Part 2I Kept The Receipts This Time

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.