Part 1Campus Scandal: My "Sugar Daddy" is Actually My Uncle

At the Top Ten Outstanding Undergraduates award ceremony, I had just stepped onto the podium when the giant projector screen suddenly went black.

A second later, dozens of explicit, damning text message screenshots popped up on the screen.

The audience of two thousand students and faculty erupted into a massive uproar.

The sender was me. The recipient was Liam Sterling, the brilliant, undisputed golden boy of the Finance Department, sitting right in the front row.

The screenshots were filled with my texts:

[Out of cash, Venmo me $1,000.]

[I’m crashing at your apartment tonight, leave the door unlocked.]

[If you don't give me money, I’ll harass you every day until your reputation is ruined.]

The sorority president grabbed a microphone, stormed the stage, and pointed at me with righteous fury:

"Everyone, look closely! Harper isn't some innocent straight-A student. She is a gold digger who has been shamelessly harassing and extorting Liam for money!"

"A toxic, shameless parasite like her doesn't deserve to stand on this stage and accept an award!"

Countless eyes stabbed into me like knives, filled with absolute disgust. The university administrators' faces turned pale with fury.

The sorority president glared at me triumphantly.

* * *

At the Top Ten Outstanding Undergraduates award ceremony, I had just stepped onto the podium when the giant projector screen suddenly went black.

A second later, dozens of explicit, damning text message screenshots popped up on the screen.

The audience of two thousand students and faculty erupted into a massive uproar.

The sender was me. The recipient was Liam Sterling, the brilliant, undisputed golden boy of the Finance Department, sitting right in the front row.

The screenshots were filled with my texts:

[Out of cash, Venmo me $1,000.]

[I’m crashing at your apartment tonight, leave the door unlocked.]

[If you don't give me money, I’ll harass you every day until your reputation is ruined.]

Chloe Vance, the campus queen bee, grabbed a microphone, stormed the stage, and pointed at me with righteous fury:

"Everyone, look closely! Harper isn't some innocent straight-A student. She is a gold digger who has been shamelessly harassing and extorting Liam for money!"

"A toxic, shameless parasite like her doesn't deserve to stand on this stage and accept an award!"

Countless eyes stabbed into me like knives. The administrators looked furious.

Chloe glared at me triumphantly. "Harper, Liam might be too polite to call the cops, but today you are going to publicly confess your disgusting, predatory behavior!"

I stared at those "extortion" texts on the screen and rubbed my temples in sheer exhaustion.

Wait a minute.

Liam Sterling is my biological uncle. My grandma had him incredibly late in life.

I was just shaking my own uncle down for my allowance and crashing at his place for free food.

How did that make me a shameless sugar baby?

......

Liam Sterling is my biological uncle.

Nobody at school knew this.

It wasn't that I was intentionally hiding it.

It was because on my very first day of college, Liam cornered me outside the library and laid down three strict rules with a totally deadpan face.

"Don't call me Uncle on campus."

"Don't tell anyone we're related."

"Why?"

"I'm a junior. If you walk around calling me Uncle, what does that make me sound like?"

"Like a senior citizen."

"Go tell your grandmother she should have had me twenty years later."

He turned to leave.

I yelled after him.

"What am I supposed to do when I run out of food money?!"

Without even looking back, he tossed a sleek black debit card over his shoulder.

"Text me. Let me know when it's empty."

From then on, we acted like total strangers on campus.

He was the absolute ceiling of the Finance Department. He swept the national merit scholarships every year, was ridiculously handsome, and was basically worshipped as the campus god.

I was a freshman in the Journalism program, as painfully average as a plain bagel in the dining hall.

No one would ever associate the two of us.

Until Chloe Vance fell hard for Liam.

I don't know how she managed to get her hands on my text thread with him.

Most likely, she found someone to snoop through his phone when he had to surrender it during the Finance Department's locked-in Case Competition Week.

She found out that Liam transferred money to me every month. She found out I went to his luxury apartment every other day. She found out I used his credit card to buy three cases of oat milk at the grocery store.

But she didn't find out how we were related.

And she didn't care.

A freshman girl frequently going to the campus golden boy's apartment and spending his money—that was all the evidence she needed to brand me.

The award ceremony was abruptly canceled.

The university administrators called me into the office.

My academic advisor, Mr. Davis, sat to the side looking like he had just swallowed a box of chalk.

"Harper, explain these text messages."

I said, "That is a completely normal conversation between family members."

"Family members?" Mr. Davis frowned.

"You are not listed anywhere on Liam’s emergency contact or family info."

"He's my..."

"Are you going to try and claim he's your boyfriend?"

Chloe Vance had slipped into the office at some point. She sat down, her eyes perfectly rimmed with fake, sympathetic tears.

"Mr. Davis, she's been telling people she has a 'special relationship' with Liam for weeks. We all tried to warn her to stop, but she wouldn't listen."

Mr. Davis looked at her, then back at me.

"Harper, Chloe is the Vice President of the Student Government. She has no reason to frame you."

"Go back to your dorm and write a formal statement explaining your actions."

"Your award eligibility is officially frozen."

I opened my mouth.

I wanted to say that she was the only one who had a reason to frame me.

But Chloe had already kindly pulled the office door open for me.

She stepped aside and whispered:

"I'm not targeting you, underclassman."

"I just think some things need to be brought into the light."

She was a sophomore.

She sounded as polite as a court subpoena.

When I walked out of the office, my phone was already blowing up.

The top trending post on the campus Reddit page:

[SHOCKING! Top Student Harper Exposed as a Gold Digger Harassing Liam Sterling! Texts Inside!]

The top-voted comment:

[No wonder she's always wearing such nice clothes in the dining hall. Now we know how she pays for them.]

I looked down at the oversized coat I was wearing.

It was a coat Liam threw at me because he claimed it was the wrong size.

He said it made him look fat.

A guy who is 6'2" with 10% body fat told me it made him look fat.

When my grandmother gave birth to him, she must have accidentally left his brain in the delivery room.

I pulled out my phone and texted Liam.

[Uncle, emergency. Your crazy fangirl just blasted our texts on the projector screen.]

The message bounced back with a red exclamation mark. Message Not Delivered.

His phone was confiscated for Competition Week.

He had basically vanished off the face of the earth.

Great.

My biological uncle is MIA.

His niece is socially executed.

This family is falling apart.