A bitter taste fills my mouth. Trust will probably never be something that comes easily to me again, and right now, I’m choosing to trust someone who betrayed me just days ago. “We both know how convincing she can be.”
“I was scared, you know? I didn’t know why I’d come back, and then she offered me the job, and I just wanted so badly for her to have changed. This position would’ve fixed so many things.” She sighs. “I did it for my daughter. I want you to know that. It was for her future. But it doesn’t make it okay.”
“You don’t need to keep apologizing,” I tell her gently. “It worked out in the end, right? She brought herself down. With your help.”
The line goes silent between us for a moment, the weight of unspoken truths settling like dust.
“I guess we’re even,” I add softly. “I didn’t listen back then, and you wanted to believe her now. What matters is that we both eventually learned the truth.”
“And the dean? What about him? He just gets away with it all? The Carlyles are Havenport legacy, and he knows it.”
“I know. But we tarnished one legacy, right? We can do it again.” I have no idea if I believe the words, but I like the way they spark in my chest. Like a dose of hope.
“Feels weird,” she says after another long pause.
“What does?”
She lets out a soft laugh. “To not be alone.”
A few days later, I receive a formal letter from the university’s legal department. Dean Carlyle would like them to offer me a settlement—an invitation to stay silent about Ralston’s behavior in exchange for a check. A payout with strings attached, sealed with a non-disclosure agreement.
I stare at the offer, fingers trembling. The money could change my life. It could pay for additional care for my dad. It could pay for a few years off work to focus on my writing.
I could finally get what I deserve from Ralston.
I’m embarrassed to admit I spend more than a day thinking about it, weighing the options, pricing things out. I rehearse the conversation where I quit my job and try to decide how I’ll explain the money to Mom, especially if I’m not working.
At the end of the day, maybe that’s what makes it easy to turn it down. The fact that I’d have to explain it to Mom.
Then again, maybe it’s a little bit me too.
Money can’t buy my story. Or my silence. It would never make up for all I’ve lost.
I reply to the email with three simple words:
No, thank you.
Weeks pass in silence, and Ralston stays quiet online. The number of stories coming to the website slows down, as does the traction on social media. People have already moved on to the next big scandal.
As for the media, I never heard back from the reporter who reached out before, and no major news stations or newspapers have reported on what happened. I suspect Ralston has won friends and influenced people everywhere to keep it buried.
Then, out of nowhere, an email from the university arrives.
They’vecorrecteda paper from more than a decade ago. My name has been added as a co-author, alongside Ralston’s. As I scan their website, I see that there are dozens of others this applies to, where Ralston is now co-author to the papers she built a career on.
There’s no official announcement. No article explaining it. Just quiet changes they hope no one will notice.
I stare at the screen, swallowing my thoughts with no one to hear them. I should feel better, but I don’t. Whatever I wanted, this wasn’t it. This isn’t enough. It’s not justice, it’s a quiet erasure dressed up so they can claim it never happened.
After we ring in the new year, Hayden calls. She tells me Jade finally left Havenport. That she’s working for one of the non-profits Hayden volunteers for. I imagine it means a pay cut, but I don’t ask.
“She told me what you said about Carlyle,” Hayden says.
“He’s still there,” I tell her. “We need to learn who it was he hurt. If we had names?—”
“Yeah, Jade says the same thing. I just think… I mean, we won, right? Ralston’s gone. That’s what we wanted, and it worked. We can’t keep doing this forever. Carlyle’s a bad dude, sure, but?—”
“He was worse than she was.”
