One step. Two. Eight from the door to the chair.
My files line up neatly in front of me the way I laid them out last night. Timeline. Emails. Copies of draft proposals. The notebook where I wrote questions, then answers, then counter-answers.
My fidget stone sits beside the keyboard. I pick it up. The smooth weight fits into the hollow of my palm like it grew there.
When the clock on the wall clicks over to 10:59, I open the laptop.
The screen wakes.
Zoom launches.
For a heartbeat, there is only my face—small, pale, determined.
Then three rectangles spring to life.
Committee Member One: older woman, dark blazer, expression carefully neutral in a way that makes me want to peel it back and see what’s underneath.Committee Member Two: mid-forties, bald, glasses, a too-friendly smile that doesn’t reach his eyes.Committee Member Three: younger than the others, maybe late thirties, with a tired ponytail and the kind of gaze that suggests she’s survived some institutional nonsense of her own.
“Good morning, Dr. Vitale,” says Blazer Woman. “Can you hear us clearly?”
“Yes,” I say. “I can.”
They start with introductions. I write their names across the top of my notes because if I don’t trap them on paper, they’ll slide right out of my mind. I don’t have bandwidth for stray details right now. Dr. Harding—the older woman in the blazer. Dr. Leroi—bald, glasses, too-friendly smile. Dr. Fenster—ponytail, tired eyes. Then they repeat the official purpose of the meeting—the same phrasing from the emails, only heavier aloud.
Then: “We’d like to begin by hearing, in your own words, what led you to file this complaint.”
My heart rate spikes. My fingers tighten on the stone.
Four in. Hold. Six out.
“I submitted a proposal for a trauma-informed framework for working with the gladiators at Second Chance Sanctuary,” I say. My voice sounds distant and clear, like it belongs to someone who isn’t actively vibrating apart. “Over the course of several months, my supervising researcher, Dr. Patricia Blackwell, progressively incorporated my ideas, language, and structures into her own work without appropriate attribution.”
I walk them through it.
Not every line. Not every wound.
Just the framework.
Dates. Emails. The way the language shifted from “your framework” to “our model” without any clear boundary between.
I don’t name Flavius, but the truth of him is enough.
“I cross-checked my notes with a staff member at the Sanctuary who has an extremely detailed eidetic memory,” I say when they ask about my timeline. “His recollections of specific conversations, locations, sensory details and the sequence of events matched my documentation point for point. Those records are in the file you received.”
It’s a small acknowledgment, but it grounds me.
Validation. I am not making this up in a vacuum. I have witnesses—even if they’re not on this call.
The questions come.
Some are… fine. Clarifying. “When did you first notice this shift?” “How did you address it with Dr. Blackwell?” “What outcome are you hoping for?”
Some are less fine.
“Is it possible you misunderstood the nature of collaboration?” “Do you think your communication style may have contributed to a lack of clarity?” “Why did you wait before filing?”
I answer until I feel flayed alive.
“I am autistic,” I say at one point, because apparently we’re going to do this. “Which means I am precise with language and cautious with confrontation. It does not mean I am confused about what is mine.”
