The full moon hung brightly against the inky black sky, casting its yellow glow through my only window, while I was knee-deep in records I technically shouldn’t have.
Especially the scanned receipts from last semester’s charity gala, the proceeds of which weresupposedto go to the local food bank.
I sat on my bed and stared at the wall covered in papers, hoping that they would make sense if I stared at them long enough. A mess of highlighters, notebooks, and Post-its surrounded me, and I inwardly cringed.
I liked my things, my room, tidy.Organized.
But I was a fucking mess myself: I was wearing a hoodie and bike shorts, my hair was a mess, and my face wastightly strained. I narrowed my eyes in concentration, my gaze oscillating between the wall and some of my notes.
Wait a second…
Jumping up, I took a closer look at one of the receipts. Golden chairs. Something about that snagged in my brain, but I couldn’t figure out what. This receipt listed twelve thousand motherfucking dollars forgolden chairs.
My memory was pretty much infallible, and yet… I couldn’t recall asingleevent we had hosted in the last two years that featured golden chairs.
Pulling out my phone, I checked the dates and started scrolling.
Picture after picture flashed across the screen in a blurry, colorful haze until I finally made it back to the timeframe of the event. Now I scrolled more carefully, studying the pictures.
No fucking way.
My mouth fell open as I slowly lowered my hand, which was still clutching the phone. I still had pictures of the event in question, alright. And there was not a single trace of golden chairs.
White plastic chairs. We had usedwhite plastic chairs. The fucking receipt was forged.
My heart sank as I began matching names. All the receipts were “approved” by the same treasurer — who didn’t exist. It was a fake fucking name.
Easy enough to pull off when the real treasurer, Jasmine, was involved in the scheme.
It was right there, and yet it still wouldn’t be enough to pin them down. Withdrawals that didn’t match the events they were tied to. Overstated expenses. “Donations” that never landed where they were supposed to.
But nothing tied it directly to the girls in charge now. No names. No confessions. No smoking gun. Just layers ofmisdirection — like the truth was hiding in plain sight but just out of reach.
It was like trying to catch fog. The closer I got, the more it slipped away.
I exhaled hard, dragging my fingers through my hair as my eyes flicked across the spreadsheets and screenshots tacked up around me. I wanted to scream.
Because I knew there had to be something there. I knew it the way my stomach knotted every time another convenient explanation appeared just in time to erase the trail.
People lied. People lied all the time, and they smiled while they did it. Wrapped their lies in good intentions with a pretty branding and called it leadership. I’d learned that one the hard way.
My parents had always said there was money put aside.
Of course, we have a college fund, honey.
You think we wouldn’t take care of you?
I believed them. But right when it was time to start applying, everything crumbled. The list of affordable schools got shorter and shorter. BRU, a school that hadn’t even been on my radar, suddenly became the “best fit.”
They hadn’t replaced a dime. I trusted them. Finding out the hard, bitter truth was gutting. Heartbreaking.
Turned out the college fund had quietly vanished years earlier, spent on things I never got a say in. Vacations. New cars. My dad’s second failed business.
We didn’t want you to worry.
We thought something would work out.
It did, but no thanks to them. The only thing that pulled me out of the slurry pit was BRU’s full-ride athletic scholarship. A get-out-of-debt-free card I earned, not because they planned for my future, but because I did.
