Horror swells in my chest, ice cold. It’s a lie, obviously. This woman must be lying to me. Poisoning me against Professor Ralston, but why? She just doesn’t want me to know her like shedid. She’s jealous of her attention to me. She’s jealous I replaced her.
“That’s insane. Why would she…? No. Professor Ralston doesn’t need to steal. She’s…she’s brilliant.”
Jade’s eyes go dark, dull. She looks away, releases my arm. “You don’t even care, do you? I’m trying to warn you, to help you, and you’re not listening. You’re too busy defending her.”
My mouth is dry, heart pounding in my chest. She just doesn’t get it. “Our relationship is different. She’s been kind to me. She’s helped me. My writing is better because of her. I’m not asking her for anything except to learn.”
She smirks, taking a half-step back, then she turns and walks from the room without another word.
I blink away the memory, studying her now. “I would give anything to go back and listen to you. I’m sorry I didn’t.”
She just stares at me, no judgment in her eyes. “You’re just one in a long line. No one wants to believe the girl before her until it’s too late.”
She’s right. I came up with every excuse under the sun not to trust Jade’s story back then. She was jealous. Bitter.
Ralston was my friend. She took care of me, spoke highly of me. She was the key to my future, to everything I’d always wanted. She saw me better than anyone else in my life. She said I had potential. Vision. That I was special.
She called meformidableonce, and I wrote it on my forearm, kept it there like a tattoo on my skin for weeks, tracing in the lines whenever they started to fade.
I was too young and naïve to understand that flattery is just currency for people like her.
Jade stops, looking tired. Ralston is a weight none of us meant to carry. “I get it, okay? I won’t pretend I didn’t spend a lot of time back then just dreaming of the day I’d finally see her fall. But it’s over now. She’s done worse, hurt more people,and she’s more on top than ever before.” Her shoulders drop slightly. “I used to want to fight, to believe that we could, but that was before I grew up. Before I had responsibilities. A family. A mortgage. I have to look out for my daughter now, her future.”
“That’s exactly what we’d be doing. Protecting all future women from people like Ralston. People who will hurt them.”
She winces, but only slightly. “No, Lila. You’re not listening.”
“I am. That’s why we have to work together. It’s why we have to try.” I’m begging now, pathetic even to my own ears.
Her gaze hardens. “Stop. Okay? Just stop. This place isn’t going to change. You really think anyone at Havenport is going to stand in Ralston’s way when she publishes and speaks and brings in donors as if there’s a never-ending supply of them? If Ralston chose you, it means you aren’t stupid. Don’t pretend you are.”
I don’t say anything. I can’t.
She glances over her shoulder, biting her bottom lip as she searches the crowded lawn. As she does, her blazer opens just slightly, and I catch sight of the violet lanyard. The badge.Faculty.
My heart skitters. Flips. I stare at it, trying to make sense of the word. Of this smashing of my previous reality.
When I glance up, she’s looking at me with an expression that says she knows what I’m thinking, that she’s embarrassed but not deterred.
I steel myself. “You took a position.”
She looks down slowly, pulling her blazer closed.
“You’re working here. With her.”
She licks her lips, giving a sharp nod. “Yes.”
“When?”
Her mouth opens then closes. Finally, she sighs. “I needed stability. For my daughter.”
I’m painfully cold. “That’s not what I asked.”
She closes her eyes for a beat.
“When?” I repeat.
A breeze picks up, and I wrap my arms around myself, shivering but too blinded by the betrayal to feel it. To care.
