Find Mars and Seek the Truth

After knocking on Mars’ door and getting no response, you send her a quick text:

Need to talk. Something important. Where u at?

She gets back to you a second later:

Hanging with Val. Meet at ur room in fifteen?

You give your assent, and then stare down the hallway, looking at Rachel’s door. Eavesdropping further won’t do you any good, and besides, it seems like the shouting has stopped for now. You head back to your room to wait for Mars.

Fifteen minutes later, you’ve tried and failed to make a dent in your Calculus homework, distracted by the thought that two of your friends might be breaking up. Man, if Griffin were actually cheating on Rachel, what would you even do after that…

It’s almost a welcome relief when you hear Mars knocking on the door.

“What’s up?” she asks, yawning a bit when she steps into your room. Her brown hair is tousled, a slight line of sweat telling you that she made her way across campus in good time.

You resist the urge to yawn yourself, and offer her your chair. She snorts.

“You don’t have to pretend to be chivalrous around me, I know you too well for that to work,” she laughs, and she leans back against your door. “So? Why the text?”

The look on her face is curious, anticipatory, certainly not the kind of anxious that you might expect from somebody with something to hide. But maybe she’s hiding her emotions well. Or maybe you’re reading too much into nothing.

“Griffin and Rachel are fighting, and it’s not sounding pretty,” you say, trying to preface the discussion with some context, hoping it will help with what will come next. “I know it sucks to be accused of anything, and I’m not trying to do that, but I thought you should know what they’re arguing over…”

“Just about everything?” Mars says, a smile crossing her face, but it’s a half-hearted joke. She can tell that something serious is going on.

“Rachel says that you’ve slept with Griffin. She was getting real angry at him, claiming that he cheated on her with you,” you say quietly, deciding to rip the bandage off and just give it to her straight.

Mars shuts her eyes and slumps further down against your door.

“Fuck,” she mutters, and then she opens her eyes, staring at you. “Fuuuck…”

Fuuuck, you agree in your head. Maybe this is all going to shit, maybe everybody you know really is just a piece of shit, and…

“I didn’t do it,” Mars says, after catching the distraught look on your face. “I mean, yes, I fucked Griffin, but it wasn’t cheating. We fucked during orientation week. Before he and Rachel got together. That’s it. Unless they get together before I knew about it. But we did it on the first night, way before they could have been a thing…”

You feel something like relief flowing through your chest. You let out the breath that you’ve been holding.

“So they’re fighting over nothing. Maybe a miscommunication,” you say.

“Must be,” she says.

Then, she groans, sinking further down against the door until she’s sitting on the ground. “Am I going to have to be the one to sort all this shit out?”

“I can handle it,” you say, meaning it. “Rachel will probably take it better from me than you, no offense. And I can take a bit more time, figure everything out, flesh out the full story for them...”

There’s a pause as you catch the glare from Mars’ eye. It’s unexpectedly harsh, and you catch yourself asking: “What’s the matter?”

“You don’t believe me,” she mutters, her eyes narrowing. “What, you need more evidence to figure out the ‘full story?’ What? What does that even mean?”

“No,” you say, backpedalling, realizing how your words might have been taken the wrong way. “I just meant… I believe you, it’s just that Rachel probably won’t believe me either, if all I have to go on is what you said, that’s all I meant…”

“Yeah, sure,” she says, getting up. She sighs. “Look, I know they’re your friends, that you want well from them, they’re my friends too. But just, sort this one out without me, okay? I don’t want to have to deal with this kind of shit. I thought I was done with it after high school.”

“Sorry,” you say. You take a moment to think about your next few words. “I shouldn’t have put you in that position. Thanks for talking with me. I’m sure Griffin and Rachel will appreciate it too, once this has all blown over.”

“Sure,” Mars shrugs. “Hope they work it out.”

Then, she’s out the door, leaving you with a bitter feeling in your mouth.

Could you have handled this better? Probably. But it’s all so horrifically complicated. You still don’t know if Mars is telling the truth. Yet, something in her demeanour, and the way the facts line up in this whole situation, makes you think that she’s right.

You sigh and turn back to your books, resigned to work on your Calculus problems until you fall asleep. Maybe this time, you’ll actually make some progress.

Mars -20