She breathed through it.
She was still there.
She didn't know how long she sat there. Long enough for the afternoon light to shift. Long enough for the bench to get cold through her jeans.
When she finally stood up, she tied the ribbon back into what remained of her braid. It was shorter now. The ribbon hung a little lower than it used to.
It still looked like something, though. It still held.
She went to her afternoon class. She took her notes. She walked back to Aldrich Hall in the early evening dark. She ate a granola bar in her room because she didn't want to go back to the dining hall today.
She sat at her desk. She picked up her phone. Put it down. Picked it up again.
It was Wednesday, not Sunday. She wasn't supposed to call until Sunday.
She called anyway.
Connie picked up on the second ring.
"Mia."
Not a question. Just her name. The way Connie said it, like a whole sentence.
"Hey, Nana."
A pause. Connie could read silences the way other people read words. She had been doing it for 72 years.
"Tell me," she said.
So Mia did. Not everything. She didn't have all the words for everything yet. But she told her about Reese, and about Sloan, and about the scissors, and about the ribbon. She told it in a flat, even voice. And when she was done, she was quiet.
Connie was quiet too, for a moment.
"You okay?" Connie asked.
"I don't know yet."
"Fair enough." Another pause. "You still have the ribbon?"
"Yes."
"Good."
Connie's voice was steady and low, and held everything in it that could not be said directly.
"You know what your mother would have done in that situation."
"I know."
"She didn't fight because someone hurt her. She fought because she understood what the fight was actually about."
"I know, Nana."
"Do you know what this one is about?"
Mia was quiet for a moment. She looked at the ribbon tied into her shortened braid, in her reflection in the dark window.
"Not yet. I'm starting to."
"Okay," Connie said. "That's enough for now."
Coach Foss saw all of it.
She had been at the back corner of the dining hall when it happened, walking back from getting coffee. Far enough away that no one noticed her. She had a clear line of sight to the table. To Sloan with the scissors. To Burke with the phone. To Reese standing there with that half smile. To Mia, sitting very still.
She had seen Mia reach for the ribbon first.