I pointed to the door, voice shaking with fury. “If you don’t leave right now, I’m calling the cops and reporting you for trespassing!”

That finally made him back off. He picked up his suitcase, but not before throwing one last comment over his shoulder.

“Pathetic. You’ll be crawling back to me before long. Just wait.”

I slammed the door behind him so hard the walls shook.

But it didn’t take long to figure out what he meant.

Not even an hour later, he posted a video of his own, talking about our relationship and heavily implying he was ashamed of me for stealing someone else’s work.

Of course, Lesley jumped into the comments to say, [Thanks for speaking up, bro.]

Then she followed up with a statement on her own page.

[I still believe in the power of originality. As long as we stand firm, there’s always hope. I wish everyone would join me in standing against plagiarism.]

Zephanie's POV

Thanks to those two, I was instantly pinned to the wall of shame, labeled a plagiarist.

I wanted to defend myself, but I had no idea where to start.

What was I supposed to say? That the video Lesley “created” was originally mine? That somehow, by some bizarre twist of fate, the two videos turned out exactly the same, even down to the second?

Who would believe me? No one. Not a single person would buy that story except me.

Then, to make matters worse, some sharp-eyed internet sleuths dug up my alternate account and found the comment I left urging her to post.

[So that comment wasn’t about excitement. It was fishing for material to steal?]

[She really had the audacity to ask for an update. She basically treated Lesley’s work like her personal content library.]

Reading those comments hit me like a punch to the gut. I had no idea what to do next.

Even if I came up with a great idea now, what was the point? Lesley would always get there first. She’d post before me every time.

That crushing feeling of helplessness wrapped around me tighter than ever.

Looking at my channel, the one I had worked so hard to build up, I knew what I had to do if I wanted to avoid falling into the same pit I had in my past life.

I deleted my account with over a million followers and posted one final message on social media.