“You are not a thing for her to use,” I say. “You are the builder. The… creator.”
Her breath hitches hard. Tears spill before she can stop them. She scrubs at them angrily—like softness itself is betrayal.
“I don’t know what to do.” Her voice is unsteady. “If I fight, they could destroy me. If I don’t fight, I destroy myself.”
That, I understand.
I reach up—slow, so she can pull back. She doesn’t. I rest my hands gently on her waist and rise just enough for her to fold into my chest if she wants.
She stands and leans in as though gravity pulls her there.
“I don’t know how to do this,” she says into my shirt. “I know how to write articles, not how to accuse a tenured professor of theft. I don’t even know where to start.”
“Then we don’t start big,” I say. “We start small. Make the bones. Lay out what happened so you can see it, not just feel it.”
She is quiet for a long moment. I feel her breathing against me, too fast at first, then slowly easing as I pet her spine, willing her to feel some measure of calm.
“What do you need from me?” I ask.
She pulls back a little so she can see my face. Her eyes are still shining, but there’s a different look there now. Focus. Fight.
“I need your memory,” she says. “I need to prove when these ideas actually formed and in what order. I need someone whosaw it happen and can say, ‘No, she had this framework before Blackwell ever touched it.’”
I nod once, no hesitation.
“You have that,” I say. “Every session. Every breakthrough. Every word you said that changed something—I have it.” I tap my temple.
“They’ll say you’re not credible,” she says. “That you’re not an academic. That you can’t even read the paper.”
I shrug. “I am not academic. But I am witness. I do not need to read her theft to know when you made the thing she stole.”
She stares at me as if she’s seeing something new.
“You would testify?” she asks quietly. “Put yourself in the middle of this? For me?”
“Yes,” I say. “Because you matter. Your work matters. And because I have seen too many powerful people use others as if they were tools. I will not watch that happen to you while I stand aside.”
Her face crumples, not in defeat but in recognition. Like something inside her finally believes me.
“I want to be believed,” she says. “Not rescued. Believed.”
“I believe you,” I say. “Completely. And I stand with you. Not instead of you.”
Her breath shakes. “What if I fight and lose? What if every opportunity in my future disappears? If my career ends before it really starts?”
“Then you still have your work,” I say. “You still have your name on what you made. You still have this place that sees you. And…” I swallow. “You still have me. If you want me.”
She goes very still.
Then exhales slowly, like letting go of something heavy.
“I do,” she says. “Want you. Want here. I just… can’t hold all the fear and all the wanting at the same time.”
“Then we break it apart,” I say. “One piece at a time. First piece: make the shape of what happened. Not for them. For you.”
A small spark lights in her eyes. The one I met the first day—curious, sharp, hungry.
She straightens slowly, wiping beneath her eyes, but she doesn’t step away from me.
