Chapter 4: Petty Justice- Part 2

She found Molly outside the library two days later — by design, clearly, since Maddy seemed to know Molly's Thursday schedule better than Molly probably did herself.

Molly was sitting alone at one of the outdoor tables, hood up, looking like someone who'd spent two days getting quietly torn apart in a forum thread and a team group chat she wasn't even in.

She looked up, saw Tia, and her whole body went rigid.

"Tia." She glanced around like she was checking for an exit. "If this is about the post—"

"It's not about the post." Tia sat down across from her without being invited. Her heart was going hard, but her voice came out steadier than she expected. "It's about the four hundred dollars you borrowed for your sister's wedding gift eight months ago that you never paid back."

"Tia, I was going to—"

"And it's about the Chanel bag you took for 'one event' fourteen months ago that I still haven't seen since."

Molly's face cycled through several stages of panic. "I can explain all of that, okay? It's not — things have been tight, and I meant to—"

"I don't need an explanation. I need it back."

"I don't have that kind of money right now, Tia, you know how it is—"

"I don't, actually," Tia said. "I've never borrowed anything I didn't return. Funny how that works."

Molly glanced around, lowering her voice, eyes darting toward a group of students at the next table. "Do you have to do this, Tia? Now? Here?"

A voice came from just behind Tia's shoulder — Maddy, who'd walked her over and had been leaning against a pillar the whole time, arms crossed, sunglasses on despite the overcast sky, apparently waiting for exactly this moment.

"What, do we need your consent or your timing to ask for what was rightfully hers to begin with?" Maddy said, not raising her voice at all, which somehow made it worse.

"Not doing this in front of the entire school is already a courtesy. I wouldn't push your luck any further than that."

Molly's mouth opened and closed.

"I think I've been more than patient with you," Tia said. "Two years of patient, actually. It's time to wipe the slate clean."

Molly's jaw tightened. "Okay. Wow. So this is what this is. You're punishing me because Tyler and I—"

"No," Tia said, and something cold and clear settled into her voice, a version of herself she hadn't used in a long time. "This has nothing to do with Tyler."

"This is two separate things you did to me, and I let both of them slide for years because I liked you and I didn't want to make it weird. I'm done not making it weird."

"Tia, come on—"

"By Friday," Tia said. "All of it. Or I go to my family's lawyer about theft, and then I go to the Dean about a student who's been quietly borrowing money and belongings from her classmates and not giving them back."

"I doubt I'm the only one. I bet that's an interesting list to compile."

"You wouldn't actually do that."

"Try me."

They stared at each other. Tia could see Molly searching her face for the version of her that would fold, the version that had absorbed two years of small unkindnesses and called it nothing. She didn't find her.

That was when Tyler showed up, backpack over one shoulder, clearly having gotten a panicked text mid-walk, because he arrived already talking.

"Tia. Hey. Can we not do this here—"

"We're not doing anything," Tia said, without looking at him. "I'm talking to Molly."

"Look, if this is about money, I can just—"

"I didn't ask you," Tia said, and finally turned to look at him, calm in a way that seemed to unsettle him more than yelling would have. "This isn't about you, Tyler. Believe it or not, not everything is."

He opened his mouth, closed it again.

"It's kind of refreshing, actually," Tia added, standing up, "realizing how small you are when I'm not the one making excuses for you."

She looked back at Molly. "Friday."

Molly didn't say anything. She didn't have to. Tia could already see the number running behind her eyes.

The money hit Tia's account Thursday night — all of it, one transfer, no note.

The Chanel bag showed up on her doorstep Friday morning in a plain shopping bag with no explanation at all, left there like evidence removed from a crime scene.

"To petty, well-deserved justice," Maddy said that night, holding up a shot glass in her cramped kitchen while something loud played from her phone speaker.

"To petty, well-deserved justice," Tia repeated, and clinked her glass against Maddy's, and for the first time in over a week, the laugh that came out of her was completely real.

"You should've seen your face outside the library," Maddy said, refilling both glasses without asking. "You looked terrifying. I was almost scared of you and I orchestrated the whole thing."

"I surprised myself."

"Good. Get used to that version of you. She's better." Maddy raised her glass again, apparently deciding one toast wasn't enough. "To Tia Hayes, who is no longer anybody's doormat."

"To not being a doormat," Tia said, and meant it, and drank.

For about an hour, sitting on Maddy's kitchen floor with cheap wine and her best friend's ridiculous playlist, it felt like the worst of it might actually be behind her.

Like she'd closed the door on Tyler and Molly cleanly, gotten her money and her dignity back, and could start figuring out what came next on her own terms.

Her phone rang at eleven-forty. Her mother's name on the screen.

"That's weird," Tia said, sitting up straighter, the wine-warmth in her chest going cold at the edges. "She never calls this late."

Maddy's smile faded. "Answer it."

Tia picked up. "Mom?"

"Tia." Her mother's voice had an edge to it Tia didn't recognize — careful, rehearsed, like she'd practiced the sentence before dialing. "I know it's late. Can you come home tomorrow? Your father and I need to talk to you about something. It's important."

"Is everything okay? Is it Rebecca?"

There was a pause just half a second too long.

"Just come home," her mother said. "We'll explain everything in person."

The line went dead before Tia could ask anything else.

She sat there for a second, phone still pressed to her ear, the good, loose, victorious feeling from ten minutes ago already draining out of her like water down a sink.

"What did she say?" Maddy asked.

"I don't know," Tia said slowly. "But I don't think I'm going to like it."

She had no idea, setting her glass down, that the week she'd just spent getting her dignity back was about to look, in hindsight, like the easy part.