That last thread inside me snapped, and I had nothing left.
Late one night, I climbed to the hospital rooftop and stepped off the edge.
I never expected to open my eyes again—days before the writing contest, back in a life I'd already lost.
Even now, there were things I still couldn't make sense of.
Clementine was my own sister. How could she have set me up?
Clara had grown up alongside me. She had a sharp tongue, sure, but she'd always had my back.
Once, when someone talked trash about me, she nearly got into a fistfight over it.
So what changed? What made them turn on me like that?
Where did it all go wrong?
I'd won first place in a children's writing competition when I was a kid.
In college, I published regularly in literary magazines.
My mentor said it straight: first place in this contest was mine to lose.
So when the plagiarism accusation broke, most people believed me.
On top of that, I'd already serialized a novel and published it as a book. Sales were solid.
I had no reason to plagiarize anyone.
But then Geoffrey released screenshots showing the exact timestamps of our submissions.
His was an hour earlier than mine.