"When someone arrives who doesn't need the resource," she said. "Someone who's not trying to belong to that particular group. They don't have anything to lose. So, the threat doesn't work on them."
Dr. Gale held her gaze for a moment.
"That," she said to the whole class, "is chapter five. Most of you won't read it until next month. Miss Holloway apparently got there already."
From the back corner, without looking up from his phone, Shane said, "Or maybe she just thinks she doesn't have anything to lose."
The class went quiet for a half second.
Dr. Gale didn't blink.
"That," she said pleasantly, "is a distinction worth examining. Thursday week."
She moved on.
Reagan wrote down the date and what Shane had said. Exactly, as Dr. Gale had told her.
* * *
By the end of the first week, the campaign was clear.
Shane didn't confront Reagan again directly after the cafeteria. He didn't need to.
The rumors started on Wednesday. By Friday, Reagan heard from Delia that there was a story going around that Reagan had received her scholarship through a special program. The implication being that the standards had been lowered. That she didn't really belong there academically. That her presence was a kind of charity.
Three people who'd initially been friendly to Reagan, sat near her in class, exchanged small talk in the hallway, had quietly pulled back. One of them had told Delia, apologetically, that they just didn't want the drama.
Reagan noted all of it.
She didn't confront anyone. Didn't go to the administration. Didn't post anything. Didn't vent to Delia at length, though Delia offered the ear.
She just watched and waited, and kept her schedule. Training at 5:00 in the morning. Classes. Study. Training in the evening. Bed.
She called Coach Dunbar on Friday night.
"How's the campus?" he asked.
"Managed," she said.
A pause.
"Anyone giving you trouble?"
"Early days," she said.
"You training every morning?"
"Evening when I can get the gym. Competition's in 34 days."
"I know."
Another pause. The comfortable kind. Ray Dunbar was a man who didn't fill silences just to fill them.
"You remember what your daddy said," he said finally. It wasn't a question.
Reagan looked out the dorm window at the campus in the evening light. The dark hills beyond the buildings looked a little like home. Not exactly. But a little.
"Don't fight the fight they want," she said. "Fight the fight you're ready for."
"Thirty-four days," he said again.
"I'll be ready."
She would be.
* * *
Delia Marsh was not a morning person.
She had made this very clear from the first night. She slept with an eye mask and two pillows and a white noise machine, and she had extracted a solemn agreement from Reagan in the first 24 hours that the overhead light would not be turned on before 7:00 a.m.
Reagan had agreed without any difficulty. She was usually gone by 5:00.