Chapter 1They Told Me to Apologize

When I finally got my laptop back from my roommate, Jenna, the C-drive was a solid block of red.

The desktop was littered with icons for three massive online games and at least a dozen different media players I’d never seen before.

I spent an entire afternoon purging the junk, reinstalling the OS, and then I changed the login password.

That evening, Jenna came back and found she was locked out.

She stormed over to my desk, her face flushed with anger. “Leah, what the hell is this? My thesis is on there! Are you trying to screw me over?”

“It’s my laptop,” I said calmly. “You’ve ‘borrowed’ it for a month.”

Suddenly, she lunged. She snatched the laptop off my desk and, with a furious scream, smashed it onto the floor.

* * *

The crash echoed through the room with a sickening finality.

My silver MacBook lay shattered on the linoleum, its case split open like a clamshell. The guts were exposed, emitting a faint, fizzing electrical sound.

Absolute silence fell over the dorm room.

My other two roommates, Maya and Becca, froze, staring at the carnage in disbelief.

I just stood there, stunned.

My dad had bought me that laptop as a graduation present when I got into college. I’d used it for three years, and I’d treated it like a precious thing.

Jenna’s chest was heaving. For a split second after the impact, she looked as shocked as we were, but that shock was instantly consumed by an even hotter rage.

She pointed a trembling finger at the wreckage. “Leah! Are you happy now? What about my thesis? What about my graduation? You want to ruin my life, is that it?”

Her logic was, as always, breathtaking.

I didn’t scream or break down like she probably expected. I didn’t even shed a tear. I just slowly knelt, took out my phone, and began taking pictures of the destroyed laptop from multiple angles, the flash cutting sharply through the dim room.

My calculated calm seemed to unnerve her.

“What… what are you doing?” A flicker of panic entered her voice.

I stood up, slid my phone back into my pocket, and met her furious gaze. “You’re going to pay for it, Jenna,” I said, my voice perfectly even. “Full price, what it costs on the Apple store right now. Not a penny less.”

Jenna let out a high, incredulous laugh. “Pay for it? Are you insane, Leah? Your family sends you enough to buy a new one like it’s a head of lettuce. Me? I’m on financial aid! My work-study check is barely enough for groceries! What am I supposed to pay you with? My life?”

She was already slipping into her well-worn victim narrative, trying to seize the moral high ground.

“Besides,” she added, her voice rising, “if you hadn’t changed the password, I wouldn’t have gotten so stressed out! And if I wasn’t stressed, my hands wouldn’t have slipped! When you really think about it, this is your fault!”

Maya spoke up timidly from her corner. “Jenna, calm down… I mean, it is Leah’s laptop. She paid good money for it. It’s only fair that you replace it.”

“You shut up!” Jenna snapped, whirling on her. “You’ve got money, just like her. It’s easy for you to stand there and judge! Have you ever had to worry about making next semester’s tuition? Have you ever lived on ramen for a week straight? No! You have no idea!”

I looked at her, so self-righteously indignant, and almost laughed.

She lived on ramen but somehow always had money for the latest in-game character skins. She couldn’t make tuition, but she’d managed to haul in a mountain of cheap, discounted makeup during the Black Friday sales.

Her poverty was a performance. It was a weapon she used to justify taking whatever she wanted, to excuse any harm she caused.

I was done arguing. I just repeated my terms.

“Pay for it. Or we call the police.”

“The police?”

Jenna’s voice shot up an octave. She stared at me, her teeth gritted.

“Go on! Call them! Let’s see what the cops think when a rich girl tries to ruin a poor student’s life over a piece of metal! I can’t finish my thesis, I won’t graduate, and my entire future will be destroyed! It will all be your fault! If I go down, I’m taking you with me!”

The venom in her eyes, the raw and unhinged look on her face, sent a genuine chill down my spine. It reminded me of the stories you see on the news, the ones that end in tragedy.

I said nothing.

Seeing her advantage, Becca rushed in to play peacemaker. “Come on, Leah, don’t take it so seriously. Jenna didn’t mean it, she’s just under a lot of pressure. Why don’t you… just let it go? It’s an old laptop anyway. I’m sure your dad can just get you a new one. We’re all roommates here, getting the police involved would be so ugly.”

Jenna immediately latched on, a triumphant smirk touching her lips. “See? Becca gets it. Don’t be so petty, Leah.”

Watching them, a team of two against me, I felt the last bit of warmth in my chest evaporate.

I didn’t say another word. I just knelt again, carefully gathering the pieces of my broken laptop and placing them back in their original box.

Jenna thought she’d won. The victorious smile spread across her face. She even offered a magnanimous olive branch. “There, see? If you’d just been reasonable from the start, none of this would have happened. I’ll buy you a coffee tomorrow.”

I ignored her. Cradling the box like a coffin, I turned and walked out of the room.