She Called Me Bully, I Ruined Her

Chapter 2

The next day, the girl from the dorm across the hall was having a birthday dinner, and she invited our whole dorm too.

We all trooped over to the restaurant in high spirits, but the second we reached the entrance, Chloe's face went suddenly pale.

She darted watery, teary-eyed glances at the group, but everyone was busy chatting with the birthday girl.

When she realized no one was paying her any mind, she pulled out an even more dramatic look, like the whole world had wronged her.

We all walked inside and sat down, and that was when we noticed, Chloe, who'd been trailing behind us this whole time, was gone.

It only took a couple of minutes. We were all fumbling for our phones to call her when she walked up, decked out in the restaurant's server uniform and holding a menu.

"Here's our restaurant's menu." Her voice shook so bad it was already thick with tears before she finished the sentence.

We all froze for a solid few seconds, staring at her with blank, confused faces that screamed, 'What on earth is going on here?'

In the end, the birthday girl broke the awkward silence. She asked Chloe where she'd disappeared to, and why she was wearing a server uniform.

Chloe glanced at me, her expression dripping with wronged innocence.

"I've been working here part-time to pay for school. I know what happened yesterday upset Sheena, so you must have picked this restaurant on purpose today just to embarrass me in front of everyone. I was actually really happy you invited me to your birthday. I even asked off work specially for this. But… since Sheena wants to humiliate me to let off steam, I'll just come clean now. That's better than ruin your whole party later."

Dead silence settled over the private dining room. Everyone exchanged wide, bewildered glances.

In the end, I was the one who broke the silence. I couldn't hold it in anymore, and I started laughing out loud.

The second I laughed, Chloe's face dropped into an even more convincing expression, like I'd just deeply humiliated her.

Sandy slammed her chopsticks down so hard the dishes on the table clattered. "Chloe, will you just cut the crap already? If you're really this fragile, just drop out of school already! Or move off campus and live alone! I swear to god, you're driving me crazy!"

Right on cue, Chloe burst into heart-wrenching, screaming sobs. "I knew it! All of you just can't wait for me to drop out! You pretend to feel sorry for me and give me the scholarship spot, but it's just because you're jealous my grades are higher than all of yours!"

The second the words left her mouth, she turned and bolted straight out of the private room.

A couple of people who'd been closer to her jumped up immediately and ran after her. The rest of us sat in stunned, heavy silence.

After a long, awkward stretch, someone blurted flat out, "What a nutjob."

It was like pressing a play button. Suddenly, everyone was talking over each other, spilling their thoughts about Chloe.

I turned to the birthday girl and gave her an apologetic smile. "I'm sorry we ruined your birthday dinner."

She gave a bitter, hollow laugh and shook her head.

Sandy leaned forward, gesturing wildly as she launched into her own rant. "You guys wanna hear something? For my birthday last time, I invited the whole dorm out. The second we walked out the door, she started sulking, saying everyone else got all dolled up looking pretty, and she was the only one who couldn't afford nice stuff. She made us all go back to the makeup counter with her just so she could scrounge free makeup from the counter.

"Then when I posted photos from the day to my i********:, she blew up at me for not using a filter and not editing her! C'mon, I post all my photos straight from the default camera! I didn't edit anyone's photos, okay?"

One of the other girls hesitated for a few seconds, then finally cut in, "Speaking of photos, I came across this blogger on a social app a while back. She never showed her face, but she looked exactly like Chloe. Even the mole on the inside of her arm was in the same spot. But every photo that a blogger posts just screams rich, you know?"

Someone else immediately chimed in, "Now that you mention it, I think I saw that too! The For You page recommended it to me as 'someone you may know,' but I just figured it couldn't be her because the woman in the posts was obviously loaded, so I didn't think anything of it."

Right then, one girl froze, staring at her phone, her face drained of color. "Holy s**t, are you kidding me? I just opened t****k, and Chloe is going live right now. She's sitting there crying her eyes out!"

The next second, Chloe's watery, wobbly voice came crackling out of the phone's speaker.

"Guys, I'm just so miserable. None of my roommates like me, but I have to keep swallowing it just so I can graduate, okay?"

Her comment section blew up almost instantly with messages from her fans comforting her.

A: [Sending you hugs, baby! Your roommates are such bullies. How could they be so mean to a poor, hardworking girl like you?]

B: [Keep going, vlogger! Don't even pay attention to them. They're just jealous you're pretty, and you get better grades than them!]

C: [Don't cry baby, your roommates are all a bunch of bitches.]

D: [Babe, you said you're a sophomore, right? I go to the same school! Just wait, I'm gonna look these bitches up right now. I wanna see exactly who has the nerve to bully you!]

Chloe wiped at her tears, then played the pity card to talk her fans down. "Stop sending me gifts, okay? It's true I started streaming because I didn't have money, but I got a part-time job now. I only went live today because I was feeling down and wanted to talk to you guys."

Nice as that speech sounded, every time a gift notification popped up, you could practically see satisfaction shining so bright it was about to spill out of her eyes.

Sandy was so furious she almost crushed her phone in her hand. "Holy f**k! I've never met anyone this good at flipping the script! I'm gonna join her stream right now. Let me see what other bullshit lies she's gonna cook up!"

When the join request popped up, Chloe happily accepted it… but the second she heard Sandy's voice, her face went paper white. She panicked and hit the end stream button so fast it was almost comical.

Within minutes, countless random strangers were spamming Sandy with all kinds of nasty insults.

I frowned, then quietly made a new fake account and snuck into Chloe's fan group.

Sure enough, the first message waiting for me when I joined was a voice note from Chloe, her voice thick with tears.

She claimed her roommates had just screamed at her, and she was too scared to go live again for the foreseeable future.

I laid low and kept scrolling, only to see that someone had already doxxed all of us, dug up our personal info, and posted it straight to the group.

A: [Guys! These are the girls bullying Chloe. I found them! I'm gonna mail them a dead rat as we speak!]

B: [Guys, holy f**k, no wonder they keep picking on Chloe! One of her roommates is a sugar baby!]

C: [Look at the picture I posted! It was late at night, she got into a luxury car, and the guy behind the wheel was an old man!]

D: [This kind of person is disgusting. I'm sending these photos straight to their college right now!]

Chloe finally faked her way in to calm everyone down.

Chloe: [Dear friends, please don't act so impulsively. I know you all just want to stand up for me, but it would be awful if any of you got dragged into trouble because of me.]

A: [Don’t worry baby, I already sent you two thousand dollars. Go book a hotel room for the next few days. Wait till I get those roommates of yours kicked out of school, then you can go back.]

B: [Babe, I sent you five thousand too. Go buy yourself some nice clothes and makeup, don't do that part-time job anymore. You work way too hard.]

C: [Me too! I sent you a thousand. I'll send you more once my mom sends me my monthly allowance.]

In the blink of an eye, the whole group was blowing up Chloe's phone with money transfers.

As for Chloe? After popping in once to say she could get by just fine by pinching pennies, she never said another word in the group.

I took screenshots of every single chat message, and my brows furrowed instinctually.