“Not to you.” Her tone is soft, but her words are firm. There’s little room for negotiation. “Not to me. I’m not saying you’re wrong to want him to be punished. I would love that too. I’m just saying…you’ve done enough. Let someone else pick up the fight now. We won our battle. The war is for someone else.”
I let out a noise that sounds like a laugh, but it doesn’t feel like one. “I wish I agreed. Ralston will bounce back, and Carlyle is unscathed. How is that winning?”
“She’ll bounce back, but she’ll never be who she was. And who knows? Maybe she’ll turn on Carlyle anyway. You forget—she’s a scorned woman now, too. Just like us. She has her own battle to fight.”
It’s spring before I hear from Professor Bell. She sends me the contact information of a podcaster doing a story on Ralston.
If you’re still in the fight, Eva wants to talk. You can trust her, I think. Seems genuine. But no judgment if you’re done. People on campus still talk about you, mostly good. You reminded me of why I’m here, Lila. I can never thank you enough for that.
I meet the podcaster, Eva, at a small café down the street. She’s young, with a nose ring and strawberry-blonde hair pulled back into a thick braid. Polite, but there’s a quiet determination in her eyes.
“The series is really about the feminist movement at Havenport, the history of it. I’m doing three parts. How it started. Its peak—around when Dr. Ralston arrived. And the fallout. Professor Bell said you’re the best one to speak to that.”
The noise of clinking cups and low chatter swirls around us. I run my finger along the rim of my cup. “I was just one part of what happened.”
“The website,” she confirms. “Why did you decide to speak out when you did? You must’ve known the risks were huge, personally and professionally.”
I must appear shocked, because she quickly adds, “Professor Bell said you’re a writer.”
Professor Bell lied. And I have the rejections to prove it.
“Silence protects the abusers,” I say finally.
She nods, moving her phone a little closer to me, the red lines moving up and down on the black screen to show it’s recording. “What was it like working with Dr. Ralston? In the beginning.”
I hesitate. I don’t want to make her look good, even for a moment, but I also can’t lie. “She was…brilliant. Charismatic. A force, and she knew it. She made you feel listened to. Believed in.” My eyes go dark, and I feel my whole body remembering. “But that was only as long as she liked you. The second you questioned her—even for things like stealing your work—she changed. To be on Ralston’s bad side was to be in the shadows, and she made sure of it. She took everything away with the snap of her fingers—opportunities, friendships, confidence. In her classroom, she was a god, and she could make your life whatever she deemed you worthy of.”
“Did you feel isolated because of that? Caught up in her world?”
“All the time. I think even before things started to go bad, I understood that there was a dark side to being close to someone so powerful. It was in the underhanded comments she made about other students. Particularly female students. The way she could open doors for me and slam them in others’ faces. It felt good, I guess. But it was always a system meant to protect women like her. Even if that meant erasing women like me.”
She nods, listening intently. She’s the kind of person who makes you really feel like she cares. I wonder if it’s an act. “Andback then, when you said it changed, did you come forward at that time?”
“I did. I reported it to the dean.” My muscles tense as I remember that day, remember the way he looked at me. Now I know I was walking into the lion’s den to complain about a cub. He was never going to listen to me, to help. “He told me I was probably misunderstanding. That I shouldn’t expect Ralston to help me outside of the classroom or show me special treatment, even if she had in the past. He was determined not to listen. And it only got worse from there. She tore my work apart until I was failing and had to drop her class. I lost all connections—even the ones I’d made on my own. Ralston was powerful enough to make sure I was effectively kicked out of Havenport, even if I was still enrolled.”
“And what about now? Has the university acknowledged your claims at all?”
I bite back a bitter laugh. “Well, they’ve credited me as a co-author of four of Ralston’s articles. There are plenty more I still don’t have credit on. There was no apology or explanation. Just a quiet correction and an email confirming it had been fixed.”
“Is that what justice looks like for you? Credit where credit is due?”
I’m quiet, thinking.
“No judgment,” she adds, perhaps misreading my silence. “I just wondered if you have a firm picture of what it would look like. Or if it’s even possible.”
“It’s a start,” I say eventually. “I fought for us to be remembered, myself and the other women she stole from. But it’s not a victory until everyone who empowered her is out of Havenport and away from all the women who deserve to thrive on its campus.”
Her eyes widen, and she leans in. “So, you think there are others harming students at Havenport? Claiming credit for writing that isn’t theirs?”
“I know there are. I know there are people who are worse than Ralston, too.” A new idea flashes in my mind. “And I’d encourage any victim to reach out to me. I want to fight for you. I want you to know you aren’t alone.”
Eva’s smile goes somewhat sad. “Thank you, Lila. For sharing your story. For fighting for others.”
“I won’t stop,” I promise her. “Not until they’re all gone.”
And with that promise—to myself and the rest of the world—the weight of my erasure lifts. I have my mission. They didn’t break me. They buried me for a while, perhaps, but I clawed my way back out.
I’m still here.
