“Only because those who have experienced her bad have been so thoroughly silenced and frightened, you’ve never actually heard about it.”
Her mouth twitches, and it almost seems like she’s…impressed. Or maybe she’s just fighting a laugh. “You don’t seem so frightened. If Dr. Ralston is everything you claim, why wouldn’t she have had you kicked off campus already?”
It’s a fair question. “She’s had me warned,” I say. “But she also enjoys seeing me suffer. If she can keep me here, powerless, she gets everything she wants.”
“Everything she wants.” She bobs her head thoughtfully. “Some might call that a self-absorbed thought, you know?”
“I don’t care what people call me. I just want the world to know the truth about her. I want people to see both sides of her and be able to decide for themselves.”
She points to the projector screen. “It seems like people have. You saw the footage.”
“Yeah? Go talk to Dani again. See how she feels about her since learning what I told her today.”
Stella’s expression hardens. “What are you talking about? Dani’s interview was filmed a few hours ago. We barely got it edited in time to add the clip.”
The words slam into me. “That’s not possible.” Even if I didn’t have Dani completely convinced, she’s doubting Ralston at least…isn’t she?
“Right after the art exhibit. Dr. Ralston pulled Dani aside. Brought her to us herself. She said it was important that we heard from Dani after she learned we were showing a preview tonight. They seem really close.”
I stare at Stella. The room is spinning.
“She knows what Ralston did. She knows I have proof. I just spoke with her.”
I stop talking. Stop breathing. Because suddenly none of it feels solid. None of it feels real. The thread I was holding—the one that felt like a lifeline—has been pulled from my hand. It’sdropping to the floor in slow motion, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.
“Maybe it’s time to give it up, Lila. And whether you believe it or not, I am saying that out of kindness.” When I meet her eyes, I think she might be telling the truth. She’s watching me with something that looks like pity, and I hate how much it rattles me. “Sometimes being right isn’t enough.”
I open my mouth to argue, to ask if that means she believes me, but before the words leave my mouth, I pause. Behind Stella, near the side exit, someone slips into the room.
Dani.
She hesitates in the doorway, eyes sweeping across the crowd, and when she spots me, her face changes. Not surprise. Not relief. Something like regret.
“Dani.” I move past Stella, but Dani turns—too fast—and slips out the door.
“Wait, please!” I call, rushing after her.
When I enter the hallway, she’s already halfway down the corridor. I push through the crowd, but she’s too fast. Too far away.
She vanishes in the crowd of people, swallowed like my truth in years of silence.
I stand still for a long time, watching the space where she just was, wondering if I imagined it all. If she was never really listening, if I was always wasting my breath. If whatever I saw on her face this morning that looked like belief was nothing after all. A moment of clarity, perhaps, before Ralston’s spell reasserted itself with claws.
In the echo of the crowd moving past me, in the utter aloneness I feel even among so many others—invisible even as they bump my shoulders—it tears through me again. The twist of betrayal is deeper now—not just from Dani and Jade, though their betrayals sting the worst—but from the system thatrewards silence. That elevates liars and buries any woman who’d dare challenge them.
Eventually, I walk outside into the cold air. People are everywhere, buzzing with energy. Excitement. The night is too loud. Too bright. I remember so vividly when the campus seemed to glow on nights like this.
Of course, that was back when the light could hide all of Havenport’s shadows.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Twice last night, I seriously contemplated going home. Packing up and returning to my life. My mom. My apartment. My work. The novel I’m writing is still there, waiting for me to finish it, but my brain can’t focus on anything else.
For years I have tried to drown it out with everything I could think of. Working my way up a corporate ladder just to leap off when I realized it made me feel nothing, writing story after story just to get rejection after rejection, one failed relationship after the next, food, Netflix, obsessive exercise, excessive wine. You name it, I’ve tried it. And not until I stepped back onto this campus have I felt so alive. Like I have purpose again.
And that purpose is to make Althea Ralston pay, no matter the cost.
Day by day, I’m being erased from the mind of one of two people who love me in the world. One of two people who are supposed to care if something happens to me.
