CHAPTER SIX #2
Henry was already there when Mia arrived—Emma’s boyfriend since the end of first year.
Tall, blond, rowing blue, the kind of boy who’d grown up with trust funds and ski chalets and never once doubted he belonged anywhere.
He handed Mia a drink without asking what she wanted.
“Vodka soda,” he said, smiling the smile that made people forgive him everything. “Emma said you like them.”
She took it. She was trying to be easy, trying to fit.
The night moved in soft fragments: laughter in the kitchen, dancing in the living room, someone putting on Arctic Monkeys too loud.
Mia drank slowly—she’d learned early that alcohol made her tongue loose and her judgement blurry.
But Henry kept pressing fresh glasses into her hand. “Come on, it’s a party. Live a little.”
Around midnight the room began to tilt. Not dramatically—just a slow, syrupy slide. Mia excused herself to the bathroom upstairs. She splashed water on her face, stared at her reflection in the gilt-edged mirror, told herself she was fine. When she came out, Henry was waiting in the hallway.
“You okay?” he asked, voice low.
“Yeah. Just… dizzy.”
He smiled. “Let’s get you some air.”
She didn’t remember walking down the corridor.
She remembered the guest bedroom door closing behind them, the click of the lock.
She remembered trying to say no—her tongue thick, her limbs heavy.
She remembered his hands on her shoulders, pushing her back onto the bed.
She remembered thinking, very clearly, this isn’t happening. This can’t be happening.
Then nothing.
She woke to grey light seeping through heavy curtains. Her dress was twisted around her waist, knickers gone. Pain throbbed between her legs—sharp, unfamiliar. Her mouth tasted like metal and shame. Henry was dressed, sitting on the edge of the bed, scrolling his phone like nothing had happened.
She tried to sit up. The room spun.
“You’re awake,” he said, not looking at her. “Good. You were pretty out of it last night.”
Mia’s voice came out cracked. “What… what happened?”
He glanced over, expression mild. “You came on to me. Pretty aggressively, actually. I tried to stop you, but you were insistent. Emma’s downstairs. You might want to get yourself together before she sees you like this.”
The words landed like punches—each one precise, each one designed to make her doubt her own memory.
“I didn’t—” she started.
He cut her off, voice gentle, almost kind. “You did. You were drunk, Mia. It happens. Don’t worry—I won’t tell anyone. Let’s just… keep this between us, yeah?”
She stared at him. He looked so reasonable. So calm. Like he was doing her a favour.
She dressed in silence, hands shaking. When she stumbled downstairs, Emma was in the kitchen making coffee. The party debris was still everywhere—empty bottles, confetti, the faint smell of cigarettes. Emma looked up, smiled brightly.
“There you are! You disappeared last night. Henry said you weren’t feeling well. He kept checking on you. Sweet boy!”
Mia opened her mouth. Nothing came out.
Emma frowned. “You okay? You look awful.”
“I… I think I drank too much,” Mia managed.
Emma laughed—light, careless. “Classic Mia. Lightweight.” She handed her a coffee. “Drink this. You’ll feel better.”
Henry appeared behind Emma, slipped an arm around her waist, kissed her temple. He met Mia’s eyes over Emma’s shoulder. The look was calm. Certain. He had already won.
Mia left shortly after. She walked back to college in yesterday’s dress, heels in her hand, bare feet on cold pavement.
Every step felt like evidence against her.
By the time she reached her room she was crying—quiet, choking sobs that hurt her throat.
She locked the door, sank to the floor, and stayed there until the light changed.
The rumours started on Monday.
She heard them in the Junior Common room queue, in the library stacks, in the hallway outside tutorials.
“Did you hear? Mia came on to Henry at Emma’s party. Full-on threw herself at him.”
“Emma’s devastated. Can’t believe her best friend would do that.”
“She’s always been a bit… desperate, hasn’t she? Scholarship girl trying to fit in.”
No one asked her side. No one needed to.
Henry’s version was clean, tidy, believable.
Mia’s version was messy, inconvenient, impossible to prove.
She tried, once—told a college welfare officer what she remembered.
The woman listened politely, then said, “These things are complicated when alcohol’s involved.
It’s your word against his. And he has witnesses. ”
Mia stopped trying.
She changed her routines. Avoided the Common Room.
Ate alone in her room. Stopped going to the seminars she shared with Emma’s friends.
The isolation was immediate, surgical. People she’d laughed with two weeks earlier now looked through her in the quad.
Someone scrawled “slut” on her door in black marker.
The porter cleaned it off without comment.
She became invisible. She walked the halls like a ghost—head down, books clutched to her chest, avoiding eye contact.
The whispers followed anyway: “There she is—the one who tried to steal Henry.” “Slut.” “Desperate.” She stopped eating in public, stopped speaking up in tutorials, stopped everything that made her visible.
Her grades held—first-class marks, because the work was the only thing she could control—but she did it alone, in the library corners no one frequented, or locked in her room with the curtains drawn.
Emma never spoke to her again. Not directly.
A few texts at first: “How could you?” “I thought we were friends.” Then nothing.
The group chat she’d been in went silent.
Invites dried up. She spent Christmas alone in her room, telling her parents the flights were too expensive.
They worried over the phone, but she lied smoothly: “I’m fine. Just busy with essays.”
By the end of final year, she walked across the stage at graduation in a cap and gown that felt like borrowed armour.
No family there—no cheers from the auditorium, no photos with friends.
She collected her degree—first-class honours in English—and left the hall without looking back.
The train to London that afternoon carried her away from the spires and the shadows.
She told herself she would never again let someone else write her story.
* * *
In the Dubai media room, Mia set the eraser down. The board was clean now—blank, ready for whatever came next. She exhaled slowly, picked up her bag, and switched off the light.
Tomorrow was another session. Another chance to shape the story.
She just hoped this time, it wouldn’t shatter her.
* * *
Later that evening, Mia slipped into the hotel gym, telling herself she needed to move, to burn off the day. In reality, she just wanted somewhere quiet—away from corridors, away from the echo of Lucas’s retreating footsteps.
The gym was empty except for the low hum of air-con and the faint thump of a treadmill someone had left running. She dropped onto a bench near the free weights, head in her hands, elbows on knees.
Footsteps approached. Dana appeared in workout gear—leggings, tank, hair scraped back—clearly planning miles on the belt.
She didn’t say anything at first. Just sat beside Mia on the bench and offered a water bottle from the cooler.
Mia took it, twisting the cap without drinking. “I’m not doing a great job here, am I?”
Dana exhaled through her nose, a small, knowing sound. “You’re not supposed to fix the little shit, Mia. That’s not your job.”
“I know.” Mia stared at the floor. “But I’m supposed to make him look good. And right now he’s making that impossible.”
Dana gave a quiet laugh. “Sounds familiar. I spent years taping up Sir Edmund Hale’s shoulders after every crash, telling him the same thing. ‘You’re not invincible, you idiot.’ He’d just grin and keep going.”
Mia’s head lifted slightly. Eddie Hale—Sir Edmund Hale—was one of those names that still carried weight in the paddock.
Three-time world champion, the last of the old-school drivers who raced like they had nothing to lose.
Even now, semi-retired but still turning up at select races as a consultant or commentator, he commanded instant respect.
Younger drivers studied his onboard footage; sponsors still fought for his name on merch.
“You worked with Eddie Hale?” Mia asked, curiosity cutting through the fatigue.
Dana shrugged, rolling her shoulders like she was shaking off old memories.
“Yeah. Early days, when I was still the new girl everyone treated like the coffee runner. Eddie was the first one who actually listened when I told him his neck was fucked from bad posture in the car. Never once talked down to me. Just said, ‘Right, sort me out then.’ Three titles later, he still texts me when his back acts up.”
Mia nodded slowly. “That’s… rare.”
“Rare as hell,” Dana agreed. “He’s a stubborn bastard, but he’s decent. Doesn’t pretend he knows everything just because he’s won a few trophies.”
She stood, stretching her arms overhead. “Point is, you’re not the first person to try wrangling someone who thinks control means shutting everyone out. And you won’t be the last. If it gets too much, come find me. No lectures, no bullshit. Deal?”
Mia managed a small, tired smile. “Deal. Thanks, Dana.”
“Anytime.” Dana gave her shoulder a quick squeeze, then headed for the treadmill. “Now go sleep. You look like death warmed up.”
Mia watched her go, then pushed to her feet.
That night, back in her room, Mia sat cross-legged on the hotel bed with her laptop open, rewriting talking points she wasn’t sure Lucas would ever read.
She thought of home—of her parents’ small kitchen table in Amberley, the way their faces had lit up when she’d told them she’d got the job at Ashworth.
Don’t waste it, she told herself. Even if he does.