The quad is still a checkerboard of old bricks and manicured grass. Everything on the outside is perfect, beautiful even. None of the cracks show.
The lush grass is framed by Gothic buildings, everything pretending to be centuries older than it actually is. The air smells damp, like moss and rain. Like youth. Like everything that was once mine.
I pass a group of undergrads lounging on the steps of The Beacon Pavilion, their faces sunlit and easy, and for just amoment, I feel the weight of time hit me square in the chest. I used to be those kids. Used to believe this was all there was—this place, these people. Used to believe everything would be good. Beautiful. Fair.
The pavilion used to mean so much to me. Years ago, I sat just feet away from where I stand now, listening to the greatest visionaries of my youth speak. I cried during speeches about the promise of tomorrow, cheered when they reminded us that our futures were bright and we could change the world.
Back then, I really believed it.
Now, I’m thirty-seven, and none of my dreams have come true.
In this place, time swells. Dilates. Everything here feels eternal. Like it will always be this good, we will always feel this powerful.
I know better.
I pass the Catalyst Hub—Havenport’s name for the student center—and the Bonnie Yates Memorial Library on my way without paying either much attention.
Someday Ralston will have a place here named for her, too.
The thought hits me at once, taking my breath away. The painful truth of it. It’s inevitable. Of course she will. Probably sooner than later.
The path curves past the central green, and that’s when I see it.
The banner.
It stretches across the breezeway at the head of the Equity Walk, a deep purple for the school’s color, with bold white letters:
Ralston Week:
Honoring a Legacy of Truth and Inspiration
Below it, students in matching plum-colored T-shirts are handing out glossy programs and tote bags with her face printed on them.
Althea Ralston.
Her eyes seem to find me even while inanimate. She’s still beautiful, even in that brightly colored, artistic portrait—reminiscent of an Andy Warhol painting—one hand raised mid-lecture like she’s throwing glitter into the crowd, dusting them with her sparkling light.
Two women walk past me, talking under their breath, and I get a closer look at the tote bags. Close enough to see that the quote under her portrait reads, “They tried to erase us, but we won’t let them.”
I stop walking, my palms slick with sweat.
There are students taking selfies in front of the banner. A few wear enamel pins shaped like tiny compasses—Ralston’s signature symbol.
Always pointing toward the truth.
The irony of it all makes my stomach clench. She built her entire career on the idea of navigating truth, on building tables for women who had never been offered a seat at one. On giving a voice to the voiceless.
But I know what’s buried under that polished image. She lies. Cheats. Steals.
She destroys people.
She destroyed me. And got celebrated for it.
And now, here I am to witness the crowning of a fraud.
I shouldn’t be here. I stop, contemplating turning back. I don’t know why I agreed to come anyway. I should’ve left that email in my trash folder where it belonged. I should’ve just said no. Or said nothing at all.
She’d never have been bothered by my absence.
