Chapter 6 - The Anonymous Forum Post
By the end of our second week of classes, the initial chaos of move-in day had settled into the comforting rhythm of college life. Hannah and I had established a smooth roommate routine: she handled the early-morning coffee runs, I managed the snack restocking with supplies from my dad’s actual pantry, and our dorm room had officially transformed into a cozy, plant-filled sanctuary.
Sarah had practically become our unofficial third roommate, often crashing on our beanbag chair to study for Dr. Harrison’s rigorous business ethics exams.
However, peace on a college campus is rarely permanent.
It started on a rainy Thursday afternoon. I was sitting at my newly assembled ergonomic desk, typing up a rough draft for a marketing case study, when my phone buzzed violently against the wood.
It was a text from Sarah, accompanied by a screenshot link.
*Sarah: “Maya, you need to see this right now. Open the campus Yik Yak / student confessions thread.”*
Frowning, I tapped the link, opening the anonymous university forum app. At the top of the trending feed, sitting with over five hundred upvotes and dozens of angry comments, was a post titled:
**“Warning to all incoming students: Watch out for fake-wealth frauds living in the dorms.”**
My heart skipped a beat as I began reading the text:
> *"Just a heads-up to everyone rushing clubs and trying to make real friends this semester. There are people walking around campus pretending to be humble, living in standard dorms while their parents pull elaborate psychological stunts to trap people. Case in point: a certain girl in the freshman dorms whose family acted like homeless bums on move-in day to catfish people into feeling sorry for them, only to pull up in a midnight-blue luxury truck later that night like total phonies. If you like manipulative liars who play poverty games just to test your social status, go ahead and be friends with Maya E. Otherwise, keep your distance. She's a fraud."*
The silence in the room felt heavy. I stared at the screen, the glowing letters burning into my retinas.
Hannah, who had been sitting on her bed sketching a design project, looked up and noticed the pale expression on my face. “Maya? What’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
I turned my laptop around, sliding the screen toward her so she could read the post.
Hannah’s eyes scanned the paragraphs, her jaw slowly dropping. “Are you kidding me right now? Is this... is this Chloe?”
“Who else could it be?” I muttered, a cold wave of anger washing over my initial shock. “She couldn't handle getting publicly humiliated in the student union, so she took her revenge online, twisting the whole story to make herself look like the victim of a ‘fraudulent catfish.’”
“This is cyberbullying and harassment,” Sarah said, suddenly bursting through our dorm room door with her umbrella dripping wet onto the welcome mat. She had clearly run all the way from the library. “I saw the post five minutes ago. Half the campus business fraternity is commenting on it, repeating Chloe’s stupid lies.”
“What do we do?” Hannah asked, looking genuinely distressed. “If this gets shared enough, your reputation on campus is going to take a massive hit before we’ve even finished our first month.”
I sat back in my chair, staring at the ceiling. For a moment, I felt that familiar, hot prickle of humiliation—the exact same feeling I had experienced when I first saw my parents standing in the parking lot in ripped jeans.
*“Never let people measure your worth by the wrapping paper,”* my dad’s voice echoed in my memory.
I sat up straight. The humiliation vanished, replaced by the same icy, razor-sharp clarity I had felt in the concrete stairwell.
“We don’t delete it,” I said softly.
Sarah raised an eyebrow. “We don’t delete it? Maya, she’s literally slandering you across the entire university network.”
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“Exactly,” I smiled, a slow, determined plan forming in my mind. “She wants to make this public. She wants to turn it into a public spectacle. Well, if Chloe wants a public trial, we’re going to give her one—complete with receipts, evidence, and a masterclass she’ll never forget.”
***
