My Wonderful Disaster

Chapter Three — First Impressions (Part Two)

The hall erupted.

Thirty seconds. Everyone scrambling, turning, grabbing the nearest people — and I was at the back alone having just arrived and the thirty seconds were ticking and everyone around me was already grouping up and I was standing there doing a full three sixty —

"You." A hand grabbed my arm. "You're my fourth. Come."

I was pulled into a group before I could respond.

The girl who'd grabbed me was already releasing my arm and straightening up like she hadn't just physically collected me like a lost item. Tall, dark hair, effortlessly composed, the kind of put together that made you wonder if it required significant infrastructure to maintain.

"Sofia Kang," she said, to the group. "Law."

"Devi Nair." The girl beside her was in the process of putting her phone away with the energy of someone deeply inconvenienced by the concept of socialising. "Engineering." A pause. "My parents' idea. We don't need to discuss it."

The third girl smiled at me — wide, warm, a half second too polished. "Bianca Reyes.

Criminology." She tilted her head. "And you?"

"Mavis Delacroix. Accounting."

"Cute name." Bianca's smile didn't waver. "I feel like we're going to be such good friends, Mavis."

Noted.

"Okay!" The coordinator's voice cut through the noise. "Everyone in their groups? Great. So here's how it works — each person shares two truths and one lie. Your group guesses the lie. Ready? Go!"

Sofia went first. "One — I've been preparing for law school since I was twelve. Two — I speak three languages. Three — I've never lost an argument."

Devi stared at her. "Three is the lie."

"Incorrect." Sofia looked serene. "I have never lost an argument. Two is the lie — I speak two languages, not three. Yet."

"Yet," Devi repeated. "She said yet."

Bianca laughed. I pressed my lips together.

Devi went next. "One — I got the highest engineering entrance score in my state. Two — I have never once enjoyed a maths class in my life. Three — I chose engineering completely of my own free will."

"Three," Sofia, Bianca and I said simultaneously.

Devi spread her hands. "My parents send their regards."

Bianca went next, sitting up slightly straighter like she'd been waiting for her moment. "One — I was the youngest person ever accepted into Hartwell's criminology programme. Two — I interned with an actual detective agency last summer. Three — I've never failed at anything I've set my mind to."

"Three," Devi said.

"One," Sofia said.

Bianca smiled slowly. "It's three. Everything else is true."

Nobody looked surprised. That was the thing — nothing about Bianca looked like a lie. Everything she said landed like a fact.

Then everyone looked at me.

Two truths and a lie.

"One —" I thought fast, "— I can cook. Really well." Mom always said so in this universe apparently, there were cookbooks on my shelf, close enough. "Two —" I thought about the acceptance letter, the framed one, we are pleased to inform you, "— I cried when I got my acceptance letter." Completely true. Different context. "Three —" I thought about David Chen, about eighteen years of complete romantic invisibility, about never once being looked at twice, "— I've never had a boyfriend."

"Three," Devi said immediately. "You've definitely had a boyfriend."

"Two," Bianca said, smiling. "You don't seem like a crier."

Sofia said nothing. Just tilted her head slightly.

"It's two," I said. Smoothly. Confidently. Like a liar. "Didn't cry at all actually."

I have never had a boyfriend, I thought. Not even close. Not even in the same postcode as close.

"Interesting," Sofia said quietly, and moved on.

The game wrapped up and the coordinator moved on to something about campus resources that nobody was really listening to anymore because the four of us had somehow seamlessly shifted into just — talking.

Sofia was the one who steered it, naturally, the way she seemed to steer everything. A question here, a comment there, and suddenly we were a conversation.

"I've always wanted to try ballet," she said at some point, almost to herself, watching a group of girls across the hall who had the particular posture of people who had been in dance classes since before they could read. "I just never had the time. Law prep took over everything."

And that's when it happened.

Ballet.

The word landed somewhere deep and something just — cracked open. Not the chest thing. Something behind my eyes. A warmth, sudden and overwhelming, like someone had turned a light on in a room I didn't know existed.

And then I was somewhere else.

Not gone — I could still feel the chair under me, still hear Devi saying something beside me — but also somewhere else entirely. Flashes. Fast and warm and completely out of order. A studio with mirrors floor to ceiling. Music with bass so deep it lived in your chest. My body moving — not stumbling, not apologising for the space it took up, just MOVING — footwork sharp and fluid and certain, arms cutting through air like they knew exactly where they were going. A crowd. Lights. The specific feeling of a beat dropping at the exact moment your body was ready for it —

"Mavis?"

I blinked.

The girls are looking at me.

"You okay?" Sofia's brow was furrowed slightly.

"Yeah." I straightened. Cleared my throat. The visions were gone as fast as they'd come, leaving something warm and fizzing in their wake, like muscle memory for a life I hadn't lived yet. "Sorry. I just —" I opened my mouth.

"I'm actually a hip hop dancer."

It came out before I approved it. Just — arrived, like my mouth had decided on its own.

Silence.

Then Devi sat up. "Wait seriously?"

"Yeah." The word felt steadier than I expected.

"Have been for years."

"Oh my god." Sofia looked genuinely delighted.

"That's so cool. I could never — the coordination alone —"

"She's being modest," Bianca said, leaning forward, and somehow she said it like she'd always known, like it was simply a fact she was confirming. "I can tell just by looking at you. You move like a dancer."

I looked at her.

You move like a dancer.

Nobody had ever said anything like that to me. In my whole entire life nobody had looked at me and seen something that moved with intention, with grace, with anything other than the careful smallness of someone trying not to be noticed.

"That's — thanks," I managed.

"You should perform sometime," Devi said, already back to being casual about it, like she hadn't just said something that split my whole chest open. "Like at one of the campus events. I would actually attend something voluntarily for that."

"High praise," Sofia said drily.

"The highest," Devi confirmed.

I laughed.

And it was real. Completely, entirely real — not the performed version, not the polite version, but the kind that surprised you on the way out because you weren't expecting to feel this okay this fast.

This is what it feels like, I thought. To just — be someone. To just exist in a room and have people be glad you're there.

The rest of orientation went better than expected.

Which wasn't a high bar honestly but still — by the time the coordinator wrapped up with a final speech about campus resources and open door policies and making the most of your Hartwell experience, I felt something I didn't immediately recognise.

Okay.

Just — okay. Quietly, tentatively, nothing-has-gone-catastrophically-wrong okay.

Sofia had produced her phone before the coordinator even finished his last sentence. "Numbers," she said simply, looking at each of us in turn. "Now."

"Bossy," Devi observed, already typing hers in.

"Efficient."

"Same thing."

Bianca laughed and added hers. I added mine — still slightly surreal, my number in a phone that felt like mine and wasn't — and watched Sofia create a group chat in approximately eleven seconds flat.

The Girls 🌸 the chat was called.

"Sofia," Devi said.

"What."

"You named it The Girls."

"What's wrong with The Girls?"

"Nothing I just — yes. Fine. The Girls." Devi pocketed her phone. "Are we doing something after we've unpacked? I cannot spend tonight alone in my room it'll be depressing."

"Dinner," Sofia said, already standing, smoothing her jacket. "Seven o'clock. There's a place near the east building apparently. I researched it."

"Of course you did," Bianca said warmly.

"Seven works," I said.

And just like that — plans. A group chat. Three girls who wanted to have dinner with me tonight like it was the most natural thing in the world.

I picked up my bag. Followed the stream of students toward the exit, still warm from the dancing conversation, from Devi's I would actually attend something voluntarily, from the specific feeling of being in a room where nobody knew the old version of me —

The doors were just ahead.

Almost out.