The President's Daughter Doesn't Forgive Thieves

§01

To blend in with my new dorm mates at the prestigious Sable University, I became friends with Cassidy Dunn, the girl who made the first friendly overture.

Her smile was bright, her energy infectious, and in the chaotic first week of college, she felt like a lifeline.

I never imagined this would be the start of my meticulously crafted nightmare.

Claiming our friendship as a license, she began to use my things with a casualness that was both baffling and insidious.

First, it was a dollop of my expensive moisturizer. "Just trying it out, Rosie!" she'd chirped, leaving the jar open on my desk.

Then, she’d steal bites of my takeout, a fork darting into my pad thai before I’d even taken my first bite.

Each time, she’d leave behind her “trash”—a half-eaten bag of chips, a cheap scented candle—charmingly calling it a “fair trade.”

It was a slow, creeping invasion of my space, my boundaries, my very sense of self.

On the day of the university’s anniversary celebration, the limited-edition crest pin that had been sitting in its velvet box on my desk suddenly vanished.

In its place was half a cup of lukewarm, sickeningly sweet coffee she’d left behind, a sticky ring already forming on the polished wood.

When I finally confronted her, my patience worn down to a nerve, she tearfully accused me of looking down on the poor in front of our other roommates.

Her voice, laced with a practiced tremor, painted me as a monster.

In an instant, I was cast as the arrogant, elitist villain, the target of their united, judgmental glares.

I didn’t fight back then. A cold, calculated calm washed over me.

Instead, a few days later, I placed a ridiculously expensive Tiffany bangle, nestled in its iconic little blue box, in the most conspicuous spot on my desk.

Unsurprisingly, it disappeared.

A bitter, humorless laugh escaped my lips. I pulled out my phone in front of the entire dorm, my fingers steady.

“Mom, could you bring two security guards to my room? Someone stole from me, and I need to catch them red-handed.”

I had returned to the dorm earlier that day, the crisp autumn air still clinging to my coat, genuinely excited to finally wear the university crest pin my mom had given me.

It was a symbol of belonging, something I desperately craved.

But my desk was bare. The velvet box was gone.

All that stood there was a lonely, half-finished cup of coffee, its plastic lid askew.

My heart didn’t just sink; it plummeted, a cold, heavy stone in my gut.

Cassidy was sitting at her vanity, meticulously applying a layer of shimmering eyeshadow. The air was thick with the cloying scent of her cherry blossom perfume.

She turned, that sickeningly sweet smile plastered on her face like a mask.

“Rosalie, you’re back! How was your seminar?”

I walked straight up to her, my footsteps silent on the cheap linoleum floor. I could see the tiny flecks of glitter on her eyelids.

“Where’s my pin?” I asked, my voice dangerously quiet.

She pointed a perfectly manicured finger to the coffee on my desk, her tone dripping with a performative, innocent charm.

“There, I traded you for it! This new artisanal coffee shop is super popular. I stood in line for ages, just for you!”

There it was again. That twisted, self-serving logic of a “trade.”

A flood of memories, each a small, sharp cut, washed over me.

The gourmet snacks my mom sent from abroad, which she’d opened and passed around the common room, leaving nothing for me but a cheap, melting popsicle on my desk as “payment.”

The designer T-shirt my dad gave me for my birthday, which she’d worn to a sweaty frat party without asking, returning it smelling of stale beer, with a stubborn foundation stain ground into the collar.

Every single time, she’d used that cloying, singsong voice to justify her theft.

“Rosie, I’ll trade you for this, okay?”

“You have to try these chips, Rosalie! They’re amazing!”

In her world, my shocked silence had become consent. My avoidance of conflict had become an open invitation.

My closet, my desk, my life—had become her personal treasure chest, available for her to plunder whenever she pleased.

The anger that had been simmering inside me for months, a low, constant hum of violation, finally reached its boiling point.

I stared at her, my gaze boring into her, and enunciated each word with cold, deliberate precision.

“I don’t want the coffee. Give me back my pin.”

My voice wasn’t loud, but it sliced through the room’s stale air, and the chatter from our roommates’ side of the room fell instantly silent.

Cassidy’s smile froze, the plastic quality of it suddenly obvious.

Then, as if on cue, her eyes welled up with tears, her lower lip beginning to tremble. Her voice cracked with manufactured hurt.

“Rosalie… how could you say that? It’s not like I took it for free! I got you something special!”

She let out a pathetic sob, a sound she had perfected.

“Last week, when you were on the phone, didn’t you tell your mom you thought the pin’s color was tacky and you didn’t even like it?”

Her voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper, meant for our roommates to overhear.

“I… I just thought you didn’t want it anyway, and it would be a waste… I thought I was doing you a favor.”

A profound chill, colder than any autumn wind, ran down my spine.

I had complained to my mom last week, yes. It was the kind of casual, meaningless grumbling a daughter shares with her mother, a secret language of intimacy.

And she had been eavesdropping. Listening. Recording my words to twist them into a justification for her theft.

Seeing the horror on my face, Cassidy’s crying intensified, becoming a full-blown performance.

“Besides, I paid for the coffee with my own money! I really, truly didn’t just take your pin…”

Just then, Megan Bishop, who’d been scrolling on her phone on the top bunk, spoke up, her voice dripping with annoyance. She didn't even bother to look at me.

“Just let it go, Rosalie. God.”

“It’s just a pin. Is it really worth making such a scene over something so small?”

I whipped my head around to face her, months of repressed fury finally finding a secondary target.

“Shut up!”

My shout was raw, startling Megan so much she dropped her phone. She looked up, her mouth agape in shock.

I sneered, my gaze raking over her with contempt.

“It’s not your property, so of course you can say that. It’s always easy to be generous with someone else’s things. Who asked for your opinion?”

Ignoring her stunned, slack-jawed expression, I turned my attention back to the star of the show.

“I’ll say this one last time, Cassidy. Give me. Back. My. Pin.”

§02

I didn’t waste any more words. My patience was gone, replaced by a cold, hard resolve. I reached for the pin on her chest.

Cassidy dodged with a theatrical gasp, my fingertips just brushing against the cheap, flimsy fabric of her floral dress.

Download the Novellia app, Search 【 701608 】reads the whole book.