As if I’m her research assistant. As if I didn’t build an entire framework from scratch with nothing but instinct, lived expertise, and hours of painstaking observation.
I force myself to keep scrolling. To look at the submission history.
Submitted: mid-March Revised: late April Accepted: early May Published: late June
March. Two months before I set foot in Missouri. Before my first conversation with Flavius. Before the framework existed anywhere except as scaffolding in my fellowship proposal — the one Blackwell read as a member of the review committee.
She took the bones I hadn’t yet built on. Submitted them as hers.
Then I arrived. And as the real framework crystallized through months of fieldwork, she folded my breakthroughs into her revisions. My language. My methodology. My living sources.
This isn’t miscommunication. Or parallel thinking. Or mentorship.
This is theft. Calculated. Methodical. Strategic.
My breath shortens. The lights overhead hum too loudly. My linen blouse feels like sandpaper against my skin.
I barely make it to the bathroom before I’m vomiting. When it stops, I slide onto the cold floor, forehead pressed to the porcelain tiles because the chill is the only thing that cuts through the rising panic.
I shut my eyes and try to breathe. For a moment, the image that steadies me isn’t academic or rational but something older—the Roman garden behind the sanctuary, the statue of the Roman Goddess Fortuna, the carved wheel on the memorial stone I noticed my first week here.
A reminder that fate turns whether you want it to or not.
Some wheels crush you.
Others shift because you push.
My phone buzzes.
A text from Dr. Blackwell:Wonderful news! The paper will be live soon. So exciting to see our collaborative work published. Your fieldwork has been invaluable—let’s discuss next steps soon.
Our collaborative work.
Rage spikes, bright and destabilizing.
Then the phone rings.
My mother. I answer because my defenses are already stripped bare.
My frame of mind must bleed through my greeting, because her first words are, “Sophia? What’s wrong?”
“My advisor stole my research,” I say flatly. “She took my ideas, published them under her name, and thanked me for ‘preliminary fieldwork.’”
A long silence.
“Oh, sweetheart… are you sure you’re not misinterpreting? Collaboration can be messy. Maybe your advisor simply developed your early thoughts further—”
“She used phrases from my proposal. She used examples from Missouri. She—”
“But does she also have documentation?” Mom interrupts gently. “I’m not saying you’re wrong, darling, but you know howcollaboration works; ideas build on each other. And Sophia, you sometimes see patterns other people miss. Are you absolutely certain this is theft and not just… the messy reality of an academic partnership?”
She’s blaming the way my brain works—the part of me she’s always tried to sand down.
“It’s theft,” I whisper. “I can prove—”
“Darling, can you prove itenough? Enough for a formal complaint? Enough to win? Fighting a senior scholar could ruin your career. Wouldn’t it be better to focus on building your reputation? On the doors she’s opening for you? Those opportunities are real. They’re safe. Let this go and move forward.”
Move forward. Be strategic. Don’t make waves.
