The Ribbon

Nobody spoke.

In the bright, echoing hush of the Banquet Hall, it was as if Liesa had detonated a bomb and left the whole table frozen mid-flinch. The only movement was the slow, impossible creep of her own collapse: her knees buckling, her hands flying to her face, shoulders caving inward as she sobbed into her palms. All the apology left in her spilled out as a litany of self-destruction.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean— I just—" she choked. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry—"

Her words broke up in wet, gasping fragments, each repetition smaller and more brittle than the last.

Dawn was the first to shatter. She didn't scream or throw a glass—she just sat there, back straight, hands clamped tight around the napkin in her lap. Her mouth opened and closed in fishlike increments, but no sound came. When her fingers started to shake, it traveled up her arms and all the way to her ears, which stood bolt upright, black velvet vibrating with the effort of holding herself together.

"You… you almost…" Dawn finally managed, voice strangled. She looked at Liesa, then at Andy, then across the table to Norah, as if searching for an answer to a question she hadn't been able to finish forming.

Norah was a statue, arms crossed, jaw clenched, eyes gone flat and hard. When she finally spoke, her words were cold and perfect, honed to a point.

"You made my sacrifice meaningless," Norah said. No tremor, no raised voice. She might have been ordering a sandwich.

The impact on Liesa was immediate and complete. She flinched so violently that her chair skidded an inch on the tile, and she buried her face in her hands, teeth biting into her own wrist to muffle the next sob. The apology went silent for a beat, but the shaking only got worse.

Sam still had her arms around Liesa, but now her own head drooped. She pressed her forehead to Liesa’s shoulder, and her hair fell in a curtain to hide her face. At first Andy thought Sam was just holding her, a lifeline for Liesa to cling to. But after a second, Andy realized Sam was crying, too—silent, but deep. It sounded like the kind of sob that builds up in your bones and never really leaves.

"I wanted you to be better than this," Sam said, voice raw but steady. "I wanted you to tell us yourself. Not like this. Not..." Her voice cracked. She kept her arms around Liesa, but her grip loosened, fingers trembling against Liesa's shoulder. She knuckled tears from her eyes with her free hand, her head turned just enough that Liesa couldn't see her face. Even in her hurt, Sam couldn't bring herself to let go completely.

Claire, halfway down the table, had both hands in her lap. Her tail whipped side to side, faster than Andy had ever seen it, a twitching metronome of nervous energy. She tried to catch Emi’s gaze for guidance, but Emi was locked in her own private stalemate, four hands braced against the table, the other two clasped to her chest. Emi's face was carved with conflict, her urge to comfort Liesa warring with her loyalty to the women who'd been betrayed, especially Dawn.

"You should have trusted us," Emi finally whispered, and even with the distance, Andy heard the hurt in it.

Emily sat next to Andy, silent but not withdrawn. Her gaze was clear, unwavering, as she looked at Andy and then at Liesa. She wasn't smiling, or judging, or anything Andy could name. She was just there, witnessing. It felt oddly intimate, but he understood. She had not been part of the second challenge.

On Andy's left, Erin had crossed her arms under her chest, her shoulders tight with the effort of containing herself. She let out a sharp exhale, blinking rapidly as she looked from Dawn's trembling hands to Norah's stone-cold face before finally fixing her gaze on Liesa.

"Why didn't you just tell us?" Erin asked, her voice cracking slightly despite her attempt to keep it steady. "You could've stopped this any time. We would have helped you through it." She swallowed hard, glancing at the others before adding more softly, "Look what it's done to them. To all of us."

Marissa leaned forward, elbows on the table, hands steepled. Her voice was low, clinical, almost tender—a therapist in the middle of an impossible triage.

"You're not the first person to panic and cover up a mistake," Marissa said, soft but firm. "But you have to own it, Liesa. Not just to us, but to yourself. That's the only way you move past it."

At the far end, Riley snorted. "Pathetic," she muttered, not even bothering to lift her head.

The words hung in the air like a bad smell, and for a moment nobody dared breathe. Liesa looked up, just enough to peer through the gaps in her fingers, her face streaked with salt and red, her eyes puffy and wild.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. It was different this time—smaller, more real, like she knew it would never land. "I'm so sorry."

Andy felt something in his chest twist up, then collapse. He wanted to reach across the table, to take her hand, to do anything—anything—to ease the pain, but he knew it wouldn't help. He'd never seen anyone look more alone.

The Hall's chandeliers hummed in the silence, their light pooling in gold puddles on the cloth. No one touched the food, now gone cold and stiff on their plates. No one even tried to clean up the water by Norah, or the shards of wine glass from when Chloe's hand had slipped.

The women stayed in their seats, each marooned on their own island of anger, disappointment, or disbelief. Even after the tears slowed, the air stayed heavy and dense.

So Andy stood.

"Okay," Andy said, and though his voice was quiet, it cut through the static like a buzzer at the end of an overtime. "That's enough."

The words were quiet, almost a suggestion, but the effect was immediate: everyone at the table looked up, even Liesa, who blinked through a curtain of tears and snot, her face as ravaged as a bruise.

Andy didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to. When he spoke, it was as if he was reading from a script written on the inside of his own skull—measured, slow, each word placed just so.

Andy leaned on the edge of his chair, hands flat on the white linen, and looked not at Liesa but at the group. He gave himself a second. He needed it. The faces around the table were at once familiar and changed, every one cracked by something new: Dawn's open anguish, Norah’s controlled fury, Sam’s wounded loyalty, and the jagged fault line of hope and horror in Liesa.

He started with the people who hurt most.

“Dawn,” Andy said, and her name sounded like a note struck on glass. She startled, eyes rimmed red. “You deserved better. You had the courage to face the challenge, and when least you expected it, you were left alone and afraid. And when you found out you were at risk, you didn’t lash out, not even once. You kept trying to play the game, and never once asked the others who had done this to you. I’m proud of you for what you have done. I’m sorry that you had to find out like this.”

Dawn tried to say something, but her voice failed. She nodded, ears low, as if bracing for more.

Andy didn’t pause. “Norah,” he said, and watched as she fixed her gaze on him, stone-faced. “You gave up your chance because you thought you were protecting your friend. I know how much that cost you. I know this makes you feel like the joke was on you. Liesa should have told you. She should have told all of us. If you’re angry, you have every right to be.”

Norah’s jaw flexed, and for a second Andy thought she might spit something back. Instead, she just nodded—once, hard. Her arms stayed locked across her chest, but the hands at her biceps loosened.

He exhaled, let the words gather in the air. “But here’s what you need to know. Liesa didn’t do this out of cruelty, or malice, or because she wanted to hurt you. She did it because she panicked, and because the challenge set her up by forcing the effects of her transformation on her. Then she got trapped in the lie, and every day she waited, it got harder and harder to admit what happened. I know that doesn’t justify it. It doesn’t fix anything. It doesn’t make it right. But it means you’re not the joke. You were never the joke. That day, you were the best of us.”

That was enough to make Norah flinch, her eyes darting to the plate, then up again. The wordless permission to be angry, but also to move forward, landed. She let her arms drop, hands curled to fists on the linen.

Andy looked to Dawn again. “You can be mad, Dawn. You can hate her for a while, if you need to. But I hope you don’t. I hope—when you’re ready—you can remember she’s the same person who cared enough to draw your portrait, and made sure you never had to face the pool alone those first few days, and who always brings you a glass of juice at breakfast because she knows you like it. I hope you see that she’s suffered, too, and maybe that’s enough punishment.”

Dawn’s eyes filled again, but she didn’t cry. Instead, she wiped them and sat up straighter, as if a burden had been lifted.

Andy moved on, the path already marked out in his head. He turned to Sam.

“Sam,” he said, and she met his gaze, her own eyes rimmed pink. “You gave Liesa every chance to come clean. You didn’t just wait for her—you tried to protect her from herself. I know you feel betrayed, and I know you’re furious. But I also know that if it were anyone else, you’d have torn them to pieces by now.” He paused, the words swelling. “I think that means you love her more than you want to admit. Even now. I think it means she’s still family to you. And maybe this whole miserable mess showed both of you what you mean to each other.”

Sam didn’t respond at first. She squeezed Liesa a little tighter, then finally looked up. “Yeah,” she said, voice hoarse. “Maybe it did.”

Andy gave her a nod—not a concession, but a recognition. He saw her, saw the pain and the hope both tangled together.

Only then did he turn to Liesa, who sat shaking at the far end, face wet and hands twisted in the fabric of her blouse like she might tear it in half.

“Liesa,” Andy said, and the whole table leaned in, if only by a fraction. “You hid because you were afraid. Afraid of losing us. Afraid of conflict. And I get that. I really do. But here’s the truth: hiding never saves you. It just drags the pain out longer. Sam and I tried to tell you. And you hurt everyone by not trusting them to forgive you. You almost lost everything anyway. I still love you, Liesa. I always will. But I’m not going to shield you from the truth. If you want to belong here, you have to fight for it. Not run from it. Not expect someone else to take the blow. You have to own what you did—not just to them, but to yourself.”

The room held its breath. Liesa’s sobs had slowed, her whole body quivering on the edge of collapse. Andy softened, but didn’t let up.

“Arabella and the Audience may call you a harem, but that’s not what we are. We’re a family. We’ve survived a lot of impossible things together, and we will survive this, too. But only if we’re honest. Only if we forgive each other, and ourselves.”

He paused, letting the words settle, letting every face at the table see itself reflected in the silence. Nobody looked away.

“Families don’t stay together because everyone’s perfect,” Andy said. “They stay together because even when you fuck up, you still belong. You’re still wanted.”

He sat back, the finality of it reverberating.

For a long, dense moment, no one spoke. The only sound was the drip of water from Norah’s still-damp sleeve, and the sharp, wet intake of breath as Liesa tried to steady herself.

Then Marissa, voice just above a whisper: “Well said.”

Riley rolled her eyes, but the sharpness was gone from her posture. She gave a soft, dismissive laugh and looked away, but Andy caught the way she blinked, rapid and unsteady.

Emi reached across the table with all six hands, gathering two from Claire, two from Chloe, one from Dawn and one from Emily, forming a fragile, awkward circuit of comfort. Emi’s smile was wet and lopsided, but real.

Dawn wiped her cheeks, looking at Liesa through a lens of hurt and something else. “I still don’t forgive you,” she said, but her voice was less brittle now. “But I will.”

Norah looked up, then at Liesa. Her lips pressed together, as if she were holding back something dangerous. But when she spoke, the words were measured, controlled.

“You owe me a drink,” Norah said. “Several. And I’m picking the bar.”

Liesa let out a sound halfway between a sob and a laugh. She nodded, still clutching her ruined blouse, but her eyes met Norah’s for the first time since it started.

Sam sat with Liesa in her arms, face still raw, but she was smiling now, the kind of smile that held both pain and relief. She wiped her nose with her sleeve and said, “You always did have a thing for dramatic confessions.”

This broke the tension, just a little. Chloe gave a shaky giggle, and even Claire’s tail flicked with cautious optimism.

Andy felt the balance of the room shift, the center of gravity settling in a new place— not back to what it was, but forward, toward something that could survive.

He looked at Liesa, at her hands white-knuckled on her lap, her face streaked with tears but lit with the faint, **** hope that maybe she still belonged.

“You’re not alone,” he said, quietly.

They finished dinner in pieces and starts. Nobody said much, but the silence was different now—softer, more bearable. Chloe passed Liesa a napkin, and Liesa managed to whisper thank you. Norah sipped her wine and made a show of not watching, but her feet tapped a slow, even rhythm under the table. Dawn picked at her dessert, then set it aside to squeeze Sam’s hand. Claire wrote something in her notebook, tore the page, and slipped it across the table to Emi, who read it and nodded, tears running free.

Liesa was the last to leave the table. She sat long after everyone else had gone, picking at the edge of her sleeve, then finally gathering the courage to stand.

Andy caught her in the hall, just outside the flickering wall of banquet light.

She looked at him, her eyes raw but steady. “Thank you,” she said. “For not giving up on me.”

He smiled, then pulled her in, not a romantic embrace but a strong, solid hug. “Don’t make me do it again,” he said.

She laughed, a small and battered sound, and let him hold her until she was strong enough to hold herself.

When he let go, she straightened her skirt and gave him a look—sheepish, but grateful. “You really do love us all, don’t you?” she said.

Andy thought about it, then nodded. “Every one.”

She walked away, and Andy watched her go, feeling for the first time that the fracture was not just healing, but starting to knit back stronger. He lingered in the dark hall, letting the echoes of his words settle into the bones of the place. Above, the chandeliers hummed, painting gold across the empty room.

IVA: Comforted the Lovey Contestant! +2 VP

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