Delulu Roommate Goes Rogue

I'm the ultimate soft touch. My dirt-poor roommate used to survive by digging through trash cans for food. Pity got the better of me, so I covered his tuition, his living expenses, and slipped him fifty dollars a day out of my own pocket. My only condition: he had to tag along whenever I went to my private tutoring sessions. I thought he was grateful for it. Then, junior year, he strutted into the classroom head to toe in designer labels and hurled fifty coins in my face in front of the whole class. "Fifty a day, and you treated me like your personal slave for three years—dragged me along to sit through lectures I couldn't even follow, humiliated me every step of the way! "Well, guess what? My real father just tracked me down. He's a billionaire, and he handed me a black card with no spending limit. Here's your fifty back. I'm done being your errand boy. "And I'll never turn into some arrogant jerk just because I've got a little money—unlike you!" Then he handed out luxury bags to everyone in the class except me. The whole room fell for it instantly, chanting, "Long live Elmer!" I stared at the forty-three purchase notifications that had just popped up on my phone and went quiet. I checked again. My black card—the one my father had given me—was gone. Everything clicked into place. The rich long-lost father? All fake. He'd simply stolen my black card, played dress-up as a billionaire's son, and stomped on me on his way up. Without a word, I made one phone call. And transferred the black card into his name. He'd clearly watched too many soap operas—he thought a black card was some kind of savings account. He had no idea it was just a credit card with a higher limit, and every cent he spent on it, he'd owe back. Chapter 1 Fifty coins hit me square in the face. It wasn't just my skin that stung. My chest ached worse. I stared, dumbfounded, at Elmer Chapman—my roommate, the one I'd been bankrolling for three years. He wasn't the same Elmer who used to shuffle around in washed-out, oversized shirts, timid and apologetic. He stood in the season's newest designer clothes, chin tilted up, looking down at me like something he'd scraped off his shoe. "Julian Whitmore, don't think I don't know exactly what you've been up to. I was grateful to you once. You gave me a full stomach when I had nothing. But do you have any idea what that meal actually cost me? "I brought you three meals a day. I cleaned your room. I followed you around like your personal errand boy. You even dragged me to your lectures, no matter how much I hated it. "Don't feed me that 'I just wanted to help you' garbage. All you did was drop some pocket change and buy yourself a live-in servant. "And me? I was supposed to be a college student enjoying my best years. Instead you enslaved me, day after day, until I could barely breathe. "Real charity doesn't expect anything in return. But you just liked feeling superior—you got off on humiliating someone poorer than you! "You're selfish, you're a hypocrite through and through, and I'm done associating with you. "Here's your fifty dollars back. Now you get to know what it feels like to be humiliated for once." The rest of the class turned to gawk at me, whispering among themselves. "Everyone always said Julian was such a good guy, always helping people out. Who knew he was actually bullying Elmer behind closed doors? "Fifty bucks bought him a slave for three years? That's a steal. I want a bargain like that too." Listening to Elmer's tirade, and to the classmates snickering around us, I felt a chill creep down to my fingertips. He'd only mentioned the fifty dollars. What he'd conveniently left out was that it wasn't fifty dollars over three years—it was fifty dollars a day, every single day, for the entire three years I'd been supporting him. On top of that, I'd covered his tuition, his school fees, his clothes, his food—down to the underwear he wore. From his freshman year to right now, I'd paid for every single thing in his life. Chapter 2 And now he had the nerve to call me a bully? Looking at Elmer's face, twisted with resentment, I couldn't help thinking back to the day he'd first arrived at school. He'd been stooped and hunched then, wearing clothes so worn and washed-out they'd gone gray, hanging off his skinny frame. We'd ended up in the same dorm room. The rest of us had all bought nicer mattresses and pretty bed curtains, grumbling about how the room was too small to fit all our clothes. Elmer slept on a bare, rock-hard bunk. He barely had more than a couple of shirts to his name. Whenever he had a spare hour, he went looking for part-time work. Forget enjoying college life—he could barely afford to eat. More than once, other students caught him picking food out of the trash cans. After that, everyone kept their distance. Nobody would even sit next to him, afraid they'd catch whatever smell clung to him. I felt for him—a kid that young, and he couldn't even get a decent meal. So I started helping him out. Worried he'd feel too embarrassed to accept charity, I'd order a fresh meal every time and hand it to him, claiming I didn't want it and asking him to throw it away for me. That was how I ended up covering his three meals a day. He stopped digging through trash cans, and slowly, the color came back into his cheeks. A month into this, he came to find me, wanting to say thank you. "Julian, I know you've been giving me freshly ordered food this whole time. I know you were just trying to help me. Thank you. But starting today, I don't need it anymore. "My family's poor to begin with, and now my mother's gotten seriously sick. We can't afford for me to keep going to school." I felt for him—so young, and already carrying the weight of his whole family. So I offered to cover his tuition and let him keep studying. To make sure he could focus completely on his classes, I covered his school fees and his living expenses too. The only thing I asked in return was that he come with me whenever I went to class. My private tutoring sessions were expensive, and they covered skills that actually mattered once you started working. I wanted him to learn alongside me—not because I wanted a servant, but because I didn't want him depending on other people for the rest of his life. I wanted to give him something of his own to stand on in this world. Elmer had been so moved he'd dropped straight to his knees and thanked me. "Julian, you're such a good person. I'll pay you back someday, I promise." I never expected gratitude or repayment from anyone I helped. I pulled him back up quickly. "We're classmates. Friends, even. You don't need to do that." I'd never asked him to wait on me. It was his own idea—he kept saying he felt bad, so he insisted on bringing me meals and cleaning my room. Every time, I gave him extra money for his trouble, like a tip for running errands. That was all the help I'd meant to give him at first. It was Elmer himself who kept dropping little complaints, digging for more. One day, he'd grumble about how classes ate up all his time and left him no room to work a part-time job. The next, he'd sigh about how envious he was of the other guys who could afford game consoles, who could dress sharp and look their age. So whatever he wanted, I gave him. I bought him a game console. I bought him new clothes. I even bumped his allowance up to fifty dollars a day. Every time he took the money, he'd smile so brightly. If it weren't for me, he would've dropped out long ago and be doing who-knows-what kind of odd job somewhere. And this was the same person who now claimed I'd been bullying him, that I'd ruined his college years, that I'd treated him like a slave. It was almost funny. I let out a scornful laugh, but before I could say anything, Elmer cut in first. "I bought everyone in this class a luxury bag, to thank them for looking out for me these past three years. Except one person, of course." Elmer bought all forty-three of our classmates a luxury bag—each one worth tens of thousands of dollars, the kind of thing someone at his supposed station in life had no business affording. Chapter 3 The moment my classmates got their hands on the bags, they were floored. Someone even muttered under their breath, "There's no way Elmer could afford something this expensive, let alone buy one for every single person in the room. Are these even real?" Elmer lifted his chin, practically preening. "Go ahead and check with the boutique yourselves. I can tell you with total confidence—every one of these is one hundred percent authentic. Not a single fake in the bunch." The classroom erupted into chatter. Nobody could wrap their head around it. This was the same Elmer who, not long ago, had been so broke he picked food out of trash cans. Now here he was, suddenly rolling in money. Someone finally worked up the nerve to ask, "Elmer, where'd all this cash come from? Did you win the lottery or something?" Elmer looked like he'd been waiting for exactly that question. His face split into a grin. "Better than winning the lottery. I only just found out a few days ago—turns out I'm the long-lost son of a billionaire. He tracked me down, and now my whole family dotes on me." "My dad even gave me a black card with no spending limit. I can use it for anything I want." "These bags I got you? Back at my dad's place, even the maids wouldn't be caught dead using something this cheap. So go ahead, take them." The second he finished, the whole room burst into cheers. "Long live the young master!" I stood off to the side, more than a little confused. A billionaire's long-lost child, found at last? Was this really happening? While I was still puzzling it over, my father sent me a message. "Julian, I just got a notification here—forty-three separate handbag purchases. Is something going on with you lately?" I froze. "What handbags? I haven't bought anything." Then it hit me, watching my classmates fawn over their new bags with such delight. I had my father pull up the black card's transaction history and went through it line by line. Just as I'd suspected. The billionaire father, the long-lost son, the young master routine—every bit of it was fake. He'd been running up charges on the black card my father had given me. I never used it much, so it had just been sitting untouched—until Elmer got his hands on it and started playing dress-up. Not only that, once I checked further, it turned out he'd already been spending off that card for a while. Seeing that I hadn't caught on, he'd only gotten bolder and more shameless. I gave my father the full rundown of what had happened, then said, "Just transfer the card into his name." "He likes spending so much? Fine, let him foot the bill himself. I'd love to see how he plans to pay it all back after blowing through it like this." Led by Elmer, my classmates started freezing me out—treating me like I didn't exist, spreading nasty rumors about me behind my back. Whenever they planned a group outing, nobody bothered to tell me, and honestly, I couldn't be bothered to go anyway. I watched Elmer swipe that card like it was nothing—renting yachts, taking everyone to the beach, checking them all into five-star hotels. I just smiled and said nothing. 'Spend it while you can. Wait until the bill comes due—then we'll see how well that feels.' I didn't get involved in any of it. Instead, I went straight to the school administrator and had my sponsorship of Elmer officially terminated. When she asked why, I told her the truth. "He's got money now, so he doesn't need me anymore. He says my support was just a way of humiliating him, so I've decided to stop humiliating him." She sat in silence for a long moment. "You supported him for three years, and this is how he repays you? That's beyond unreasonable." Even an outsider could see it plainly. He was the only one who couldn't. There's an old saying: give someone an inch of rice and they're grateful, give them a bushel and they'll resent you for not giving more. People are never satisfied, it seems. When Elmer found out I'd pulled my support, he didn't feel a shred of shame. Instead, he showed up at my door, furious. "See? I knew it! You only sponsored me so you could humiliate me! "The second I stopped doing things your way, you yanked the funding! "Lucky for me I've got money now. Otherwise, you would've actually ruined my life!" Chapter 4 The rest of the class, having taken Elmer's bribes, all jumped in to tear me apart. "Julian, sure, you sponsored him, but he's still a person. You don't get to trample on his dignity just because you paid for things." "Real charity doesn't expect anything back. The second you start expecting something in return, that's not charity, that's a transaction." "Elmer didn't want to be your servant anymore, so he pulled out. And now you're using money to guilt-trip him. That's low." Listening to them tear into me, I turned back to look at Elmer's face, flushed red with righteous outrage, and felt nothing but disbelief at how absurd it all was. If it weren't for me, he wouldn't have had the chance to read a single book—he would've dropped out and been working some dead-end job years ago. Who in their right mind spends tens of thousands of real dollars just to humiliate some poor kid they'd never even met before? "Elmer, since you're calling it humiliation, then give back every cent I ever spent on you." Elmer blinked, then let out a sneer dripping with contempt. "Fine, I'll pay it back! Who wants your filthy money anyway?" I nodded. "Make sure it's quick." The payment deadline on the card was coming up fast, and I didn't want him draining it dry before he could pay me back. Elmer rolled his eyes and shot back, all bitter sarcasm. "What's the rush? Scared I'll skip out on the debt? You're so obsessed with money it's pathetic. Chasing me down over pocket change." The rest of the class snickered along with him as they filed out. That wasn't the end of it, either. That same night, a post titled "Watch Out for People Who Suddenly Start Sponsoring You" went up on the campus forum and social media. In it, Elmer cast himself as the plucky, fragile scholarship kid overcoming the odds. He painted me as some controlling, borderline psychotic sugar daddy. He twisted the facts, claiming I'd pulled my funding because he'd refused to help me cheat on an exam. He said I only gave him money so I could watch him grovel, that I got off on humiliating the poor. Within hours, I'd been dragged into the spotlight, turned into the campus's most hated guy overnight. It didn't take long before someone dug up my photo and started passing it around. The people who'd taken Elmer's bribes kept piling on, painting me as some irredeemable villain. A few students who didn't know any better got swept up in it and decided the whole thing must have been my fault. I walked across campus while people pointed and whispered. I kept my face blank and pushed through the crowd without giving it a second thought. I had nothing to hide, and lies like that always come back around on the people who spread them eventually. Back in the dorm, I was a little thirsty. I walked to my desk, picked up my thermos, twisted the cap off, and tipped it back to drink. The second it touched my lips, a foul, rancid smell hit my nose. I frowned and immediately poured it into a spare white ceramic mug instead. What should've been clear water had settled into a layer of grayish-black sludge at the bottom, tangled with strands of hair and dust. The water was murky, clouded through and through. Staring at that filthy cup, I let out a bitter laugh. Apparently, some people weren't content with just running their mouths anymore. I looked around the room and held up the mug. "Who did this?" Dead silence. Nobody dared to answer. My gaze finally landed on Elmer. He sat in his chair, watching the scene unfold like he was enjoying a show. That was when Preston Shelly hopped down from his bunk and stepped in front of Elmer, practically vibrating with righteous fury. "That was me! You got a problem with that? I can't stand the way you push Elmer around! People like you, who throw your weight around just because you've got a little money, need to be taught a lesson!" Elmer's face lit up. He pulled a brand-new gold necklace out of his pocket and tossed it to Preston. Chapter 5 "Nice work! Here, this is the latest style—consider it your reward." Preston took the necklace, unable to hide how much he loved it, and shot me a look that dripped with even more disdain. Elmer rose to his feet and pointed at the thermos, the scarf, the desk lamp—all things I'd given him back when we first met—and sneered. "Look at you, so full of yourself. Not like me—when I give someone a gift, I give them the best. "And you? All you ever gave me was your own castoffs, just to make me feel small. Like this junk, for instance!" He snatched up the thermos and hurled it to the floor. There was a loud clang as the stainless steel body crumpled out of shape. Honestly, back when I'd given him those things, I was worried about hurting his pride, worried he'd feel like he was being handed charity. That's why I'd played it down, telling him they were just things sitting unused around my house. But every single item had been brand new, carefully picked out. Watching him smash things around like a man possessed, I crossed my arms and didn't so much as flinch. Good. Let him break them. I'd have felt sick watching that ungrateful wretch keep using them anyway. The rest of the roommates, sensing an outlet for their own frustrations, swarmed in to help. Preston, freshly rewarded, threw himself into it with extra enthusiasm, snatching something up and slamming it to the ground. There was a sharp crack. Preston swung too hard, and a jewelry box went flying out of the pile of "trophies" Elmer had collected. The box popped open, and a watch studded with brilliant diamonds spilled out in front of everyone, catching the light. My pupils shrank. That was the watch my grandmother had given me for my eighteenth birthday—a flawless, top-grade watch, worth a fortune, and it meant more to me than money ever could. I'd noticed it missing a while back and figured I'd just left it at home. I never imagined it would turn up in Elmer's hands. "Elmer! Why is my watch in your things? You stole from me!" Preston, quick as ever, jumped in to back him up. "Stole? Don't be ridiculous. You probably just left it lying around somewhere, and Elmer was kind enough to hold onto it for you. He's wealthy now. Why would he need to steal anything? It's just some cheap watch anyway. People wouldn't even bother picking it up off the sidewalk. Who'd want to steal it?" He grabbed the watch, ready to smash it against the floor. I snapped, "That watch is worth a million dollars. Think carefully before you do something you can't undo." Preston's hand froze in midair. He glanced instinctively at Elmer. Elmer let out a cold snort and slapped a black card down on the table. "Please. I've got money to burn. Forget one million—I could pay back ten million and not blink. Preston, smash it." Preston, given the go-ahead, snatched the watch and swung it toward the floor. "Stop!" Too late. There was a sharp crack, and the priceless watch shattered against the tile, the dial broken, the shining diamonds glaring against the pale floor. Something in my chest twisted violently, and a wave of fury surged up right behind it. "Fine. Very well, then. Since you're all so proud of yourselves, you can pay for it. One million. Not a dollar less." I pulled out a card reader right then and there. Elmer calmly pulled out his black card. The screen flashed up: TRANSACTION DECLINED. "That's not possible!" Elmer tried again, and again. It was the same result every time. Right as confusion crossed his face, his phone rang. He answered, irritated, and a cold, mechanical voice from a bank collections agent came through on the other end. "Hello, Mr. Chapman. Your black card is severely past due. Please settle the balance immediately, or we will be forced to pursue legal action."