You humiliated me in front of the entire university!”
“The plagiarism checker flagged it, and now I’m facing serious disciplinary action!”
Cole stepped forward and shoved me away.
I stumbled backward and slammed my lower back into the sharp corner of the desk. Pain shot through me.
“You’re vicious,” Cole said through clenched teeth.
—
“If you couldn’t have the spotlight, you had to destroy Brielle instead.”
“How did I never realize how devious you were?”
I stared at the three of them twisting everything around and could barely believe what I was hearing.
“I wrote that speech myself, line by line, staying up night after night. I still have a saved copy of the similarity report.”
“You used somebody else’s old speech, got caught, and now you’re blaming me?”
I pulled out my phone, ready to pull up the document’s version history and prove I had written it.
Cole scoffed.
“Save it.”
“The dean didn’t call you in here just because of the speech.”
“How did Brielle’s $4,000 diamond pendant necklace end up under your bed?”