“She quoted me in her speech. More than once. But…there was no credit. It wasn’t a quote. Shetookmy words, my ideas, and claimed credit for them. I didn’t know what to think. I tried to convince myself they weren’t life-changing ideas, that I didn’t own them. I didn’t even tell her I’d been there to hear it. I couldn’t. I was afraid I’d hurt her. Lose her. But then for the rest of the year and into my senior year, I started visiting more of her events away from Havenport, going to listen to her when she didn’t know I’d be there. I started reading the things she was publishing. And more and more, I saw myself. My words. My thoughts. She stole…everything. My voice. My framework. Language. Ideas. Sometimes word for word from the papers or chapters I’d been having her edit.”
I shake my head, looking away. “When I finally confronted her, after months of seeing it, after months of failing to explain it away, she just…denied it. She had all these explanations. About how no idea is original and how we’d worked so closely together, it was hard to tell where one of our thoughts began and the other ended. She made me question whether I’d actually drawn the ideas from her in the first place. But immediately after that conversation, I stopped getting invitations to things. All the invitations to meet visiting scholars, agents, editors, people I admired—they vanished. One by one, doors closed. She stopped taking office hours with me. Stopped responding to my emails. She cut me off in every way. And then when I asked her why, she had me removed from her classes. She told Dean Carlyle I was harassing her, and it was her word against mine. I never stood a chance.”
Bell says nothing. Her silence is too pointed to feel casual.
I’m not wrong about her. I can’t be.
When she doesn’t speak, I go on, “She turned people against me. Not just the dean. Other professors. Students. They stopped believing me. Stopped including me. People who had respected me, people I thought were my friends. They didn’t want to get on her bad side, and she made it clear that associating with me would be exactly that.”
She’s still watching me, back so stiff it makes my skin itch. I feel like I’m under a microscope.Does she believe me?
“And the worst part is, there was a girl before me. She warned me about Ralston when I started spending time with her. She told me not to trust her. That she isn’t what she seems. She even told me that Ralston had hurt her. Stolen from her. But I didn’t believe it. I just wanted Ralston to be everything she promised.” I drop my head, the truth of it weighing on me. “I got what I deserved. I should’ve listened.”
These are the words I say to myself so often, even now. But they’re words I’ve never said aloud.
“I know how she works,” I say eventually. “The curated chaos. The late-night calls. The promises, the ones she follows through with and the ones she doesn’t. The compliments. The comparisons to other students. The way she makes you feel brilliant, her chosen one. Until suddenly, you’re not.”
Still, nothing. I’m not even sure she’s blinked.
“I don’t know. I guess I thought… No one believes me. No one has ever believed me. I thought maybe you would.” My eyes find my hands again. “Because you didn’t clap.”
Hearing it out loud, it all just sounds stupid.
A long, painful silence settles between us. Then she speaks. “And if I say I do believe you?”
My voice is soft, shaky. “Do you?”
“Yes.” Her gaze holds mine. There’s no hesitation in her answer.
Tears well in my eyes. “I didn’t think I’d ever hear anyone say that out loud.”
“I’m probably the only one dumb enough to say it,” she says with a sigh, looking toward the window.
“Because you know what she is.”
“She’s not hard to see through. If you’re not too busy being dazzled to pay attention.”
Except for Jade’s warning, I’m realizing this is the first time I’ve ever heard anyone say anything remotely disparaging about Ralston.
I’m not alone.
“Why are we the only ones who pay attention? Why does everyone act like she’s so special?”
“Because she is,” she says simply. “We’d be fools to pretend otherwise. Althea is everything she’s meant to be. Everything we’re all meant to be. Funny. Wickedly smart. Witty. Beautiful. And with an enviable shoe collection. She’s everything the world wants in a perfect feminist.”
Her words sting. I sit up straighter. “So, then, what do we do?”
She presses her lips together but gives no answer.
“Nothing?”
Bell leans forward, hands folded on her desk. “What do you want to do, Lila?”
“I don’t know. Something. Tell people what she’s done. Make someone listen. The world. Havenport. Anyone.”
“They might listen, but they won’t care.”
I think back to my conversation with the documentary crew this morning. She’s not wrong. Her words, the truth of them, burn somewhere down deep inside me.
