7
I looked at the advisor and said, “Give me one day. I’ll provide proof.”
She glared at me and left in a huff.
I opened my phone and asked in the group chat, “I didn’t plagiarize. Do you believe me?”
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My friends all tried to placate me. “Leah, we know you’re still upset about what happened before. But it’s ir
the past. Susan has apologized.”
“Let bygones be bygones.”
“We know you’re not very talkative and you keep things to yourself. But sometimes, if you just talk things out,
it’s not a big deal.”
Looking at the conversation, my heart finally died. My friends all believed Susan was innocent.
I buried my face in my arms and cried.
Soon, the text appeared again.
[Oh, this is so sad. Step three of the takeover: forcing the friends to choose a side. Leah is being framed, and her friends don’t believe her.]
[It’s heartbreaking. Friends who can be stolen away were never true friends to begin with. The first time they let the social butterfly get away with her ‘jokes‘ at Leah’s expense, it showed they weren’t real friends.]
[I hope the story can be rewritten. I hope Leah finds the evidence and exposes the social butterfly. Then she won’t get depressed and drop out.]
Reading the text, I realized they were right. Some friends weren’t worth my tears.
Ever since I found out Susan would plagiarize my speech, I had been secretly gathering evidence. Perhaps because of the gift–swapping incident, she had become much more careful. I was never able to secretly rec- ord her in the act. I had to resort to tailing her. One day, I followed her to the campus copy shop. I quickly printed out a copy of a file that was identical to hers.
It was two English speeches. One was mine, with my edits and notes. The other was Susan’s.
I also compiled a video of her speech from the competition. I put all three documents together. I highlighted her edits, and it was immediately clear. Most of it was copied from me, especially the first half.
I also asked my cousin, who was a computer science major, to help me check if my computer had been hacked. I knew Susan had a boyfriend who was also in computer science.
Sure enough, my cousin found that my computer had been compromised. Someone had remotely accessed it and stolen my speech. He traced the IP address back to Susan’s boyfriend’s dorm.
6/11
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Chapter 2
I put all the evidence into a presentation–screenshots, videos, documents. I made three copies.
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One I sent to my advisor, one I posted on the school’s online forum, and one I sent to my friend group.
It created a firestorm. Susan thought her plan was foolproof, but she was exposed almost immediately.
The school forum was the first to react. The reversal was so sudden people could barely keep up.
[So it was the thief crying wolf. Exposed in less than a day.]
[You really can’t judge a book by its cover. Being arrogant doesn’t mean you’re a plagiarist. On the contrary. the more popular someone is, the more likely they are to be two–faced.]
[All the professors and students were backing this Susan girl. This is a crazy plot twist!]
The backlash was too big to contain.
When my advisor called me into her office, she acted as if she were on my side.
“We’re all classmates here. Why did you have to make it so public? Couldn’t you have just given the evidence to me, and we could have handled it privately? With all this attention, how is Susan supposed to face anyo- ne?”
I was used to being an introvert, just listening to what others said. But the advisor’s complete change in attitude made me incredibly uncomfortable.
I spoke up directly. “Susan was wrong. Shouldn’t she be afraid of people knowing the truth? Professor, your
biased attitude could easily give students the wrong idea.”
Her face immediately changed.
