Roommate Scandals And Moldy Oranges

My roommate sold me five thousand pounds of moldy oranges and had the audacity to swear they were fresh.

I told her, If theyre so good, why don't you eat one?

That night, she was rushed to the ER with acute hemorrhagic gastroenteritis.

By the next morning, a rumor caught fire across campus: the rich girl had forced her poor, starving classmate to eat rot. Overnight, I went from the deans list sweetheart to the campus pariaha literal "cockroach socialite."

My boyfriend, the man I thought would be my rock, stood firmly by her side, publicly listing a hundred and eight "sins" I had supposedly committed against her. They sold my private life to bottom-feeding tabloids, raking in blood money while my fathers company stock plummeted. I ended up on the streets, beaten to death by debt collectors in a rain-slicked alley.

Then, I opened my eyes.

I was back in my freshman dorm.

My roommate was mid-performance, tears streaming down her face like a tragic indie movie lead. She was wailing that if she didn't sell her familys crop, theyd be out on the street. Worse, she claimed her father would sell her off to some "backwoods idiot" in their village just to pay for her brothers tuition.

I just said, "Oh," and put on my noise-canceling headphones.

Inside, I was silently praying for her to get sold off as soon as humanly possible.

...

"Get your ass back here and sell these oranges! We cant even put bread on the table, and youre out there living it up? Im giving you one day. If you arent back, Im coming to that school to break your legs! Click"

I was jolted awake by the tinny, aggressive roar of a middle-aged man coming from a cheap smartphone. The realization hit me like a physical blow: I was back. Freshman year.

As soon as the call cut, my roommate, Cassie, let out a gut-wrenching sob.

"Oh god, what am I going to do?!" she wailed, her voice reaching a pitch that set my teeth on edge. "My dads going to pull me out of school. I might as well just end it now! I have nothing!"

I watched her through the corner of my eye. Even in her "uncontrollable" grief, she was checking my reflection in the mirror, gauging my reaction.

In my last life, that performance had cost me everything. My sympathy had been her weapon, and I had been the ultimate mark.

This time, I didn't rush to her side. I didn't offer a tissue or a checkbook. I simply slid my headphones on, blocking out the noise, and pulled up my messages with Nate. I typed two words.

[Were done.]

In that previous life, Id been a fool. Id listened to Cassies sob story about her fathers failing orchard and didn't hesitate. I ordered five thousand pounds of oranges, intending to give them out as a "farm-to-table" wellness perk to my fathers employees.

Cassie had acted like I was her guardian angel. But the day the shipment arrived, reality set in.

Id arranged a temperature-controlled warehouse for them, but the foreman called me before the first pallet was even offloaded.

"Miss Thorne," hed said, his voice thick with disgust. "These aren't oranges. Theyre biohazards."

Not a single crate was salvageable. The mold had eaten through the cardboard, and in the sweltering August heat, the stench was enough to make a grown man gag.

I confronted Cassie in the middle of the quad. She turned pale, then immediately shifted gears into a "persecuted victim" role. She wept in front of half the student body, screaming about how "the 1%" was out to destroy her family.

"I thought you were a good person!" shed shrieked, her voice cracking perfectly for the crowd. "My dad could have sold these for two dollars a pound at the market, but he gave them to you for a discount because were 'friends.' Thats five thousand dollars of our livelihood! And now youre lying about the quality just so you don't have to pay? Youre trying to kill us!"

She was so convincing that the crowd turned on me instantly. Even Natethe boy Id grown up withstepped in. He told me to "stop being a brat," pay her the money, and apologize for "humiliating" her.

I refused. I knew my foreman wasn't a liar. I dragged Cassie to the warehouse to see the "gold" her father had sent.

The air was thick with flies. The buzzing was deafening.

"This?" Id asked, fighting the urge to vomit. "This is what youre defending?"

Cassie squared her shoulders, her eyes hard. "Yeah! Its hot out, Phoebe. Of course theyre a little soft. You rich girls are so delicate. I don't caretheyre delivered. You cant send them back. Pay up."

Her sheer entitlement snapped something in me. I pointed at a particularly fuzzy, green-blue orange. "Fine. If they're so great, eat it. Eat one, right now, and Ill write the check."

She hesitated, her bravado flickering. But her father, Rick, had followed us there. The moment he heard there was money on the line, he grabbed the moldy fruit and shoved it into her mouth, his hand clamped over her lips until she swallowed.

He didn't care that she was retching and red-eyed. He just held out his hand for the money.

I paid, thinking I was buying my way out of a nightmare. I was actually buying a front-row seat to my own execution.

That night, Cassie went into the hospital. She started a livestream from her bed, claiming Id "forced" her to eat rot as a power move. She called me a "bully," a "sociopath."

My fathers corporate rivals saw the opening. They poured money into boosting her stream, making it the #1 trending topic in the country. The internet tore me apart.

And then Nate twisted the knife. My own boyfriend went on camera to confirm that I was "vile" behind closed doors. He listed every private insecurity Id ever shared with him as proof of my "dark nature."

I didn't know then that the rival company had already bought him.

My father, desperate to clear my name, fell into a legal trap theyd set. He lost the company. He lost everything. I ended up dead in the dirt.

And Nate and Cassie? They became the "it-couple" of the media cyclethe humble girl and the hero who saved her, building their empire on the ashes of my family.

"Phoebe! Im literally falling apart here! Why aren't you saying anything?!"

Cassies voice broke my reverie. She marched over and snatched the phone out of my hand before I could hit 'send' on the breakup text.

"My dad says if I don't sell these, Im done. Im out! Don't you care?"

I pointed to my ears and gave her a look of pure, unadulterated boredom.

"I heard you. Youve said it four times. Now, give me my phone back."

Cassies brow furrowed. She looked like a teacher disappointed in a student. "You heard me? And? Whats the plan?"

I reached out and plucked my phone from her grip. I met her eyesthe sharp, calculating eyes hidden behind the puffy lids.

"The plan? I don't know, Cassie. Maybe talk to the guy who told you to quit? Im not your father. Why are you telling me your problems?"

Cassie stood there, her face flushing a deep, angry crimson. She was speechless.

I didn't give her a second to recover. I started throwing my things into a suitcase. I was moving out of this dorm immediately.

Seeing me leave, she panicked. She threw herself in front of the door, dropping to her knees with a dramatic thud.

"Phoebe... Izzy... please. I know youre loaded. I saw your bagits a Herms, isn't it? Its worth more than my house. Just that one bag could save my family. Please, help me!"

I tilted my head. "What exactly do you want me to do?"

A flash of greed crossed her face before she tucked her head down. "My dads oranges... theyre two dollars a pound, but Ill give them to you for one-fifty. Theres five thousand pounds. Its nothing to you, but its life or death for us!"

Without waiting for me to answer, she scrambled up, her face lighting up with a fake, watery smile. "Oh, thank you! Thank you, Phoebe! I knew youd help!"

She whipped out her phone and dialed her dad before I could even draw breath. "Dad! Were saved! My roommate is taking them all! Yeah, the whole shipment!"

"Cassie," I said, my voice cold and level. "I never said yes."

She froze, hung up the phone, and grabbed my hand, shaking it playfully. "Oh, stop it. I know you. Youre the best person I know. You wouldn't let us starve. My dads already loading the truck. Theyre going to be so sweet, I promise!"

I wrenched my hand away and walked out.

If she wanted to play this game, fine. But I wasn't the one paying for the tickets this time.

I went back to my parents' townhouse. The memories of my previous death were still clawing at my brain, and I ended up coming down with a stress-induced fever.

When I finally checked my phone two days later, the campus group chat was a war zone.

Cassie had been busy. Shed uploaded a series of sobbing voice notes.

"Phoebe Thorne told me shed buy the crop. My dad spent two days in the sun picking every single one. He almost broke his back loading that truck!"

"Now the shipment is here at the campus gates, and shes ghosted me. What am I supposed to do? These oranges are our only income!"

"The heat is killing the fruit. Theyre starting to turn. Phoebe, where are you?! Please, just pay for what you promised! Im begging you!"

The comments below were a landslide of vitriol.

[Phoebe Thorne is a literal monster. How do you live with yourself?]

[Rich girl games. She probably thinks its funny to watch them suffer.]

[Cassie, honey, call the police. This is fraud.]

My skin went cold. Id learned one thing from my first life: silence is a confession in the eyes of the public.

I drove to the campus gates. Even from twenty yards away, the smell hit me. It was that same, sickly-sweet rot.

A massive flatbed truck was parked by the entrance. Cassie and her father, Rick, were sitting on the curb, surrounded by a small crowd of "outraged" students. They were giving a masterclass in performative poverty.

I saw the angry faces of my classmates and realized I was walking into a lynch mob.

I didn't walk up to them empty-handed. I went to the security booth first and borrowed a megaphone. Then, I pulled up the recording of our last conversation in the dorm.

I hit play and walked toward them, the audio booming across the quad.

The crowd went silent. They heard Cassies voice, clear as day, trying to guilt-trip me. They heard my explicit, repeated refusal. They heard her "interpreting" my silence as a yes and calling her dad before I could even speak.

The color drained from the faces of the students.

One guy, who had been screaming for my head a minute ago, looked at Cassie. "Wait... so she actually told you no? You just brought the truck anyway?"

"II thought she was just being modest!" Cassie stammered, her fists clenching.

"Modest?" I said into the megaphone. "Or were you just trying to trap me into a bill I never agreed to?"

"Everyone relax," a girl from our psych class sighed. "Cassie, look, being broke is hard, but you cant just force people to buy your stuff. Phoebe doesn't owe you a living."

"Yeah, but..." another student chimed in, looking at me with that annoying 'neutral' pity. "Phoebe, you do have the money. Look at them. Maybe just buy them anyway to keep the peace? Its just some fruit."

"Oh, 'just some fruit'?" I laughed. I walked to the back of the truck, grabbed a box, and ripped it open.

A cloud of fruit flies erupted. The oranges inside were a fuzzy, greyish-green mess of slime.

"You want me to pay for this? The smell is already making people gag. Cassie tried to sell me toxic waste at a premium. Does that sound like a 'favor' to you?"

Cassie jumped up and shoved me. "You liar! They only look like that because you made us wait two days in the sun! This is your fault! You owe us for the damage!"

I almost doubled over laughing. "Cassie, use your brain. Oranges don't turn into compost in forty-eight hours unless they were already rotting on the branch. You brought your trash here hoping Id be too 'nice' to check the boxes."

Suddenly, the crowd parted. Nate, my "boyfriend," pushed through. He looked at me with a disgust so deep it felt like a physical slap.

"Enough, Phoebe! I am ordering you to apologize to Cassie right now. Pay her, and lets get this over with."

I stared at him. Truly looked at him. Nate was the son of our familys long-time driver. Hed grown up in our guest house. My parents had treated him like a second son, paying for his elite private schools, his clothes, his vacations.

And yet, here he was, looking at me like I was the dirt under his shoe.

In my last life, I thought his "strong moral compass" was why he sided with her. Now, I saw it for what it was: a deep-seated inferiority complex. He hated that he owed us everything. He wanted to be the hero, and he couldn't be a hero if he was dating the "princess." He needed a "victim" like Cassie to make him feel like a man.

"On what grounds, Nate?" I asked quietly.

My lack of affection clearly rattled him. He stepped back, his voice rising. "Apologize, Phoebe. Or were over. I wont be seen with someone so cruel."

"Good," I said, a sharp smile touching my lips. "Were over. And Im not buying your girlfriends trash."

"You... youre unbelievable!" Nate spat. He turned to Cassie with a gaze so tender it made my skin crawl. "Don't worry, Cassie. Ill buy them. I cant stand by while a hard-working family suffers because of a spoiled brat."

Cassie looked at him with stars in her eyes. "Oh, Nate... but you don't have to..."

She shot me a look of pure malice. "The person who caused this mess should be the one to pay."

Nate puffed out his chest. "My dads company has thousands of employees. Well just give these out as a bonus. Its fine."

I actually snorted. "Your dads company? Nate, what company would that be?"