She had learned, in her 19 years, that there were moments when the right response was to deflect. To move, to reduce friction, and walk away. She had done that on the second day. She had done it at Brennan's.
But she had also learned, from her grandmother, and from her mother before that, that there were moments when deflection was not actually safety. When walking away simply taught the other person where your edges were.
She looked at Sloan, then at Reese, then back at Sloan.
"Is there something you need?" Mia said.
Sloan smiled. It was the kind of smile that had no warmth in it at all.
"We just think it's funny," she said. "The way you wander around campus like you belong here."
"I do belong here," Mia said. "I'm a student."
"Transfer student." Sloan said it like it meant something lesser. "Showed up in the middle of the semester. Doesn't know anyone. Sits alone at every meal." She tilted her head. "That's not really belonging. That's just occupying space."
Mia looked at her for a moment. "Are you done?" Mia said.
Reese laughed. It wasn't a nice laugh. "She's got some nerve. I'll give her that."
"Nerve," Sloan said. "Or delusion. Hard to tell."
The surrounding tables had gone quieter. Not silent. But that specific quality of quiet that happens when people are listening while pretending not to.
Mia looked back at her book.
That was when Sloan reached into the pocket of her jacket and took out a small pair of scissors. The kind with short blades. The kind anyone might carry.
She stepped forward.
What happened next took about 4 seconds.
Sloan reached up toward Mia's braid and closed the scissors around a section of hair just below the ribbon. Reese watched with a half smile. Burke had the camera up.
The scissors closed.
A section of Mia's dark hair, about 4 in of it, fell to the table. And with it, unraveling from the cut end of the braid, came the ribbon. The navy blue ribbon.
It landed on the tray next to Mia's water glass.
The dining hall had gone fully quiet now. Not the listening quiet of before. The different quiet of people who had just seen something happen and weren't sure what it was yet.
Sloan stepped back. "Better," she said. "More manageable."
Burke was still filming. Reese was still smiling.
Mia sat very still.
She was aware of her own breathing. She was aware of the hair on the table, and the ribbon on the tray, and the fact that 40 or 50 people were watching her right now to see what she would do.