When Reese spoke again, his voice had changed. Just slightly. The easy confidence was still there, but something underneath it had shifted. Something that was used to getting results, and was recalibrating to find them.
"Professor Whitmore," he said, "I'm going to be honest with you. I don't think this grade situation is going to work for either of us. And I think my dad would agree. He's actually on the board of trustees, which I'm sure you know."
Silence.
"I'm going to give you the chance to reconsider," Reese said. "Take the weekend. Look at the paper again."
Whitmore said nothing.
Mia heard Reese begin to move, and she stepped back from the door and kept walking, quickly. The way you walk when you don't want to be seen standing still.
She went to her class. She sat down. She opened her notebook.
She didn't hear a word of the lecture.
She was thinking about the folder pressed against Whitmore's chest. About the effort in his voice. About a man who had spent his career doing one thing correctly, which was grading on the work, and who was now being told, in the careful language of people who have money and access, that correctly was no longer the operating principle.
She was thinking about the way Reese had said "my father would agree." Not as a separate thought. As a reflex. The way you cite gravity. A fact of the universe that doesn't need to be argued, only invoked.
She thought about what Connie had said on the phone Wednesday night.
She didn't fight because someone hurt her. She fought because she understood what the fight was actually about.
Mia sat in sociology class and looked at the word she had written at the top of her notebook page. Without meaning to. Without deciding to.
The word was "enough."
She went back to Studio B that afternoon.
This time she didn't sit on the bench. She found Foss before practice started, in the small office off the main studio. Foss was at her desk, going through what looked like match footage on a laptop. She looked up when Mia appeared in the doorway.
Mia said, "I want to train."
Foss looked at her for a moment. "Okay."
"I'm 7 months off. I don't know where I am."
"We'll find out."
"And I want to see the registration sheet."
Foss reached to the top drawer of her desk, pulled out a copy of the form, held it out.
Mia took it. Read it.
Regional Collegiate MMA Championship. Harrove University. Friday, 11 days from registration deadline. Open weight classes. Eligibility: currently enrolled undergraduate students at participating institutions.
She looked at the sponsor line at the bottom.
Hartwell Family Foundation.