Chapter 2: Backseat Collision
The air in the car was dead. The only sound was the ragged rhythm of three different breaths, muffled by the thick condensation on the windows.
Ruby stared straight ahead, her knuckles bone-white on the steering wheel. The argument had been a sudden, violent storm—Ruby’s protective fury, Sofina’s cold, possessive defiance, Vy trapped in the middle like a startled animal—and it had ended not with words, but with that kiss. It hadn’t been gentle. It was a claim, Sofina’s fingers digging into Vy’s jaw, a desperate, angry punctuation mark to her snarled words. You don’t know what she wants.
Now, Sofina was gone, vanished into the dark campus toward her dorm, leaving behind a vacuum.
Vy touched her lips. They felt scalded. Her wrist ached where Sofina had held her earlier, a twin echo to the pressure on her face. She couldn’t look at Ruby.
“Okay,” Ruby said finally, her voice strained but controlled. She turned the key, the engine coughing to life, shattering the silence. The headlights cut twin swaths through the foggy dark. “We’re leaving.”
“Ruby, I—”
“Not now, Vy.” Ruby put the car in drive. “I need to not hit a tree. You need to not talk. Just… not now.”
The ride back to Wellesley was a twenty-five-minute descent into pure, suffocating quiet. Vy watched the streetlights smear past her window, each one a pulse in the terrible, humming shame growing in her chest. She replayed it on a loop: the dizzy, overwhelming heat of the party, Sofina finding her in the crowd, the pull into a side hall that was too dark, too close. Sofina’s laugh, sharp and knowing. The way she’d said, “You followed me here, didn’t you?” And Vy, stupidly, had nodded. The fight in the car was a blur of raised voices—Ruby shouting that this was messed up, Sofina coolly dismissing her as irrelevant—until it wasn’t a blur at all. Until Sofina had reached across the seat and pulled Vy in, and Vy… hadn’t pulled away.
The car rolled to a stop in their familiar lot. Ruby killed the engine. The dash lights died, plunging them into a dim, suburban blue.
Ruby didn’t move.
“She’s toxic, Vy.”
“It’s complicated,” Vy whispered, the words sticking in her dry throat.
“It’s really not.” Ruby turned to her, and her face was soft now, just worried. “What happened at the health fair… that was weird, but I thought maybe I was reading into it. This? This was a show. She did that for me. To prove a point that she owns you. That’s not complicated. That’s fucked up.”
Vy’s eyes burned. She looked down at her phone, lighting up with a new notification. A message preview lit the screen.
Sofina: You liked it. Don’t overthink.
She flinched and dropped the phone into her bag as if it had burned her.
“See?” Ruby’s voice was gentle. “You’re scared of your own phone. Come on. Let’s go inside.”
Their dorm room felt like a sanctuary and a prison. Vy shrugged off her jacket, the scent of smoke and cheap beer clinging to it. She could still smell Sofina’s perfume—jasmine and something sharp—on her collar. She tore the jacket off and threw it onto her chair.
Ruby changed into sweats, her movements slow and tired. “You want some tea?”
“No. Thanks.”
“Vy.” Ruby sat on the edge of her bed. “Talk to me. Please. Who is she to you? Really.”
Vy sank onto her own bed, the stiff mattress groaning. She pulled her knees to her chest. “We knew each other in high school. Sort of. She was a year ahead. We got close spring of senior year. I helped her with her college stuff when she got deferred.”
“And you liked her.”
“Yes.” The admission felt like pulling a splinter. “It was this tiny, secret thing. I never said anything. Then she went to BU, and I came here, and I thought that was it. Just a stupid high school crush.”
“But then she texts you out of the blue to come to that health fair.”
“Yeah.”
“And you went.”
“I went,” Vy echoed. She buried her face in her knees. “And it was like she’d just been waiting. Like no time had passed at all. She was so… sure. Of everything. Of me.”
Ruby was quiet for a long minute. “That thing you said in the car, when you were yelling… you said, ‘You’re not Katy.’ Who’s Katy?”
The air left Vy’s lungs. She’d forgotten she’d said that. It had slipped out in the heat of the argument, a raw, unguarded piece of her heart thrown onto the floorboards.
“Katy Guo,” Vy murmured, her voice muffled by denim. “From back home. We… I don’t know. We text sometimes. It’s nothing. It’s safe.”
“Safe,” Ruby repeated softly. “And Sofina is not safe.”
Vy didn’t answer. She didn’t have to.
“You can’t see her again, Vy.”
“She’s just a friend,” Vy said, the lie tasting like ash.
Ruby gave a sad, disbelieving laugh. “Yeah. Friends don’t do that. Friends don’t look at you like you’re a puzzle they’ve already solved.” She stood up, walked over, and sat next to Vy, their shoulders touching. “You’re the smartest person I know. You analyze everything. But with her, you just… stop thinking. That’s dangerous.”
Vy knew she was right. Every logical, statistical part of her brain agreed. But another part, a deeper, more visceral part, was still back in that car, heart hammering, alive in a way she hadn’t felt since… since maybe ever. It was a terrifying feeling. Addictive.
Her phone buzzed again from inside her bag. They both looked at it.
“You don’t have to answer it,” Ruby said.
Vy knew she did. The silence would be a different kind of answer, one that would make Sofina push harder. She got up, retrieved the phone, and looked at the screen.
Sofina: Party at a frat on Beacon St. Friday. You’re coming. Don’t bring the roommate.
A simple command. No question mark.
Vy’s thumb hovered over the keyboard. She felt Ruby watching her, felt the weight of the sensible, safe path laid out before her—the path that led away from Sofina, maybe toward the gentle, confusing texts with Katy that went nowhere.
She typed a single letter: K.
It was not yes. It was not no. It was a placeholder, a tiny opening she knew she shouldn’t leave open.
She locked the screen and placed the phone face down on her desk. “I’m going to sleep,” she said, her voice hollow.
Ruby just nodded, her expression a mix of pity and resignation. She knew. They both knew.
As Vy lay in the dark, staring at the shadows on the ceiling, the memory of the kiss replayed, not as an assault, but as a question. A terrifying, electrifying question she was no longer sure she wanted to answer. The ghost of Sofina’s grip on her wrist pulsed in the quiet dark, a silent, insistent beat. A countdown to Friday.
The next three days passed in a dull, anxious blur. Vy attended her lectures, took notes in statistics, and recited the arguments for trade policy in her International Relations seminar, but her mind kept replaying a single, maddening filmstrip: Sofina’s kiss, Ruby’s worried silence, and the single, cryptic ‘K’ sitting in her messages like a lit fuse.
Her texts with Katy Guo had gone quiet, too. That safe, distant thread had snapped the moment Sofina had grabbed her. Vy would unlock her phone, stare at their old conversation—a few polite exchanges about econ professors and Bay Area bagel spots—and feel a foolish pang. Katy, a confident third-year she’d only admired from a distance, was a daydream. Sofina was the middle-of-the-night reality.
Friday morning dawned cold and bright. Vy was walking back from the science center, her backpack heavy with textbooks, when she saw her.
Katy Guo was crossing Academic Quad, laughing at something a friend said, her dark hair whipping in the wind. She wore a simple, expensive-looking wool coat and carried a leather satchel. She moved with an easy, unthinking grace, the kind that came from being entirely at home in your own skin. Vy froze mid-stride, her breath catching in her throat.
Her heart did a complicated, painful stutter. It wasn't just attraction; it was a sharp, specific longing for something simpler, for the version of herself that had found Katy intriguing and safe. The version before Sofina had looked her dead in the eyes and seen every hidden part.
Katy turned her head, her gaze sweeping across the path. For a split second, it seemed to land on Vy. Vy’s stomach dropped. Did she recognize her? Was she just looking past her?
Then Katy smiled at her friend and walked on, disappearing into Severance Hall.
Vy stood there, rooted to the spot, students flowing around her like she was a stone in a stream. The encounter lasted ten seconds. It felt like an hour. A hollow feeling opened up in her chest. She didn’t know if Katy remembered her. She probably didn’t. Why would she? Vy was just a random first-year she’d texted a few times over the summer.
That safe option felt impossibly far away, a faded postcard from another life.
“Dude, you’re blocking traffic.”
A passing student bumped her shoulder, jolting her back to the present. She blinked, her face flushing hot. She tightened her grip on her backpack straps and hurried toward her dorm, the image of Katy’ effortless smile burning behind her eyes.
Ruby was out when she got back. The room was quiet. Vy dumped her bag and sat on the edge of her bed, staring at her hands. Her phone, face-down on the desk, seemed to pulse with a malevolent energy. The frat party. Beacon Street. Tonight.
She thought of Ruby’s exhausted, worried face in the car. She thought of Sofina’s fingers, possessive and sure.
Then she thought of Katy’s unrecognizing glance. The clear, simple path that didn’t seem to exist for her.
Her phone buzzed. A new message lit the screen. It wasn’t from Sofina.
It was from Katy Guo.
Hey, Vy. Random, but I think I just saw you on the quad? If that was you, sorry for not saying hi—was late for a review. How’s your semester going?
Vy’s heart hammered against her ribs. She read the message three times. The casual tone. The question. It was an opening, small and polite and entirely uncomplicated.
Before she could think, her thumbs were moving.
Hey! Yeah, that was me. No worries at all. Semester is… a lot. How about you?
She hit send. The whoosh sound seemed deafening in the silent room. It was a step onto that other, safer path. It felt terrifying in its own way.
Another buzz, almost immediate.
Also a lot. Junior year is no joke. If you ever want to swap econ survival tips, lmk. Could use a study buddy who gets the Bay Area bagel struggle.
A smile, genuine and startled, touched Vy’s lips. It was just a friendly offer. Probably. But it was something real, something that existed outside of darkened cars and bruising kisses.
The screen went dark. She looked at the time. Five hours until the party on Beacon Street.
She had a choice to make. A real one.
Vy stood up and walked to her closet. She didn't know what she would choose yet. But for the first time in days, the numbness was gone, replaced by a sharp, trembling clarity. The countdown to Friday was no longer just about Sofina.
It was about who she wanted to be when the clock ran out. She pulled out a simple black sweater, her fingers tracing the weave of the fabric, a decision slowly cohering in the quiet afternoon light.
She pulled out a simple black sweater, her fingers tracing the weave of the fabric, a decision slowly cohering in the quiet afternoon light. It wasn’t about the party, not really. It was about armor. Something to disappear into. The buzzy, predatory energy of a frat house felt suddenly repulsive, a cartoon of everything she feared about herself. She typed a quick text to Ruby, who was at the library. Going to the science center to work. Might be late. It wasn’t a lie. It just wasn’t the whole truth.
The library was a cathedral of hushed anxiety. Vy found a carrel in the dimmed stacks, the air thick with the smell of old paper and defeated ambition. She opened her stats textbook, the equations blurring into grey nonsense. Her phone sat beside her, a silent jury. At 7:03 PM, a message from Sofina appeared. Where are you? The words pulsed with impatience. Vy watched the screen until it went dark. She didn’t reply.
Instead, she opened her thread with Katy. Their exchange about study buddies glowed there, polite and open-ended. Vy took a breath and typed, her thumbs clumsy. Actually, could use those econ tips tonight if you’re free. Hiding in the library. She hit send before she could reconsider. The act felt rebellious, a quiet deflection of the script Sofina had written.
A reply came fifteen minutes later, just as Vy was genuinely starting to drown in standard deviation. Green study room, 2nd floor of Pendleton? Finishing up here. Give me 20.
The mundane specificity of it was a lifeline. Green study room. Second floor. A location, not a demand.
When Vy pushed open the door to room 217, Katy was already there, papers spread in a chaotic halo around her laptop. She looked up, and a warm, tired smile broke across her face. It was utterly different from Sofina’s sharp, knowing grins. This was just… nice. “Hey. Refuge seeker,” Katy said, her voice soft so as not to disturb the library quiet. “Come in. Claim your territory.”
“Thanks,” Vy said, her voice smaller than she intended. She slid into the chair opposite, unloading her books like a ritual. “I’m drowning in data sets.”
“Join the club.” Katy pushed a stray strand of hair behind her ear. She wore glasses Vy had never seen, making her look studious and approachable. “Is it for Stats 101? The midterm is brutal.”
“Yeah. It’s like they invented the math to personally torture me.”
Katy laughed, a light, genuine sound. “Wait until econometrics. Then you’ll really feel the love.” She spun her laptop around. “Here, look at this. My secret weapon for regression analysis.”
For the next hour, they talked. Really talked. Not about parties or possessive grips or unspoken challenges, but about professors, about the weirdness of East Coast winters, about the specific nostalgia for Boba Guys in San Jose. Katy was smart in a steady, unshowy way. She explained concepts without condescension, her focus entirely on the work. There was no subtext, no hunting gleam in her eye. It was just… conversation.
Vy felt her shoulders slowly unhitch from her ears. The cold knot in her stomach, which had been there since the fight in Ruby’s car, began to loosen.
“So,” Katy said later, closing a textbook with a firm thump. “You survived. Or, your data set did.” She peered at Vy over her glasses. “You okay? You seemed a little…spaced when I saw you earlier.”
The question was casual, but it held space. It didn’t claw at her.
Vy looked down at her hands, at the faint, ghostly marks on her wrist that were now just imagination. “Yeah,” she said, and found she meant it. “Just a weird week. College, right?”
“The weirdest.” Katy gathered her things, her movements efficient. “Listen, if that Sergov class is kicking your ass, we could do this again. I have a standing Tuesday/Thursday reservation on this room. Safety in numbers.”
It was an invitation, not a summons. A door left ajar.
“I’d like that,” Vy said.
They walked out together into the crisp night air. The campus was quiet, paths lit by gentle lamplight. It was so different from the chaotic, neon-fueled night Sofina had offered. For a moment, they stood on the library steps, breath making small clouds in the air.
“Thanks, Katy,” Vy said again, the name feeling solid on her tongue.
“Anytime.” Katy shouldered her bag and gave a little wave. “Get home safe. Text me if you hit another stats wall.”
Vy watched her walk away, her figure growing smaller and fainter against the dark. The cold air was clean in her lungs. She pulled out her phone. There were three more messages from Sofina, each progressively sharper. The last one read: Fine. Be boring.
Vy deleted the thread. She didn’t block the number. She just let it sit, a dormant volcano on her screen. Then she opened a new message, typed Thanks for tonight. Really helped, and sent it to Katy. She started the walk back to her dorm, the decision no longer cohering but solidified, step by step on the frozen pavement. The night was clear, and for the first time in days, she could see the stars.
The night was clear, and for the first time in days, she could see the stars. Her phone buzzed in her pocket once, a short, sharp vibration she felt in her teeth. She didn’t check it. The cold air bit at her cheeks, a clean, clarifying pain as she walked across the empty quad. Her mind, usually a whirlwind of probabilities and analysis, was quiet. For now.
Back in the dorm, the light was on. Ruby was sitting cross-legged on her bed, a textbook open but ignored in her lap. She watched Vy hang up her coat. “You weren’t at the science center,” Ruby said. It wasn’t an accusation. It was a statement, soft and tired.
“No.” Vy sat on the edge of her own bed, facing her roommate. “I was in Pendleton. Studying.” She paused, the next part feeling both fragile and significant. “With Katy Guo.”
Ruby’s eyes widened a fraction. The tension in her shoulders, the protective hunch she’d carried since the car, eased. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. She had a study room. We worked on stats.” Vy let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. “It was just studying.”
“Just studying is good,” Ruby said, her voice regaining some of its usual warmth. “Just studying is fantastic, actually.” She closed her book with a definitive snap. “Did Sofina…?”
“She texted. I didn’t go.”
A slow, real smile spread across Ruby’s face. “Hell yeah, you didn’t.” She picked at her comforter. “You know, for a stats genius, you’ve been running some pretty garbage algorithms lately. Glad you switched datasets.”
The metaphor hit its mark. Vy gave a weak laugh. “The old one was corrupted.”
“Damn right it was.” Ruby’s expression turned serious again. “She’s gonna be pissed, you know. That you stood her up.”
The phantom sensation returned, a pressure around her wrist. Vy rubbed the skin there, feeling nothing but her own bones. “I know.”
Her phone, charging on the nightstand, lit up. The screen flashed once, casting a blue oblong on the ceiling. Neither of them moved to look at it. They both knew. The silence stretched, comfortable now, a shared vigil against the expected storm.
Vy changed into her sweats, the ritual of readying for bed a grounding anchor. She brushed her teeth, staring at her own reflection—the intelligent, observant eyes Ruby had described, now shadowed with a fatigue deeper than any all-nighter. When she returned, Ruby was already under her covers, phone in hand but screen dark.
“For what it’s worth,” Ruby murmured into the dimness, “I’m proud of you. Tonight.”
The words lodged in Vy’s chest, a small, warm stone. “Thanks, Rubes.”
She slid into bed, the sheets cool. She did check her phone then, a single, deliberate action. One notification. Sofina’s message was just three words: Cool. Be boring.
Then, a minute later, another had arrived. This one was different. A link to a Boston Globe article about public health funding cuts, followed by a line of text: Thought you’d find this relevant for your IR/ Econ thing. No pressure.
It was a masterstroke. It wasn’t anger. It wasn’t a direct pull. It was a reminder of who they were, or who Sofina believed they could be together—sharp, engaged, connected. It bypassed the argument, the bruised feelings, and spoke directly to the part of Vy that was ambitious and curious. It was an infinitely more seductive hook than any party invitation. Vy stared at the link, her thumb hovering. She didn’t open it.
She opened her thread with Katy instead. Her own Thanks for tonight was the last message. She typed another, her movements slow and certain. Good luck on your midterm. She sent it, a simple act of maintenance on this new, untested path.
The following Tuesday, Vy found herself outside Pendleton Hall at 6:58 PM. Her heartbeat was a quick, light flutter against her ribs, entirely different from the dread-soaked thud that preceded Sofina’s texts. This was the anxious buzz of a new experiment, variables unknown.
Katy was already in the green study room, two paper cups of tea steaming beside her laptop. “I come bearing peace offerings,” she said, pushing one toward Vy. “Chamomile. It’s supposed to be calming, but honestly, it just tastes like hot flowers.”
Vy smiled, taking the cup. The warmth seeped into her hands. “Flowers are good.”
They worked. The conversation was a steady stream of academic shorthand and shared frustration, punctuated by quiet stretches of focus. Katy chewed the end of her pen when she was thinking. She muttered equations under her breath like incantations. It was profoundly normal. Comforting.
During a break, Katy stretched her arms over her head. “So, you never said. What made your week so weird?”
The question was offhand. Vy took a sip of the hot-flowery tea, stalling. The truth was a tangled mess of possession and panic in a foggy car. She offered a fragment, polished smooth. “Just some drama with an old friend from home. It got intense.”
“Ah,” Katy nodded, her understanding seeming genuine. “The high school ghosts. They always come back with something to prove.” She didn’t press for details. “Well, for future reference, my policy is that anyone who makes your week weird owes you boba. Just a helpful rule to live by.”
“I’ll adopt that policy immediately,” Vy said, and she meant it.
They packed up as the library announced closing. The night was colder now, a sharp wind cutting across the campus. They fell into step together, heading in the same direction toward the first-year quad.
“I’m this way,” Katy said, pointing a fork in the path.
“Me too, actually.”
They walked in a silence that wasn’t awkward. It was filled with the rustle of fallen leaves and the distant sound of someone practicing cello from a dorm window. Vy was hyper-aware of the space between their arms, a careful inch of cold night air.
“Hey,” Katy said, stopping at the base of the steps to Vy’s hall. “A bunch of people from my econ seminar are grabbing dim sum in Chinatown this Saturday. Dumpster-fire of a study group, but fun. You should come.”
It was an invitation into a world. A real one, with other people, in the daylight. No dark corners, no secret grips.
Vy felt the ghost of a possessive hand on her wrist. She saw Ruby’s worried face. She looked at Katy, who was waiting, her expression open and easy.
“Yeah,” Vy said, the word feeling solid in the cold air. “I’d really like that.”
“Cool.” Katy’s smile was a quick, bright thing under the porch light. “I’ll text you the details.” She turned to go, then glanced back. “And Vy? For what it’s worth, you don’t seem boring at all.”
Then she was gone, her footsteps fading into the night. Vy stood on the steps, the warm nucleus of the tea still sitting in her stomach. She replayed the word in her head. Boring. Sofina’s final, dismissing text. A label meant to provoke, to lure her back into the drama.
Up in her room, the window was dark. Ruby was probably already asleep. Vy opened her messages. She looked at the link Sofina had sent, that perfectly crafted piece of bait. She didn’t click it.
Instead, she typed a new message, direct and clear, to Sofina. I need some space. She sent it before she could dissect the phrasing. A moment later, a response flashed.
Fine.
Just that. No period. Just the word, hanging in the digital space. It felt less like acceptance and more like a door slamming shut, hard enough to make the frame shudder.
Vy put her phone away. She got ready for bed in the dark, the faint scent of chamomile still on her hands. She had made a choice. It didn’t feel like a triumphant victory. It felt like stepping off a rocking ship onto a dock that was solid but unfamiliar, the ground still swaying beneath her feet. The silence in the room was total. For the first time, it was hers.