Chapter 3

I returned to the dorm, crouched down, and took out the laundry basin from under the bed. Sawyer was returning the day after tomorrow, so his bedsheets needed changing.

I stripped the sheets off his bed and dunked them into the basin with some detergent. Squatting on the floor, I start to scrub. The cool foam washed over the backs of my hands.

It was then that the door swung open. Harvey saw me squatting on the floor washing the sheets. He smirked faintly, walked over to me in a few strides, and dumped his pile of dirty laundry straight into my basin. Foam splashed up into my face.

I glared at him. "What the hell are you doing?"

Harvey stood over me with his arms crossed, his chin raised ever so slightly. His eyes were colder than I'd ever seen them as he looked at me through the crack in his glasses.

"What's the difference between washing bedsheets and underwear? You're already doing the laundry, so you might as well do mine while you're at it. You're always so eager to wash other people's laundry, right? We're roommates too. Why does Sawyer get special treatment?"

He smirked slightly, his eyes brimming with smug satisfaction. "What's the matter? Is this beneath you? You'd willingly lick Sawyer's boots, but washing my underwear is where you draw the line?

"You're a typical bootlicker who only bows down to money. Poor people like me don't even deserve to ask you to wash a pair of socks, huh?"

He heavily emphasized the words "poor people", as if intentionally taking a jab at himself, yet also using that identity as a weapon.

I stood up slowly, wiping the suds from my hands onto my pants. I looked down at the stinky pile of socks and underwear in the basin. After fishing them out, I walked over to him and shoved them back into his arms.

"Do your own laundry."

Then I turned, squatted down again, and went back to scrubbing Sawyer's bedsheets.

Harvey's shirt was soaked through from his wet laundry. He stood there in stunned silence for a heartbeat before snapping, his voice turning extremely shrill.

"What's that supposed to mean, Felix? You look down on me because I'm poor, don't you? You only do laundry for rich people, right? Go ahead and keep sucking up to the rich, then. Let's see how far that gets you!"

His chest was heaving. His eyes bore into me from behind his cracked glasses with a cold, vicious hostility, like he'd been struck and was about to strike back.

I ignored him.

That was when my other roommates stepped in to speak up for me. "Your socks and underwear are so filthy, Harvey. Felix isn't your personal maid."

"Seriously. What gives you the right to make Felix do your laundry?"

Harvey's face went pale, then flushed with anger. He bit his lip, threw his laundry violently into the basin, and stormed out of the dorm room, slamming the door behind him.

About 20 minutes later, my phone buzzed three times in my pocket. I took it out and saw a message from an unknown number.

"Do you really have to be such a bully, Felix? Is it really that hard for you to help Harvey do his laundry? Didn't you know his hand is injured?"

More messages followed, one after another.

"I never realized you were this heartless. It's just a small favor, and you still refused to help. I'm so disappointed in you.

"What kind of man does that make you? Harvey may come from nothing, but at least he knows how to show gratitude. You only know how to latch onto rich people. Is there anything else you're capable of?

"I must have been blind to date you, Felix. Harvey ranks first in the department despite his hardships, while you just waste your days away. How do you even have the nerve to wear a watch that expensive?"

I burst out laughing while reading the messages. Ruby would never know that Harvey's "hand injury" was just a band-aid covering unbroken skin.

She would never know about the smirk on his face when he dumped his underwear in my basin in front of everyone in the dorm room. She only knew that her darling Harvey was a pitiful, hardworking student, while I was just a spineless coward.

I opened the message thread with that unknown number and typed out a reply. "If you want to wash his underwear so badly, come do it yourself. I wouldn't even mind if you chose to lick it clean instead.

"Also, we broke up, so you have no right to be disappointed in me. It's also none of your business whether or not I'm a man."

I sent the message, blocked the number, and went back to scrubbing the sheets.

…

I was jolted awake by the constant vibration of my phone the following morning, going off more than a dozen times straight.

I opened it groggily and saw a long list of messages from my roommate. The first one was a link to a post titled, "Shocking Revelation! Javon University's Wealthy Heir's Lackey Exposed: That Young Man by Sawyer Lund's Side Is a Plaything for the Wealthy."

I was wide awake now. I clicked the post and saw that it had gone up on the campus forum at 3:00 am.

"Remember Felix, the guy who's been glued to Sawyer's side every day and has been catering to his every need since day one?

"You all thought he was just Sawyer's roommate? How naive! The Lund family basically owns him. He's there to wait on people! You all know what I mean by that, right?"

What followed was a detailed list of all my supposed crimes since the semester began.

"All this guy does is suck up to the wealthy and look down on the rest of us. I honestly feel embarrassed to be in the same class as him."

There was even a comment left by an "insider" at the very bottom of the post.

"I'm actually his roommate. He never talks to any of us. He probably looks down on us because we're poor. After all, with the heir of the Lund family backing him, why would he care about people like us?"

I could recognize that tone and wording anywhere.

The post had already reached the trending section, and the comments kept piling up without an end in sight.

"I knew there was something behind it. I mean, no one would willingly become that submissive unless they'd been trained for it. It turns out the training happened in bed."

"He's the worst kind of person imaginable. He's merely a lapdog for the rich, yet he somehow acts like he's better than the rest of us."

"Isn't he Ruby's boyfriend? How could a spineless guy like that be a match for the campus belle? What a joke."

"He ranks dead last in the major and spends all day carrying bags for the wealthy. Can you even call him a man?"

I then found out that someone had deliberately tagged an account, which turned out to be Ruby's.

She had already written her reply. "Felix and I broke up. He was the one who kept pestering me from the start. He's got no character, he's a spineless coward, and his grades are an absolute disaster. I cut my losses just in time."

Ruby's comment quickly attracted a wave of likes, with everyone praising her for "cutting her losses".

Someone else tagged her and asked, "Then what's actually going on between you and Harvey?"

She replied with a blushing emoji and wrote, "Harvey might not come from a wealthy family, but he's a great guy. He has good grades, good character, and real integrity. He's so much better than certain people who get by just by sucking up to others."

I compared how Ruby described me with how she described Harvey, staring at those contrasting phrases for a long time.

I was completely unperturbed by it at this point. I locked my phone and sat there on the bed, staring absentmindedly at the gray sky outside.

Before I even had the time to react to the whole situation, I received a call from my student affairs officer, Felicity Jones. "Please come to my office this instant, Felix."