Trevor leaned back. For a moment, something hard appeared behind his eyes. Then he grinned again. You should loosen up, scholarship girl. Nia stood.
My name is Nia. Trevor lifted his coffee. I know. That answer bothered her more than the insult. Because it meant the nickname wasn't casual.
It was deliberate. She carried her lunch upstairs. Her afternoon class met in a glass-walled room overlooking the athletic courtyard. Nia arrived early. The instructor had not come in yet.
Students were gathered in loose groups around the room. Someone whispered when she entered. Then another person turned away too quickly. Nia felt the change before she understood it. Her phone vibrated.
A notification. Then another. Then three more. She opened the first message. It was from a classmate.
Nia, is this you? A screenshot filled the screen. For a moment, she couldn't process what she was seeing. It was a photograph of Harbor Street Community Kitchen, taken from across the street. Another showed the diner.
Another showed Nia stepping off a bus near her row house block. The post had been uploaded anonymously to a student social page. Across the top, in large letters, someone had written. Wellington's Diversity Project. Below it were comments.
Some mocking. Some pretending not to understand what was wrong. Some worse because they were phrased as jokes. Nia's fingers went cold. She swiped.
There was a photograph of Walter sitting beneath the diner awning. Another of the community kitchen entrance. Another of Nia carrying food through the rain toward Arthur's building. Her breathing changed. Slowly.
Carefully. Someone had not just photographed her at school. Someone had followed her life outside it. Her neighborhood. Her bus route.
The places where people trusted her. Nia looked up. Across the room, Madison was staring at her. Phone in hand. Ryan whispered something.
Derek smiled. Ashley looked away. Trevor stood near the window. He met Nia's eyes. Then, very deliberately, he raised his coffee cup in a small salute.
Nia did not move. The room around her blurred at the edges. She thought about Walter. Denise. Arthur.
People who had done nothing except exist in the same world she did. This was no longer someone making fun of an old coat. It was someone reaching into her life and dragging pieces of it into Wellington for entertainment. The instructor entered. Conversations died down.
Nia lowered herself into her chair. Her hands were steady now. That took effort. She saved the post. Then the images.
Then every visible comment. She took screenshots of the account name. Time stamp. Shares. Reposts.
Across the room, Trevor watched her. Maybe he expected tears. Maybe anger. Maybe a scene. Nia gave him none of them.
Instead, she created a folder on her phone. She named it Wellington. And for the first time, a question formed that frightened her more than the post itself. The photograph near Arthur's building had been taken on a street Nia had never mentioned to anyone at Wellington. Which meant somebody hadn't simply found her online.