Chapter 3: Dim Sum Confrontation
The train into Boston had rattled Vy’s nerves loose. Every lurch felt like a metaphor as the scenery blurred past, shifting from suburban trees to city brick. She’d almost turned back twice, her thumb hovering over a text to Katy claiming sudden illness. But she’d shown up, following the address to a cramped, vibrant restaurant in Chinatown where the air itself tasted like soy sauce and ginger.
Inside was a cascade of noise and warmth. Round tables packed with families and students, lazy Susans spinning with brilliant, steaming dishes. Vy spotted Katy near the back, waving her over. A half-circle of people surrounded her—two women Vy recognized vaguely from the econ department, a guy with glasses nervously adjusting his chopsticks, and a few others whose names blurred together in her introduction panic.
“Everyone, this is Vy,” Katy announced, her voice cutting through the din. “She’s a first-year IR-Econ prodigy who actually understands regressions, so be nice.”
A chorus of half-hearted, friendly hellos. Vy managed a tight smile, sliding into the empty chair Katy had saved beside her. The proximity was immediate, electric. Katy’s knee brushed hers under the table. Vy jerked her leg back as if shocked.
“Relax,” Katy murmured, just for her, while someone else debated the merits of har gow versus shumai. “They don’t bite. Much.” She poured Vy a cup of jasmine tea from a shared pot, her movements fluid and sure.
The food started arriving then, a parade of little bamboo baskets and brightly colored plates. Katy took charge, spinning the lazy Susan to offer Vy the first pick of a platter of crispy spring rolls. “Here, try this one. It’s the best.”
Vy took one, her fingers clumsy. The conversation swirled around her, full of inside jokes about a terrible professor and departmental gossip she didn’t know. She felt like an anthropologist observing a new tribe. Katy, however, kept drawing her in.
“Vy’s from San Jose,” Katy said during a lull, intercepting a question about Bay Area tech culture. “She gets the real Silicon Valley absurdity, not the textbook version.”
“Is it true everyone there is building an app to avoid human contact?” the guy with glasses asked.
“Mostly just trying to afford rent,” Vy replied, and the table laughed. Katy’s hand came down, casual and warm, on Vy’s forearm, giving it a light squeeze of approval.
The touch sent a current straight up Vy’s arm. She froze, a piece of turnip cake halfway to her mouth.
“See? Wisdom,” Katy said, leaving her hand there for a second too long before pulling away to grab a dumpling.
Vy focused on chewing, the flavors suddenly indistinct. She was hyper-aware of every point where Katy’s body leaned into her space, of the way Katy’s laughter seemed to ring clearer and brighter than anyone else’s. It was a different kind of intensity than Sofina’s—not a challenge, but an invitation. It was thrilling, and it was terrifying.
She was telling a story about a disastrous high school econ project, her hands animating the air, when Katy leaned in close. Her breath tickled Vy’s ear. “You’re holding your chopsticks like you’re trying to stab the future. Loosen up.” Katy’s fingers gently brushed Vy’s own, guiding her grip. The correction was practical, innocuous. It felt profoundly intimate.
Vy’s head spun. The noise of the restaurant faded to a dull roar. She was laughing at something someone said, her guard finally down, when she looked past Katy’s shoulder and saw her.
Ruby stood just inside the entrance, blinking in the chaotic brightness. She was with a couple of other first-years Vy vaguely knew from the dorm. Ruby’s eyes scanned the room, landing first on the general table, then narrowing as they locked onto Vy. They travelled from Vy’s face, flushed and animated, down to where Katy’s hand now rested casually on Vy’s arm again, a possessive, natural anchor amidst the chatter.
Ruby’s expression shifted from confusion to a slow-dawning, hard understanding. Her usual bubbly energy was gone, replaced by a flat, unreadable stare.
Vy’s laugh died in her throat. Her heart jammed itself against her ribs. Katy, sensing the shift, followed her gaze.
“Oh, hey! Ruby, right?” Katy called out, her voice friendly but edged with a curiosity that felt distinctly territorial. She didn’t remove her hand.
Ruby walked over, her friends hanging back by the door. The dynamic at the table shifted, the study group quieting, sensing a new, unfamiliar tension. “Hey,” Ruby said, her voice cool. Her eyes were on Vy, asking a silent, furious question. “Fancy seeing you here.”
“Katy invited me to dim sum with her study group,” Vy said, the explanation sounding weak even to her own ears.
“I see that.” Ruby’s smile was thin. “You didn’t mention you were coming into the city.”
“It was kind of last minute.” Vy hated the defensive tremor in her voice.
Katy’s thumb stroked a tiny, absent circle on Vy’s sleeve. “You should join us,” Katy offered, her tone perfectly polite, perfectly challenging. “We’ve got plenty of food.”
“No thanks,” Ruby said, her gaze finally slicing away from Vy to meet Katy’s. “We’ve got plans. Just wanted to say hi.” She looked back at Vy, the disappointment in her eyes now stark and clear. “Have fun, Vy. Don’t stay out too late.”
She turned and walked back to her friends, leaving a vacuum of silence in her wake. The conversation at the table stuttered back to life, awkward and subdued. Vy felt physically ill. The char siu bao she’d eaten sat like a stone in her stomach.
Katy leaned in again, her voice a low, private murmur near Vy’s temple. “Everything okay? Your roommate seems… intense.”
“She’s just protective,” Vy whispered, her face burning.
“Protective is good,” Katy said, her lips curling into a small, knowing smile. “But you’re not a secret, Vy. You don’t need guarding.”
The words, the nearness of her, the sharp scent of her perfume cutting through the food smells—it was all too much. The contrast was violent: Ruby’s hurt, judgmental exit versus Katy’s warm, approving presence. Vy felt split in two, ashamed and desperately wanted at the same time.
Katy reached over with her own chopsticks, picking up a lone, perfectly steamed shrimp dumpling from the shared plate. She held it out, not placing it on Vy’s plate, but offering it directly to her lips. Her eyes held Vy’s, playful and bold. “Try this one. Trust me.”
The entire table seemed to hold its breath. Vy’s cheeks flooded with heat, a deep, undeniable crimson spreading from her collarbone up her neck, painting her face in a wave of pure, overwhelming vulnerability.
The chatter at the table hit a dead spot, making the intimate gesture unbearably public. Vy’s mouth went dry as paper. She forced a stiff laugh, turning her head slightly so the dumpling missed her lips and landing on her plate instead.
“I’ve got it, thanks,” she mumbled, picking up her own chopsticks with trembling fingers. The shrimp dumpling was exquisite, bursting with flavor, but she could barely taste it through the roaring in her ears. Katy just smiled, unfazed, and returned to her own meal as if the charged moment hadn’t happened.
The rest of the meal passed in a blur of forced conversation and stifling heat. Every brush of Katy’s shoulder, every shared glance, sent a fresh flock of panicked butterflies swarming in Vy’s gut. She focused on the neutral wood grain of the table, counting her breaths. Out. You are in control.
“So, Vy,” said the guy with glasses—Mark, maybe? “Katy says you’re into stats. You wanna suffer through the econometrics problem set with us next week?” It was a lifeline, a normal, academic question.
“Sure, that could work,” Vy said, her voice thankfully steady. She clutched the lukewarm tea cup, letting the ceramic’s solidity ground her.
Katy leaned back in her chair, observing Vy with a thoughtful, appraising look. “She’s too modest. She’ll probably finish it in an hour and make us all look bad.” The praise was a soft weight on Vy’s skin, both comforting and alarming.
When the bill came, a frantic collective math began. Vy dug for her wallet, eager for the distraction of calculation. Katy’s hand closed over hers, stilling her movement. “I’ve got yours,” she said softly.
“No, you really don’t have to—” Vy started, the protest weak.
“I invited you. My treat.” Katy’s tone brooked no argument, her fingers giving Vy’s a quick, definite squeeze before releasing them. The casual ownership of the gesture, so different from Sofina’s seizing grip, left Vy equally unmoored.
Outside, the Boston night air was a slap of cold relief. The group splintered with promises to share notes. Suddenly, it was just Vy and Katy standing under the flickering neon sign of a bakery next door. The city sounds rushed in to fill the silence.
“You okay?” Katy asked, her voice lower now, serious. “You got quiet after your roommate left.”
“I’m fine,” Vy said too quickly. She hugged her arms around herself. “Ruby’s just… she’s been worried about me. Lately.”
“Because of that friend? The intense one.” Katy didn’t say Sofina’s name, but it hung between them like a ghost. Vy’s nod was barely perceptible. “Ah.” Katy shifted her weight, looking down the bustling street. “Well. For what it’s worth, I think you handled yourself just fine in there.”
She said it like it was a conclusion to something. Vy’s heart hammered against her ribs, a trapped bird. Katy was standing close enough that Vy could see the faint dusting of powder on her cheeks, the precise line of her eyeliner. The urge to close that distance, to let the chaotic, delicious feeling take over, was a physical ache.
It terrified her.
“I should catch the next train back,” Vy blurted out, taking a small, deliberate step backward onto the curb. The space that opened up felt both safe and agonizing. “Early stats lab tomorrow.”
Katy’s expression softened, a flicker of something like understanding in her eyes. She didn’t push. “Of course. Come on, I’ll walk you to the T.”
They walked in a new kind of quiet, one filled with the honking cabs and the scuff of their own shoes on the pavement. Katy’s arm swung gently beside Vy’s, their coats occasionally brushing. Each point of contact was a tiny electric shock Vy tried desperately to ignore. She focused on the cracks in the sidewalk, on the rhythm of her own breathing.
At the station entrance, Katy stopped. The fluorescent light washed her in a harsh, unreal glow. “Thanks for coming tonight,” she said. “It was good. Really.”
“Thanks for inviting me.” Vy’s words felt insufficient. The butterflies were still there, a frantic, hopeful churning.
Katy hesitated, then reached out and tucked a loose strand of hair behind Vy’s ear. Her fingers grazed Vy’s cheekbone, the touch fleeting and infinitely gentle. “Don’t let other people’s worry cage you in, Vy. You’re smarter than that.”
Then she turned and walked away, melting into the flow of pedestrians without a backward glance. Vy stood frozen, her cheek burning where Katy’s fingers had been. The cool, detached part of her brain, the one that ran algorithms and predicted outcomes, screamed that this was another precipice. The rest of her was already falling. She descended into the subway’s stale, rumbling belly, the ghost of the touch clinging to her skin, and the terrifying, exhilarating realization that her fear was not of Katy, but of the part of herself Katy unlocked.
The train car was mostly empty, a rattling metal box carrying her back toward Wellesley’s ordered silence. She pressed her hot forehead against the cool, grimy window, watching the city’s bright arteries give way to the dark, sleeping suburbs. Her phone vibrated in her hand.
A new message from Katy lit up the screen. Got home safe. Thanks again for coming. You’re good company. Vy stared at the words, dissecting them for hidden meaning. They were polite, friendly, but they held a formal distance that hadn’t been there hours ago under the neon sign. The warmth was muted, contained. You’re good company. Not I had a great time or we should do this again. Katy pulls back. It was subtle, but Vy felt the shift in the atmosphere like a change in barometric pressure. The charged offering of the dumpling, the finger brushing her cheek—they were now sealed events, framed as a momentary lapse.
She typed back, You too. Thanks for the food. Her reply was just as careful, a mirror of Katy’s retreat. She felt a sharp pang of loss, followed immediately by a nauseating wave of relief. The safer path was also a lonelier one, a narrow ledge she’d chosen to walk.
The dorm hallway smelled of microwave popcorn and floor cleaner. Vy’s key clicked in the lock, the sound obscenely loud in the quiet. Ruby was sitting at her desk, textbook open, but she wasn’t reading. She was just staring at the wall, her back rigid.
“Hey,” Vy said, dropping her bag softly by the door.
“Hey.” Ruby didn’t turn around. “How was dim sum?”
“It was okay. The food was good.” Vy toed off her shoes, lining them up precisely. “Listen, about earlier—”
“You don’t owe me an explanation,” Ruby interrupted, finally swiveling her chair. Her eyes were tired. “You’re an adult. You can hang out with whoever you want.”
“It wasn’t like that,” Vy said, the defense weak even to her own ears.
“Wasn’t it?” Ruby let out a short, breathy laugh. “Because from where I was standing, it looked exactly like that. She was feeding you, Vy. With her chopsticks. In front of everyone.”
Vy’s face burned anew. “She was just being… friendly.”
“Sofina was just being ‘friendly’ too, remember?” Ruby stood up, hugging her arms around herself. “That’s your pattern, isn’t it? Gravitating toward people who… consume you. Who make a scene.”
The word consume landed like a physical blow. Vy flinched. “Katy’s not like Sofina.”
“Isn’t she?” Ruby’s voice cracked. “She saw me looking. She saw how uncomfortable you were. And she kept her hand on your arm. She leaned in. That’s a power move, Vy. It’s marking territory.”
The observation was so blunt, so ruthlessly clear, it stole Vy’s breath. She had felt it, that subtle claiming, and had mistaken it for safety. “I don’t know what I’m doing,” she whispered, the confession dissolving the last of her defenses.
Ruby’s posture softened. She sank onto the edge of her bed. “I know you don’t.” She sighed, a long, weary sound. “I’m not mad. I’m scared for you. You go from one intense thing to another, and you think it’s forward motion. It’s just a different kind of circling.”
The truth of it settled in the space between them, heavy and incontestable. Vy sat on her own bed, facing her roommate. The frenetic energy from the restaurant was gone, leaving only a hollow exhaustion. “She pulled back,” Vy said quietly. “After. She sent a nice, normal text. Nothing… nothing like before.”
“Of course she did,” Ruby said, her tone not unkind. “You closed up. She felt you freeze. People like that, they can smell hesitation. They don’t stick around for the complicated stuff.” She paused. “Sofina would have doubled down. Sent you ten texts. Shown up outside. Katy just… politely steps away. It’s cleaner. It hurts more, maybe, because you can’t even be properly angry about it.”
Vy looked at her hands, at the faint lines of her palms. Katy’s gentle touch on her cheek felt like a dream already. Ruby was right. The ghost of Sofina’s possessive grip was a brutal shove, but Katy’s retreat was a door clicking softly shut, locking her out in the cold with only herself to blame. “What’s wrong with me?” The question was a bare, whispered thing.
“Nothing’s wrong with you.” Ruby shifted, pulling her knees up. “You’re just figuring it out. But you have to do the figuring, Vy. Not just get figured out by other people.”
The room was quiet again, but the tension had bled out, replaced by a shared, heavy understanding. Vy nodded, the motion feeling decisive. She changed into her sweats in the dark, the events of the night replaying not as a romance, but as a case study she’d failed. She’d been the dependent variable, reacting to every stimulus.
As she lay in bed, her phone screen glowed with a final, damning curiosity. She opened Instagram, her thumb moving on its own. She didn’t search for Katy. She typed in Sofina’s name. Her profile was private, but the thumbnail picture was new. Sofina was at what looked like a gallery opening, holding a plastic cup of wine, laughing with a sharp-looking older woman in a blazer. She looked sophisticated, untroubled, and completely absorbed in her own thriving world. The caption was a single razor emoji.
Vy shut the app off. The darkness of the room was absolute. She thought of the quiet ‘K’ she’d sent, the unopened article link, the silent, simmering Fine. That door wasn’t shut. It was just waiting on a hinge. The path behind her was a maze of locked doors and chosen corridors. The path ahead was just dark. She closed her eyes, the ghost of two different touches alive on her skin, and waited for the morning to make her blank again.
She closed her eyes, the ghost of two different touches alive on her skin, and waited for the morning to make her blank again. It didn’t work. Dawn arrived as a slow graying of the room, each object clarifying into a sharper, harder version of itself. Ruby’s even breathing from the other bed felt like an accusation. Vy’s mind whirred, analyzing the dim sum disaster with a clinical precision that did nothing to quiet the hum beneath her ribs.
She moved through her morning routine like a machine: shower, teeth, bun. The statistics textbook on her desk was a brick of meaningless symbols. Ruby stirred, sitting up and squinting at her across the room. “You look like hell,” Ruby murmured, her voice thick with sleep.
“Feel like it,” Vy admitted, not turning around.
A silence stretched, filled with the hum of the mini-fridge. “I’m not trying to be your mom,” Ruby said finally. “I just don’t want to watch you get chewed up.”
“I know.” Vy stared at her reflection in the mirror, the intelligent, observant eyes now shadowed and unsure. “I need to fix this.”
“Which ‘this’?”
Vy didn’t answer. She grabbed her bag and left for her morning lecture, the question echoing in the empty hallway. All through International Relations, the professor’s droning analysis of trade policies bled into a single, looping thought. She needed to choose a variable she could actually control. Herself. When class dismissed, she didn’t go to the library. She walked across campus, the cold air biting her cheeks, and stopped at a bench overlooking the frozen lake. Her phone felt heavy in her hand.
She typed a message to Katy, deleted it, then typed it again. Her thumbs were clumsy. Hey. About last night. Can we talk? Really talk. She sent it before she could strategize. The three dots appeared almost immediately, then vanished. A full minute passed. Vy watched a lone crow peck at something frozen on the path.
Her phone buzzed. Sure. My place after 4? Roommate’s at lab.
The simplicity of it, the directness, was a small relief. It wasn’t a rejection. It was a door, left slightly ajar. Vy let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding and replied, See you then.
The hours until four o’clock were a form of psychological torture. Every minute stretched, filled with imagined scenarios that ranged from humiliating to catastrophic. She tried to study in the common room, but the words on the page swam and melted. A girl laughed loudly at a nearby table, and Vy flinched. At 3:45, she gathered her things. Her heart was a frantic, caged thing against her ribs.
Katy lived in a different dorm, a converted brick house with a sagging porch. Vy climbed the steps, her legs feeling unsteady. She knocked, two sharp raps that sounded too loud in the quiet afternoon. The door opened.
Katy stood there in faded jeans and a soft-looking gray sweatshirt, her hair in a loose ponytail. She looked younger like this, less like the effortlessly cool third-year and more like a person. “Hey,” she said, stepping back to let Vy in. “Come in. It’s freezing.”
The room was warm and smelled like laundry and faintly of sandalwood incense. It was neater than Vy expected, books stacked on a desk beside a thriving succulent. Katy gestured to her desk chair while she sat cross-legged on her bed. “So,” Katy began, her tone neutral, open. “Talk.”
The word hung in the warm air. Vy perched on the edge of the chair, her fingers knotting together. “I messed up last night,” she blurted out, the words tumbling. “Not with the food, or… I mean, I had a good time. But I froze. And then I ran. And Ruby saw… everything. She’s worried about me.” She took a shaky breath. “She’s worried I’m repeating a pattern.”
Katy listened, her head tilted slightly. She didn’t interrupt. “What pattern?” she asked softly.
“There was someone. From back home.” The name caught in Vy’s throat. “Sofina. It was… intense. And not good. She was possessive. It was like being consumed.” Vy looked at her hands, at the pale skin of her wrists. “What happened in the restaurant, with you touching my arm, feeding me the dumpling… it felt different. But it also felt like a signal. And I got scared because I didn’t know the code. I still don’t.”
“Okay,” Katy said, the word a gentle exhalation. She uncrossed her legs and leaned forward, her elbows on her knees. “First, I’m sorry. The dumpling thing was over the line. I read a vibe and I amplified it for the room. That wasn’t fair to you.”
The apology was so unexpected, so disarming, that Vy’s eyes stung. “No, I… I liked it. That’s the problem. I liked it and I panicked. My heart was beating so fast around you I thought I might pass out.” The confession was mortifying and utterly true. “It was butterflies, but like… aggressive, confused butterflies. And then you pulled back after, and that was the right thing to do, but it also felt like a door closing and I just stood there.”
Katy nodded slowly, absorbing this. She picked at a thread on her comforter. “I pulled back because you shut down. I could feel you leaving the room while you were still sitting there. And you’re right, that was the right thing to do. Pushing you would have made me… well, her. Sofina.” She said the name carefully, like handling a sharp object. “I’m not interested in consuming anyone, Vy. That sounds exhausting.”
Vy let out a half-laugh, choked with relief. “It really is.”
“But I am interested.” Katy looked directly at her, her gaze clear and steady. “In you. You’re sharp, and you’re kind, and you have this quiet intensity that’s… captivating. And yeah, I wanted to touch your arm. I wanted to sit close. I’m not going to pretend otherwise.”
The air in the room shifted, charged but not with panic. With possibility. “I want that too,” Vy whispered. “But I think… I need to go slow. Like, glacially slow. I need to know that I’m choosing it. Not just reacting to a vibe you’re putting out or running from a ghost.”
“Glacial is fine.” A small, genuine smile touched Katy’s lips. “We can build a little igloo. Hang out in there. No pressure, no signals, no confusing dumplings. Just… two people figuring it out.” She paused, her expression turning thoughtful. “And your roommate gets a front-row seat to the excavation. No wonder she’s worried.”
“She cares,” Vy said, the tightness in her chest finally beginning to loosen.
“I know she does. It’s a good thing.” Katy looked around her room, then back at Vy. “So. Slow. What does that look like on a practical level? For me, it means I won’t assume a text from you means you’re free. I won’t show up unannounced. I’ll try to be clearer about my intentions, so you don’t have to decode them.”
“And for me,” Vy said, the words forming as she spoke them, “it means I’ll try to say when I’m nervous. And I won’t compare you to her. And I’ll… actually answer your texts with more than one letter.” She managed a real smile. “Deal?”
“Deal.” Katy shifted, pulling her feet up underneath her. “Can I ask one more thing? About her.”
Vy nodded, bracing herself.
“When you think about it now, the bad stuff with her… what’s the first thing that comes to mind? Not a feeling. A specific thing.”
Vy didn’t have to think long. The memory was crisp, ugly. “We were at a party. She kissed me, hard, in front of someone who liked her. It wasn’t about me. It was about proving a point to them. I was the… tool.”
Katy’s face darkened with something that wasn’t jealousy, but a pure, clean anger. “Okay,” she said softly. “Thank you for telling me.” She was quiet for a moment. “For the record, if I ever kiss you—in a glacial, igloo-appropriate timeframe—it will only ever be about you. And me. No audience required.”
A fresh wave of warmth flooded Vy’s chest, clean and bright. No one had ever said anything like that to her. It was so specific, so disarmingly honest. “I’d like that,” she said, her voice firm for the first time all afternoon. “The igloo version.”
“Good.” Katy unfolded herself from the bed. “Now, I’m going to make some truly mediocre dorm-room tea, and we are going to talk about something else. Anything else. The bagel situation in the dining hall. The inherent evil of your stats professor. Whatever you want.”
She busied herself with an electric kettle and two mismatched mugs. Vy watched her, the casual grace of her movements, the simple normality of the scene. The frantic butterflies in her stomach had settled into a gentle, hopeful flutter. This wasn’t an ending, or a dramatic beginning. It was a path, carefully cleared, waiting for them to walk it together, one slow, deliberate step at a time. The ghost on her skin finally faded, replaced by the warm, steady reality of the room, the scent of steeping tea, and Katy’s soft humming as she searched for the honey.