Reborn to Ruin: The Dorm Room Setup

A baby was crying under my blanket. In my last life, that baby ended me. My roommate gave birth to it, hid it in my bed, and let the whole school believe it was mine.

And I went off the roof of this building. Right now she was out in the hallway, shrieking for the Dean of Students, dragging half the floor along to catch me in the act.

She pointed at me. Told them I'd given birth to a bastard in my own bed. I smiled and dialed 911. Time to peel that sweet little face off her, in front of everyone.

The next morning, I dragged her off the same roof with me. Chapter 1 I pulled back the blanket. There was a newborn in my bed. My hands were still shaking.

The sheets were soaked through, and the smell coming off them was copper. She was red, folded in on herself, still slick. The room tilted.

Then relief came up through me, and that was the sickest part of it. I was back. Last time, I'd walked into this dorm room and heard the same faint crying.

I'd pulled back the same blanket. I'd found the same baby.

And I'd called the Dean of Students, because I was stupid and I thought adults fixed things. "You don't tell anyone," he told me. "Not one person.

Do you have any idea what this does to the school?" I nodded and said okay.

My roommate, Kaydence Pike, took a photo of the whole thing and posted it to the campus Reddit page that night. Anonymous. She didn't blur my face. By morning I was famous.

The college girl who had a baby in her dorm and left it in the sheets. Then the people who "knew things" showed up. Girls I'd never met. Guys I'd never spoken to.

In their version of me I was out every night with a different man, and there were photos, blurry and angled, and everyone agreed on what they showed. Someone found my accounts.

Then everyone did. The week I finally decided to go to the police, they updated the department board. The fellowship.

One full ride, one nomination, the only one our department gives. My name was gone from it. Kaydence's was there instead. I went to the Dean of Students.

He looked at me the way you look at a stain. "Maybe try asking yourself some hard questions," he said. "If you hadn't done any of it, why would so many people say you did?" I went back to the room.

Kaydence was there, packing. She kept smiling at me while she folded things. "It's yours," I said. "The baby's yours." She laughed. "So what if it is?

I'm the department's golden girl. Who do you think they're going to protect, you or me?" She zipped her bag. "A ranch girl for a full ride.

Honestly, I came out ahead." I don't remember deciding. I remember my hand in her hair, and the balcony, and how much lighter she was than me.

She went over the rail because I took her over it. We hit the concrete together. And then, somehow, I opened my eyes in this room, in this bed, before any of it had happened.

I made myself breathe. I was still working out my next move when the door banged open. Kaydence came in loud, the Dean of Students behind her. "Cassidy. Oh my God.

You had a baby in here?" The girls crowding the doorway made a sound like air going out of a tire. Half of them already had their phones up, recording.

Kaydence looked at me and nodded slowly, like it all made sense now. "That's why you kept going to the clinic.

Checkups, right?" "I mean, if you were that far along, why not just take a leave? We're all adults.

Nobody would've judged you for having a baby in college." She gestured at the bed. "But this? In our room?

What are the rest of us supposed to do now?" Whispers from the door. "Right? Thank God it's not my room. I'd never sleep in there again." "Cassidy always seemed so quiet.

Who knew." The Dean of Students stepped forward. He didn't ask a single question. He'd already decided. "Cassidy. Call your parents.

Get them down here." Kaydence folded her arms. "Her parents raise cattle out in the middle of nowhere. It'll take them two days to drive out." I lowered my eyes.

Last time, I held on to that. All the way down. My blood on the concrete and hers next to it, and every person standing over us still thought I came from nothing.

Not one of them ever asked how many head of cattle my family runs. I looked up at Kaydence's face. Last time I took her down with me. It bought me nothing. Not this time.

I smiled a little, and slid my hand into my pocket. Chapter 2 The Dean of Students was losing patience. "Fine. Then call the father.

Somebody has to sign for this." I didn't answer, so someone in the doorway did it for me. "She's never around anybody, though.

Probably slept with some random guy and here's the bastard." "Wild.

Kids these days." I let one side of my mouth go up. "I'm curious," I said. "Why is everyone so sure it came out of me?" Kaydence's chin came up too fast. "It's in your bed.

Are you seriously going to deny it?" "You use my makeup every day," I said. "Does that make it yours?" The room got quiet in a way that meant everyone already knew about the makeup.

Her face went blotchy. "Don't you dare turn this on me. And look at yourself. Look how weak you are right now. Of course you had it." I took my phone out of my pocket.

Three numbers were already on the screen, waiting. Nine. One. One. "I didn't give birth to it," I said. "Nobody knows whose it is.

So let's have the police tell us." "No!" She smacked the phone out of my hand. The phone skidded under the desk. Every person in that doorway stopped talking. She heard it happen.

Her ears went red. "We're in the middle of accreditation review," she said. "You call the cops over this and you destroy the whole school's reputation." The Dean of Students didn't even pretend to think about it. "She's right.

It isn't yours, fine, it isn't yours. Let's not blow this up. It won't end well for anyone." I looked at him. Kaydence's face was on the department homepage.

The only fullride candidate they had, poster girl for the whole review. That nomination sat on the board for one more month.

If this baby turned out to be a Pike, the poster came down. I laughed at him where he couldn't see it. He wasn't protecting anyone. He was threatening me. But I'd already died once.

There wasn't much left to be scared of. I made my chin wobble. "So my name doesn't matter." He snorted. "Nobody knows whose baby it is.

You don't get to just announce you're innocent." I looked around the room, at all those bright interested faces. All right.

If they wanted to push me, I had no problem taking everybody down with me. "It's in my bed, so it's mine? What if someone put it there?

Kaydence hasn't slept in this room a single night since the semester started.

Why couldn't it be hers?" Heads turned. "And Brynn Sutton walks in and out of here with a key Kaydence gave her. What if she's the one who put it in my bed?" "And the rest of you.

Anybody who's been out all night. Anybody who's had an appointment she didn't talk about. Shouldn't we all be suspects?" The room turned on itself.

Brynn got there first, shrill. "Don't you dare. It's not mine!" "You're not even on this floor. You come into our room whenever you want.

You say it isn't yours, but where's your proof?" Brynn's face went scarlet.

She yanked out her phone. "Say one more word and I'm calling the police." I opened both hands. "I'm not accusing you of anything. The Dean of Students already explained it.

You don't get to just announce you're innocent. So go on. Prove it." I hadn't lied about a single person in that room.

I'd taken the rule the Dean of Students made thirty seconds ago and handed it back, word for word.

He said innocence doesn't count unless you can prove it. "Nobody in this room can," I said. "Sir." Brynn was crying by the time she pressed call. But she pressed it.

Kaydence lunged for the phone and got Brynn's face instead. Three red lines came up across her cheek. Brynn did the influencer thing, and that face was the whole business.

She looked at the blood on her fingers, and then she drove her heel into Kaydence's stomach. Kaydence had given birth only hours before.

She'd painted her cheeks up bright and healthy, but underneath it there was nothing holding her together. She staggered and went down on the floor.

Nobody in that doorway put their phone down. Every pair of eyes traveled down her, slow, inch by inch, and stopped between her legs. Where the blood was spreading.

Chapter 3 I let my face go slack with surprise. "Kaydence. Why are you bleeding?" After that, nobody in the room was slow enough to miss it. "Oh my God.

Is it hers?" "She wouldn't let Cassidy call. She wouldn't let Brynn call. She's scared of what the cops find." "Wait. She's the one who went and got the Dean of Students.

Did she plan this whole thing?" The Dean of Students waded in fast, hands up. "All right, that's enough. The school will look into the baby.

Brynn, call them back and tell them it's handled. Once we've investigated, your name's clear." I pointed at the bed. "Sir.

Until the school's done investigating, who's taking care of it?" Brynn wanted the whole thing off her, immediately. "The Dean of Students, obviously. What, us?

I don't know anything about babies." The baby chose that moment to fill her blanket. The smell came across the room like chemical warfare.

I pinched my nose and gave the Dean of Students a shove toward the bed. "Go on.

Clean her up." He gagged twice, waved both hands, and finally landed on it. "I shouldn't disturb the scene. We'll wait for the police." They came fast.

The hallway smelled like the outside coming in. A woman officer cleaned the baby and tucked a small blanket around her.

The other one took out a notepad. "Anybody with information, start talking." Kaydence's hand shot up first. "Officer, I really think the baby is Cass—" He cut her off. "Because you said so?

Don't muddy up my scene." He looked around the room. "Here's what we'll do. The baby was found in this room. Everyone who lives in it comes downtown and gives a swab.

We'll run DNA." Kaydence's face went red, then white, then red again. The Dean of Students called our other two roommates back, and the whole crowd of us marched off to the station.

After the swab, I raised my voice so it carried. "Officer. If the test says whose baby it is, what happens to her?" He thought about it. "This one's unusual.

We'd most likely charge the birth mother with felony child abandonment. After that it's up to the court." Kaydence went whiter. I did the math for her, silently.

Until those results came back, that baby belonged to nobody at all. The day they came back, the mother was a felon. Somewhere in that building sat a sealed swab with her name on it.

That was how much time she had left. Margot Reyes stretched. "That took forever and now I'm starving.

Let's eat before we go back." Kaydence stood off to the side with her thumb working the strap of her bag. "I— I have to do something.

You guys go." She walked off in the opposite direction from the station, very calm, the way you walk when you're not. The three of us looked at each other.

Years of living together and nobody needed to say it. We followed her. She took a long loop around the block first. Checked over both shoulders. Saw nothing.

Then she slipped back inside the station. Half an hour later she came out with a mask on and the baby in her arms. Click.

Margot passed the photo to our group chat and shrugged. "Never hurts to have it." The school sat on it all night.

By ten the next morning, GIRL GIVES BIRTH IN DORM was trending at number one. I opened the comments.

Commenters: [There isn't one clean girl left in college.] Commenters: [A girl with no selfrespect is just used goods.] Commenters: [Bro, look at her.

She's been passed around plenty.] Commenters: [I think I found her account. Free is free, boys.] Last time, that last comment had my account under it.

I turned my phone over and set it face down on the desk. This time, the girl they were about to tear open wasn't me. Chapter 4 Every bit of it had come down on my head, once.

Now it was coming down on hers. What goes around comes around. I pulled my brand new comforter up to my chin and slept better than I had in two lifetimes.

The screaming started at dawn. "Somebody's on the roof!" Something dropped in my chest and I ran. Kaydence sat on the ledge in a white dress. Her ankles hung out over the drop.

She was smiling, pale, like something about to crack. The Dean of Students was up there sweating through his shirt. "Kaydence. Come down and we'll talk about anything you want.

Nothing is worth your life." She shook her head, beautifully. "My life is already over. What's the difference? Do you know what they're saying about me online? They call me a whore.

They say I sleep around. And none of it is even my fault." People around me who didn't know anything sighed. "The police haven't even released the results yet.

The internet is vicious." "Poor girl. She's taking the fall for somebody." Not yet. But that swab was two days old, and she knew it. A hand closed around my arm, hard. "Cassidy.

Come with me." Chase Corbett hauled me toward the stairwell. By the time we got up there she had one foot off the ledge. She saw me and her face crumpled. "Cassidy.

I never did anything to you. Why are you doing this to me?" "What am I doing? Did I post the videos? Or is the baby not yours?" She choked on it.

Then the crying started up again. "It isn't mine. I would never do something that disgusting, giving birth in a dorm room.

Why won't any of you believe me?" I held up my phone with Margot's photo on it. "Then why did you circle the block and sneak back into the station and walk out with the baby?" Both her hands went to her head and she screamed into them. "It wasn't me.

That is not me. What do I have to do?

Do I have to die before any of you believe I'm clean?" "Enough." Chase's palm cracked across my face. "You won't stop until she jumps, will you?

Cassidy, I never knew you were this vicious." The man who just hit me was my boyfriend. Four years. In four years he never told one person we were together.

Love doesn't need proof, he used to say. I believed him. Last time, on the day the internet hated me most, Chase stepped forward and announced the baby was ours.

After that there was no way out for me. He turned to Kaydence and his whole face changed. Soft. A different man from the one who'd just hit me. "Kaydence. I believe you.

Will you come down for me?" She steadied a little. "Really? You're not lying?" He smiled at her like she was something small he'd found in the rain. "Of course I'm not.

I know who you are." She wavered. Then she shook her head. "It's too late. The whole internet says I'm the one who had it. My life is finished.

I'd rather be dead." Chase reached into his pocket. He pulled out a phone. The screen lit up in the wind. I could see which account was logged in. Mine.

Chapter 5 "There's another way." Chase held the phone up. "Cassidy admits it herself." Something closed around my heart and squeezed. "Chase.

Are you insane?" He said it like I was slow. "Kaydence has never even had a boyfriend. Do you have any idea what this is doing to her? And it's not like it costs you anything.

We've been together four years. So you admit to a baby. Who cares. You're marrying me anyway.

I'm not holding it against you." Four years with this man and I had never once seen the inside of his head. The Dean of Students lit up. "He's right.

The baby was found in her bed, and she's got nothing to prove she was anywhere else.

If she admits it, this ends well for everybody." Kaydence looked at me over Chase's shoulder, and she let me see how much she was enjoying it.

Chase saw her steady and moved fast, hauling her back off the ledge. She collapsed into his chest, sobbing. "Chasey, I was so scared." He stroked her hair.

He didn't look at me when he gave the order. "Post it." I laughed at him once. "So you want me dead." He frowned. "It costs you nothing to save a life.

Can you stop threatening to die every time you don't get your way?

Is it fun?" Down in the courtyard: "Fire department, move back!" The college Dean and half the administration came pouring out of the stairwell door.

The Dean of Students smiled to himself and started toward them, ready to collect. I sat down on the concrete and let it out. "Chase.

You're my boyfriend and you're standing there defending some other girl, no questions asked.

Do you even have a heart in there?" "And you." I pointed. "You know exactly whose baby that is.

Why are you putting it on me?" "I clawed my way into this school from the middle of nowhere.

And you'll take my whole future for one baby that isn't mine." "Why does it have to be me? What do you want, do you want me dead?

Would that make everybody happy?" Then I got up and I walked at Kaydence. I got a fistful of her hair. I ran her at the ledge. I hit her the whole way. "Kaydence. It's yours.

Why did you do this to me?" "You never slept in our room once. We covered for you. And now you drop a baby in my bed?" "Fine.

If you people want me finished, then nobody walks off this roof. We go together." I dragged her over the rail. Down below, the fire crew had just finished laying the airbag out.

They'd sealed the last corner two seconds ago. I counted. Kaydence understood, finally, that she was going to die.

She locked both hands on the rail and started screaming like a hog in a chute. "Help me. Help me.

I don't want to die." I leaned her out over the drop. "You push me and I'll take you with me. Come on. Then nobody gets to." "I'll stop. I'll stop!" Her eyes were squeezed shut.

She wouldn't look down. Her whole face was wet with snot and tears. "It's mine. The baby's mine. I did it, I shouldn't have done it to you, please, please let me go.

I'll never do it again." "Louder," I said. She said it again. She screamed it. Behind us, the roof door. The Dean. The administrators. The firefighters. Dozens of students.

Dozens of phones, up, recording. That sentence belonged to the internet now. Nobody was ever deleting it. Then I locked my arms around her and threw us both off the building.

Her scream went out across the whole campus. Chapter 6 Two seconds. Maybe less. The airbag caught us square. People swarmed in from every direction.

Then somebody pinched their nose. "Oh, that's nasty. She pissed herself." Kaydence was staring at nothing.

They loaded her into the ambulance with the pale yellow stain still spreading down her white dress. The airbag took most of it. Not all of it. The bone in my hand snapped anyway.

The school did not waste one second. The Dean drove me to the hospital himself. The Dean of Students climbed into the back seat behind us, sweating in fat beads.

I kept my eyes shut and let my face go dead. At the hospital I followed the nurse into the private suite the school had already paid for, and I never looked back once.

The Dean of Students wiped his forehead. "Thank God you're all right. We can always talk things through.

Nobody is going to force you to do anything you don't want to do." The Dean didn't turn around. "You're still saying we? You're done. Today. Get out." The man's face emptied.

He dropped straight to his knees on the tile. "Sir, I made a mistake. Sir, one more chance, I'm begging you—" Security had him under the arms before he finished.

The Dean exhaled. "You have my word. The school will make this right." After he left, Chase pushed the door open with his arm around Kaydence.

He looked at me, dark. "When did you get like this, Cassidy? So extreme." I looked at the ceiling for a second. "My boyfriend cheats and frames me.

Sorry, how calm should I be?" "It's not that big a deal. You admit it, it's over.

You're keeping score like some, I don't know." He shrugged. "Guess that's how they raise you out there." I didn't want to fight with him. "Spit it out or get out." Chase went red and shut his mouth.

Kaydence rolled her eyes. "He came to break up with you." I waved a hand. "Noted. Out." She smiled at me. "You really are a gold digger.

You do know that when a man ends things, he's legally entitled to his gifts back?" "He bought you a necklace. Earrings. Clothes.

We don't want your used garbage, so just pay him the cash. Four thousand dollars." I folded my arms. "Four thousand because you say four thousand?

Where are the receipts?" Kaydence's lip curled. She was typing something on her phone, onehanded. "If you're not paying, say so.

Or you could get down on your knees right now, apologize to the camera, and we'll drop it." She lifted the phone. "Otherwise this goes online, and then it isn't just about money." "On my knees," I said. "To a camera you're already holding." I looked at Chase. "So you two have been at it for a while.

Funny, last week you texted me asking where I wanted to go for Valentine's Day. Serious question.

Are we officially broken up?" Kaydence pulled his arm into her chest. "Who do you think you are? You were his girlfriend and you wouldn't even sleep with him.

Of course Chasey fell in love with me." "You want the truth? Chasey already admitted it. The baby is his. We're getting engaged in a few days. So be smart and pay." Admitted.

Not tested. That swab was still sitting in a lab, and neither of them had thought about it once. I turned toward the phone propped up on the tray table. "Everybody get a good look.

The two people from the roof. "One of them cheats. "One of them fakes a suicide. "Made for each other. "Say hi to the internet." Kaydence's voice tore. "You're streaming?" "You get to film me in secret, but I don't get to stream?" Her face went crimson. "That's my likeness.

That's illegal.

You pay me twentyeight thousand dollars today or I'll see you in court." I reached into my bag and pulled out a stack of paper, and I dropped it on the bedside table.

The one on top was the receipt from three years ago, the day I put his watch on my card. "Ask your boyfriend first." I looked up at her. "How much of my money he's spent." Chapter 7