The Recipe For Disaster

Three Weeks Too Late

Mia should have known something was wrong the second she walked into the dining hall and the whole table went quiet, not the normal kind of quiet where people are just busy eating but the guilty kind, the kind where three different people suddenly found their phones extremely interesting and Priya's face did something complicated before settling into careful neutral, and when Mia asked what was going on nobody answered fast enough to be believed, so Priya grabbed her arm and pulled her outside before anyone else could try, which was somehow worse than getting an answer at all, and once they were standing in the cold under the dining hall awning Priya finally said there was a screenshot going around, something from Vanessa's old chat with Theo, from back home, from before either of them had ever set foot on this campus, and it was Theo talking about Mia, saying he wasn't sure if he actually liked her or just liked the idea of liking her because Vanessa wouldn't give him the time of day anymore, and Priya said it was probably out of context, it had to be, but Vanessa had posted it less than an hour ago with a caption that read some people don't deserve the truth, and by now it had been seen by basically the entire floor and half the freshman class besides, and Mia felt the floor tilt slightly under her even though she was standing perfectly still, and she didn't wait to hear anything else, she just started walking, fast, out across the quad toward the library because she knew without having to check that Theo would be there, he was always there around this time, and sure enough she found him sitting on the low stone wall outside with his bag still on his shoulder like he hadn't even made it inside yet, and the second he saw her face he knew, he always knew her face too well, that was the whole infuriating problem with him, and he stood up immediately saying it wasn't what it looked like, and Mia said then what does it look like, because right now it looks like I'm a backup plan you settled for after your ex stopped giving you attention, and he dragged a hand through his hair and admitted that yes, he had said something like that, weeks ago, before he actually knew her, before any of this, before the granola bar and the disco ball complaints and the late nights at the library that had nothing to do with studying, and he said it was one stupid comment in an old chat from back home and Vanessa had kept it sitting there for weeks just so she could use it exactly like this, at exactly the moment it would do the most damage, and Mia asked why Vanessa would even still have access to something like that, why the two of them were still talking enough for her to pull something so specific and so old out of her back pocket, and Theo said they weren't talking, not really, she just texted sometimes, and two years of history didn't just turn off like a switch the day you decided it was over, and he hated having to explain that like it was some kind of crime, and Mia said it feels like one right now, and he said he knew it did, but he wasn't lying to her, he liked her, actually her, not an idea of her, not a backup plan, and the comment had been real once but it wasn't true anymore, and the fact that Vanessa had weaponized a years old text instead of just talking to either of them like a normal person should tell her everything she needed to know about who was actually playing games here, and the worst part was that Mia believed him, mostly, almost completely, and that scared her more than the screenshot ever could have, because it meant she was already in too deep to walk away clean, so instead of saying any of that she said she needed space, because it was easier than admitting how much she wanted to forgive him already, and she walked off before he could see her face c***k the way his already had, and she found Vanessa exactly where she expected to, alone on the quad, scrolling her phone with the kind of satisfied stillness that belongs to someone watching a plan land exactly on schedule, and Mia asked if it had been worth it, and Vanessa looked up and said she didn't know what Mia meant, and Mia said don't, you kept a years old text for weeks so you could detonate it the second it would hurt the most, that isn't an accident, that's a plan, so I'm asking you, was it worth it, and for one single unguarded second something cracked open in Vanessa's expression, something that looked almost like regret or maybe just like being seen too clearly for the first time, and then it was gone, smoothed back over into the same glassy practiced smile from the hallway on move in day, and Vanessa said everyone figures it out eventually, that people show you who they are, Theo did, weeks ago, she'd just made sure Mia actually heard it this time, and Mia said that isn't honesty, Vanessa, that's just hurting me and calling it the truth, and Vanessa's smile didn't move but something behind her eyes did, just barely, just long enough for Mia to catch it before it disappeared again, and Vanessa said maybe, or maybe Mia would thank her later, and then she walked away before Mia could answer, leaving her standing alone on the quad with her chest tight and her phone still buzzing, the group chat still spiraling, still rewriting her entire semester into a public spectacle she had never agreed to be part of, and the strange thing was that the cracked second on Vanessa's face stayed with Mia longer than the screenshot did, because it was proof, however small, that Vanessa wasn't quite as untouchable as she wanted everyone to believe.