Tia had been standing in front of that mirror for twenty minutes, afraid to move, because the orange gown was the only beautiful thing she owned.

Tia found her in the lobby.

Marissa was seated on a low bench near the entrance, her handbag balanced on her knees, her phone in her hand.

She looked up when Tia came down the stairs, and whatever she had been expecting, it was not this — not Tia walking toward her with a steady step and a face that had moved past hurt into something more deliberate.

Marissa stood.

"I was going to leave," she said.

"I know," Tia said.

"I'm glad you didn't."

A short pause.

"Whatever you're about to say to me," Marissa started, "I already know I deserved it.

The dress was—"

"Sit down," Tia said.

Marissa sat.

Tia sat beside her on the bench.

Not across from her.

Beside her.

Marissa seemed unsettled by this.

"I'm not here to shout at you," Tia said.

"You have every right to."

"I know I do." Tia folded her hands in her lap.

"I want to understand something first.

That dress cost me four months of saving.

I bought it for today because today was important to me.

You walked into that room and you cut it.

Not by accident.

You picked up the scissors and you made a choice." She looked at Marissa.

"Why?"

Marissa was quiet.

"Not on Elena's behalf," Tia said.

"Elena didn't ask you to do that.

She said so herself.

So why?"

A long pause.

"Because you looked happy," Marissa said.

Her voice came out differently than it had all afternoon.

Flatter.

More honest.

"You were standing in that room in that dress and you looked — you looked like someone who had no idea that anything was wrong.

And I couldn't stand it."

Tia waited.

"Elena has been miserable for four months," Marissa said.

"She's my friend.

She's been crying and not eating and telling herself it wasn't real, what she had with him, that she'd imagined it, that she was being dramatic.

And I came in here and saw you standing there, happy, and I just—" She stopped.

"I know that's not a reason.

I know it doesn't justify it.

I'm not saying it does.

I'm saying that's what happened in my head."

"You wanted someone to not be fine," Tia said.

"Yes." Marissa looked at her hands.

"That's an ugly thing to admit."

"It is," Tia agreed.

"But it's honest."

Another silence.

"The handbag," Tia said.

"Sayan was going to cut it.

That handbag matters to you."

Marissa's expression tightened.

"It was my grandmother's."

"Then be grateful he stopped."

"I am," Marissa said quietly.

"More than he knows."

Tia stood.

She looked down at Marissa — at the plum-purple dress, at the handbag that had once belonged to someone loved and gone.

"I want two things from you," Tia said.

"The first is that you tell Elena, today, what you actually did in that room.

Not a version of it.

What happened."

Marissa nodded slowly.

"The second is that you find out what the seamstress charges to repair a cut that runs from the bodice to the hem, and you pay it."

Marissa looked up.

"I'll pay for the whole dress.

A new one.

Whatever it cost."

"I don't want a new one," Tia said.

"I want that one repaired.

There's a difference."

Marissa was quiet for a moment.

Then, with the grace of someone who has learned that some moments ask only for silence: "Yes.

There is a difference."

She stood and held out her hand.

Tia looked at it.

She shook it.

"Get Elena a good dinner," Tia said.

"She's going to be all right, I think.

But make sure she eats."

Marissa's composure slipped again — just briefly, just enough.

She pressed her lips together and nodded.

Tia walked to the door.

She pushed it open and stepped out into the ordinary afternoon, where the street was loud and bright and completely unaware of everything that had happened in the building behind her.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket.

A message from Sayan: *Can we talk.

Please.

I know I have no right to ask.*

She put the phone back in her pocket.

She walked.

There was one person left she needed to speak to.

Not Sayan.

Not Elena.