She Drained My Savings For A Feast And Called Me Cold-Rich

My roommate borrowed a quick five bucks from me to buy instant noodles. An hour later, she was flexing her wealth and offering to treat our entire drama club to a luxury dinner.

I kept my mouth shut and made a single phone call that completely shattered her little fantasy.

When the bill arrived, all the color drained from her face.

...

"Loren, you still have like a thousand bucks on that prepaid card, right?" Vilma leaned over, a sickeningly sweet smile plastered on her face. "Let's go get a nice dinner this Saturday. My treat."

I didn't even bother looking up from my laptop. "No."

Her voice spiked an octave. "I am offering to treat you, and you are saying no?"

"My tonsils are inflamed."

"So what!" Vilma grabbed my arm. "You can just order something light! Babe, I am finally treating you to a nice meal. Can't you just give me this one?"

I yanked my arm back. "I said no."

"Loren!" Her face darkened instantly. "Are you intentionally disrespecting me?"

I finally looked at her. "Are you out of your mind?"

Vilma crossed her arms defensively. "I am trying to do something nice for you, and you curse at me?"

I stared her down. "Two days ago you were crying about being broke and begged me for five bucks just to buy ramen. Today you are playing sugar daddy? Did you win the lottery?"

Vilma let out a cold laugh. "Wow, you are so stuck up. I am taking over a dozen people from the drama club out to dinner. It is going to cost over a thousand bucks."

I narrowed my eyes. "With what money?"

As I stared at her, a memory flashed in my head.

The last time we were at that high-end restaurant, I caught her pulling a waiter aside. I clearly remembered the greedy glint in her eyes as she whispered, "Can someone use a prepaid account just by giving the phone number?"

"Vilma," I dropped my voice to a whisper. "Are you planning on using my card?"

Her face went completely rigid. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"I am asking you a direct question!"

"Do you have any proof, or do you just like screaming at people!" Vilma yelled, her voice echoing in the dorm. "Are you insane, Loren? I offer to buy you dinner, and you accuse me of stealing?"

"Offer to buy me dinner?" I scoffed. "You couldn't afford a cup of noodles, and now you are suddenly taking fifteen people to a luxury restaurant? Tell me, where is this sudden generosity coming from?"

Vilma glared at me. "Did I ever say I was using your card? You are just making up lies to slander me!"

"Then why did you ask the waiter if you could charge the account with just a phone number?"

"Am I not allowed to be curious?" she shrieked. "If I look up a word in a dictionary, are you gonna accuse me of stealing your vocabulary too?"

I actually laughed out loud at the sheer absurdity.

Vilma snatched her purse and stormed toward the door, turning around at the last second. "Loren, if you are going to be this paranoid, don't ever ask to borrow anything from me again."

"When have I ever borrowed anything from you?" I fired back, my voice dripping with ice. "Let's see... the shampoo, the body wash, the laundry detergent. Which of those didn't I buy?"

"Fine!" Her face flushed a dark, angry red. "I will buy brand new bottles tomorrow and throw them at you! Nobody wants your cheap garbage!"

"Oh, you will replace them." I stared dead into her eyes. "You will go buy them right now. Do not wait until tomorrow."

Vilma froze. "You..."

"Go." I picked up my phone. "Or do I need to walk you down to the convenience store myself?"

She shot me a venomous glare, slammed the door, and left.

I didn't hesitate for a second. I immediately dialed the restaurant's manager.

"Hi, this is Loren, I have a VIP account with you. I need to update my security settings immediately. From now on, no one can authorize a charge without my physical ID present. No exceptions."

"Yes. I don't care if it is my own mother. If my ID isn't there, decline the charge."

"The electricity bill is $33. The power gets cut at 11:00 PM tonight." A message popped up in our dorm group chat.

Vilma replied instantly. "Everyone send me 0-01.10. I will collect it and pay."

I glanced at the bill attached to the message and typed back in the group. "The bill is $33. There are four of us. That is $8.25 each. Why are you asking for 0-01.10?"

Vilma popped her head out from her top bunk. "You are rich. What is the big deal if you pay a little more?"

"Why should I?"

"Because you are the one blasting the AC all day! Me and Sarah hate the cold, we never turn it on! You are the one living in luxury, you should pay the difference!"

I laughed. "You hate the cold? It was ninety-five degrees last week, and you spent the entire afternoon practically hugging the AC vent. Do you want me to pull up the photos Sarah took?"

Vilma's face turned bright pink. "That... that was a special circumstance!"

"Special how? When you were leeching off my AC, you didn't volunteer to pay extra, did you?"

"You..." She gritted her teeth. "Are you seriously doing this, Loren? Over three dollars? You are going to argue with me over three dollars?"

"Three dollars is still money," I stared right back at her. "Why don't you cover it for me, since you are so generous?"

Vilma choked on her words.

Our other two roommates, sensing the tension, quietly transferred exactly $8.25 in the group chat and pretended to be dead asleep.

My phone pinged twice with the transfers.

I looked at Vilma. "They paid. You are the only one left. Send it."

Vilma's face was practically glowing red. "I... I will send it later."

"Later when? Didn't you say you were collecting it to pay now? The power cuts at eleven. It is eight-thirty."

"I said I will do it later! God!" she suddenly yelled. "Why are you rushing me!"

I didn't say a word. I just watched her.

She aggressively tapped her phone screen a few times, her face turning even redder.

"I... I don't have enough money right now," her voice dropped to a barely audible whisper.

"You don't have enough?" I leaned back in my chair. "Aren't you treating fifteen people from the drama club to a massive luxury dinner this Saturday?"

"What, you can't even afford eight bucks for electricity?"

Vilma's eyes darted around the room. "That... that is totally different."

"Different?" I laughed. "You have money to play big shot at a restaurant, but no money to keep the lights on? That is hilarious."

I stood up and grabbed my shower caddy. "The power cuts at eleven. You have two and a half hours."

When I reached the door, I looked over my shoulder.

"Oh, by the way. You don't have to pay me back that five bucks for the noodles. Consider it a favor."

"What favor?" She looked confused.

"I will eat the three-dollar difference on the electric bill."

"But Vilma, that restaurant is going to cost a hell of a lot more than three dollars. You better go secure a bank loan before Saturday."

On Saturday, Vilma had barely been at the restaurant for two hours.

Voice calls and text messages started machine-gunning onto my phone screen, blowing it up instantly.

"Loren! You did this on purpose, didn't you!"

"Unfreeze the card right now! Or I swear I will make your life a living hell!"

I didn't reply to a single one.

A minute later, a call came through. It was the restaurant manager. "Miss Loren, your classmate said you were coming down personally with your ID to unfreeze the account..."

"How much did she spend?"

"Nine hundred and eighty-six dollars."

I laughed. The audacity of ignorance truly knew no bounds.

"Manager, please put her on the phone."

After two seconds of dead silence, Vilma's sickly-sweet, innocent voice came through the speaker. "Audie, babe, you promised to let me borrow the card..."

I cut her off immediately. "Did I promise you in a dream you had?"

"Babe, we already ate all the food. What are you gonna do..." Her voice was dripping with manufactured sugar.

"You are always so good to me, you wouldn't make a big deal out of this, right? I will totally buy you dinner next time..."

"Next time?" I let out a sharp laugh. "You tried to extort three dollars from me for an electric bill. How exactly are you going to buy me a thousand-dollar dinner?"

"With your dazzling personality?"

Vilma's voice started to tremble. "Loren, don't do this... Everyone is watching me..."

"Good." I said. "Let everyone watch. Let them see exactly what happens when a parasite tries to play host."

Through the phone, I could hear the hushed, panicked whispers of the drama club members.

"What is going on? I thought she had a VIP card?"

"Vilma, what is the holdup? We finished eating half an hour ago..."

"Is it even her card?"

Vilma's voice spiked in sheer panic. "Don't... don't worry guys! Loren is my roommate, her family is loaded! She is super sweet, she is fixing it right now!"

I burst out laughing. "Vilma, what does my family's money have to do with you?"

"Am I your mother? Or did you mistake me for your personal ATM?"

"Loren!"

I scoffed coldly. "Let me make this crystal clear. You do not get to use my money to play God. You invited them, you pay the bill. That is how the world works."

"Don't try to buy popularity with my bank account."

Vilma completely lost it, screaming into the phone. "Can't you just help me this one time! Are we not friends anymore!"

"Friends?" I laughed coldly. "What kind of normal person tries to steal their friend's credit card to buy a thousand-dollar dinner?"

"That is not friendship, Vilma. That is fraud."

The private dining room went completely silent.

One of the club members muttered, "Vilma, didn't you say it was your card?"

Vilma was in full meltdown mode. "No! She told me I could use it! She lied to me!"

"Right," I sneered.

Vilma exploded. "Loren! You purposely froze the card just to humiliate me! You did this on purpose!"

"So what if I did? I am under zero obligation to clean up your mess."

Right on cue, the manager's calm, professional voice echoed through the dining room, loud enough for everyoneincluding meto hear.

"Miss, will you be paying with Apple Pay, a physical card... or should I have you wait in my office until the police arrive?"

That night, Vilma practically kicked the dorm door off its hinges.

She stormed right up to my desk and screamed in my face.

"Loren! What the hell is your problem!"

My tone was absolute ice. "My problem? I think I should be asking you that."

She immediately launched into a hysterical rant. "In front of twenty people! I lost every shred of dignity I had! I had to beg the manager on my knees and sign a promissory note saying I would bring the cash tomorrow just so he wouldn't call the cops! You could have easily stopped this! Why didn't you help me?"

I stared at her, completely unfazed.

"You attempted to steal my identity to flex on your club, and you think you are the victim?"

Vilma resorted to throwing a full-blown tantrum.

"It is nearly a thousand dollars! I don't have that kind of money! What am I supposed to do!"

"You can go beg on the street corner for all I care," I said coldly. "Figure it out yourself."

"We are roommates!" Vilma shrieked, her voice echoing down the hall.

"Aren't roommates supposed to help each other out? Supposed to be forgiving? Do you really have to be this petty and completely ruin my life?"

I actually chuckled, shaking my head at her absolute delusion.

"You tried to dodge an eight-dollar electric bill. You begged me for five bucks for ramen, which you never paid back."

"You steal the pennies, but you try to hijack the big bucks. Your greed is just getting out of control, Vilma."

"You... you took screenshots of all that!" Vilma's eyes instantly welled up with tears, flipping the switch back to playing the victim.

"I just made a stupid mistake! Just pay the restaurant for me, please! I literally have zero dollars, they are going to have me arrested!"

My voice was glacial. "It was an attempted theft. Let them call the cops. The one getting a criminal record is you, not me."

"I wasn't stealing! I was just borrowing it!" Vilma screamed hysterically.

"Taking without asking is stealing." I stated with absolute finality. "I am not giving you a single cent. You made the mess, you deal with the consequences."

Vilma completely broke down, dropping to the floor and wailing like a child.

She honestly thought I would eventually cave, just like I had in the past.

I looked down at her with absolute apathy. "Consider this a hard lesson. Next time you think someone's generosity makes them a pushover, remember today."

Vilma glared up at me, her eyes filled with pure venom. "You forced my hand. I am going to make you the most hated person on this campus!"

She scrambled up, slammed the door, and stormed out. A second later, my phone buzzed.

It was a text from an unknown number.

"Loren, I am a freshman in the drama club."

"Vilma just posted a photo of you in the massive club group chat. She is calling you a 'filthy rich sociopath who bullies poor students.'"

"She also said she is going to the Dean to report you for defamation. Watch your back."

I stared at the messages and smiled.

Go ahead. Throw your little tantrum.

If she wanted a war, I was going to give her a war of absolute annihilation.

I opened a new document on my phone. The title:

The Vilma Debt Ledger: From Cup Noodles to Identity Theft.

This wasn't the end.

This was just the beginning.