I Work For My Roommate’s Love Pool Chapter 08

I Work For My Roommate’s Love Pool Chapter 08

The following days at Arbor Ridge University were a bloodbath.

Dr. Rainer Cosmo issued a department-wide memo formally censuring Chloe Sterling for academic misconduct, ordering her to retake three core requirements.

Miles Huston froze every credit card and authorized user account linked to Chloe, dispatching assistants to repossess every designer bag and piece of jewelry he’d ever bought her.

Griffin Wilder went nuclear on the campus forums with a post titled [The Truth About the “Wild Rose” I Thought I Loved].

He didn’t name names, but the screenshots of her exorbitant bank statements made it crystal

clear who he was talking about.

Caleb Reed was the most ruthless.

Leveraging his power as Student Body President, he uncovered evidence that Chloe had forged her scholarship applications and community service hours, reporting her directly to the Disciplinary Committee.

Chloe Sterling didn’t just fall, she plummeted into the dirt.

Every honor was revoked, her record was stained with a disciplinary mark, and she became the

laughingstock of the Ivy League.

The elites who once worshipped her now treated her like a social pariah.

Monday morning, she cornered me outside the dorms.

Chloe looked like a maniac, eyes bloodshot, hair a bird’s nest, wearing an expensive limited-edition

dress that was now wrinkled and stained.

The mask was gone. The superiority had evaporated.

She grabbed my shoulders, sobbing hysterically.

“Why?! Why are they doing this to me? What did I do wrong?”

I just watched her.

She gasped for air, and finally, as if reaching a breaking point, she spat the truth through gritted teeth.

“It was you! You did this! Evelyn, I’ll tell you everything!”

“I have a System! A System that steals favorability from every guy you attract!”

“The more perfect you are, the more they love me! Are you happy now? You destroyed yourself just

to ruin me! You’re a freak!”

There it was. She’d finally said it out loud.

I stared at her twisted, frantic face, my expression stone-cold.

“Oh, a System,” I said flatly.

Chloe froze. She had expected shock, rage, maybe even jealousy-anything but this absolute,

chilling calm.

“You, you already knew?” Her voice shook with a sudden, sharp fear.

I didn’t answer. Instead, I leaned in. “What do you think I was doing this past week, Chloe?”

Her pupils contracted.

I smiled and pried her hands off my shoulders.

“I was mimicking you.”

“The smacking of the lips, the foul mouth, the lack of hygiene, the total absence of class. I took the

mask you wear in private and put it on display for those men to see.”

My voice was a whisper, but it hit her like a sledgehammer.

“The results were pretty effective, don’t you think?” shrugged innocently.

“They couldn’t handle it. They couldn’t handle the real you. Without the filter you stole from me,

you’re just trash in their eyes.”

“No! That’s not true!” Chloe shrieked, like a cat whose tail had been stepped on.

“They don’t love you either! They love the fake you! That ‘perfect, self-disciplined Muse’ is a lie too! You’re a fraud, just like me!”

Her words were meant to be a poison dagger.

[She’s right! Evelyn was faking it too! The guys loved a lie!]

[But wait… was she actually faking?]

[Think about it: her being top in the class was a fact. Her working to survive was real…]

The live chat started to split.

I looked at the spiraling Chloe and, to her surprise, nodded.

“You’re right.”

Chloe blinked, stunned.

I took a deep breath, looking at the rising sun. The light was blinding, but it brought a clarity I hadn’t

felt in years.

“I was performing,” I admitted.

“I acted poised and elegant because I knew that was the fastest way to get what I wanted in this social circle. In that sense, we’re the same. We both wore masks to fit a man’s fantasy.”

Then, my tone shifted.

“But you got one thing wrong, Chloe.”

“To maintain my ‘Top Student’ image, I actually got up at 6:00 AM to study. I actually wrote those papers in the library until 3:00 AM. That National Merit Scholarship in my pocket? That’s real.”

“To maintain my ‘Resilient’ image, I actually scrubbed floors in the cafeteria. I actually stood in the sun for ten hours a day to earn my tuition. That money I used for my bills? That’s real.”

“The poise, the books I read, the art I studied to look elegant-that knowledge became a part of me. It’s in my blood now.”

“My perfection was built brick by brick with my own sweat and effort. But what about you?”

I looked her straight in the eye and asked, one word at a time, “Aside from lying in bed and stealing my work, what have you ever actually done?”