Mia announced that she was finally over Liam Carter on a Wednesday night, and five women in our dorm suite cheered like she had just beaten cancer. I didn’t clap. I was too busy wondering how a girl who had spent three years sacrificing money, grades, sleep, and dignity for one man could supposedly stop loving him between breakfast and dinner.
Chapter 1
“To celebrate my rebirth,” Mia said, raising both hands dramatically, “I’m treating all of us to a private boudoir photo shoot Friday night.”
Haley squealed. Sasha nearly fell off her desk chair. Priya grabbed Mia around the waist, and Elena immediately started asking whether the package included professional hair and makeup. Mia stood in the middle of our suite glowing beneath their attention, her smile bright enough to make anyone believe she had finally escaped the worst obsession of her life.
Anyone except me.
“The whole package is already paid for,” she continued. “The photographer is a new friend. He’s closing the studio for us, so we’ll have the place to ourselves. Just show up without makeup and bring your driver’s license.”
That last sentence changed everything.
“Why do they need our licenses?” I asked.
The excitement dipped for half a second.
“For registration,” Mia said.
“I’ve been to professional studios. Nobody ever asked me for government ID.”
Her smile stiffened. “Well, this one does.”
Sasha sighed. “Chloe, please don’t turn this into one of your investigations.”
“I’m just asking.”
“And she’s spending more than a thousand dollars on us,” Haley added. “Can’t we enjoy something for once?”
That was exactly what bothered me.
Mia had once sent Liam five hundred dollars for his birthday and eaten crackers from the dining hall for three weeks because she couldn’t afford groceries. The previous semester, she had borrowed money from nearly everyone on our floor after Liam texted that he was in trouble. She raised twelve hundred dollars in two days and handed it over without asking what it was for.
She had signed attendance sheets for him, written papers for him, covered for him when he wrecked his car after drinking, and spent her tuition refund helping him pay a tow bill. Liam never called her his girlfriend. He barely called her anything at all.
Yet Mia always had an explanation.
He was afraid of intimacy.
His family pressured him.
He loved her but didn’t know how to show it.
A week earlier, I had seen a food delivery receipt on her phone. She had sent dinner to Liam’s fraternity house with a note that read, Remember to eat. Love you.
Now she was supposedly cured.
That night, while the others discussed lingerie, poses, and hairstyles, I sat on my bed looking at the screenshot of that delivery receipt.
Something was wrong.
I told our resident adviser that I had food poisoning and needed to go home to see my family doctor. Then I booked a bus ticket for Thursday morning.
Within minutes, Mia messaged me.
You HAVE to come Friday.
I told her I was sick.
Go to the campus clinic.
I’m going home.
Leave after the shoot.
No.
Her next message made the uneasiness in my stomach harden into fear.
The photographer really needs everyone there.
Why would a photographer care whether six women came instead of five?
At seven the next morning, I rolled my suitcase toward the elevator and found Mia standing in the doorway.
“You’re actually leaving?”
“I told you I was.”
“You could stay two more days.”
“I can barely keep food down.”
“I’ll take you to the clinic.”
“I need tests my doctor already scheduled.”
Her fingers closed around my sleeve. “Chloe, please.”
I looked at her hand, then at her face.
“Why are you so desperate for me to stay?”
For one second, the performance disappeared. Her eyes widened with something close to panic.
Then she pulled out her phone.
“I paid a deposit for six people. If you don’t show up, I lose money.”
“I’ll reimburse you.”
“It isn’t about the money.”
“Then what is it about?”
She had no answer.
Finally she whispered, “If you aren’t there, it’s going to be really hard for me to explain.”
“Explain to whom?”
Her expression changed again.
“The photographer,” she said quickly. “He reserved time for six.”
“One less person means less work.”
“Why are you interrogating me?”
I pulled my suitcase around her.
“Move, Mia.”
She didn’t.
“Mia.”
Something passed between us in that narrow doorway. She knew I didn’t believe her. I knew she was afraid of something she would not name.
At last, she stepped aside.
“You never trust me,” she muttered.
I left anyway.
Saturday morning, I woke in my childhood bedroom to sixty-three missed calls and more messages than my phone could count. At the top was an eight-minute voice recording from Haley.
I pressed play.
For several seconds, all I heard was sobbing.
Then Haley gasped, “Chloe, thank God you didn’t come.”
I sat upright.
“You have no idea what Mia did to us.”
