Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
The stone archway of Havenport University rises in front of me, just as ivy-covered and proud as it was fifteen years ago. I used to think it was so beautiful, so prestigious. Now it just reminds me of everything it represents.
Everything it hides.
I pull my suitcase over the uneven sidewalk and stare at the crest carved into the gate, under “Havenport.”
Veritas. Potestas. Vox.
Truth. Power. Voice. The irony burns in my chest with vengeance.
I want to laugh, it’s so ridiculous. So unfair. Nothing here has changed, and nothing ever will.
The quad is still a checkerboard of old bricks and manicured grass. Everything on the outside is perfect, beautiful even. None of the cracks show.
The lush grass is framed by Gothic buildings, everything pretending to be centuries older than it actually is. The air smells damp, like moss and rain. Like youth. Like everything that was once mine.
I pass a group of undergrads lounging on the steps of The Beacon Pavilion, their faces sunlit and easy, and for just a moment, I feel the weight of time hit me square in the chest. I used to be those kids.
Used to believe this was all there was—this place, these people.
Used to believe everything would be good. Beautiful. Fair.
The pavilion used to mean so much to me. Years ago, I sat just feet away from where I stand now, listening to the greatest visionaries of my youth speak. I cried during speeches about the promise of tomorrow, cheered when they reminded us that our futures were bright and we could change the world.
Back then, I really believed it.
Now, I’m thirty-seven, and none of my dreams have come true.
In this place, time swells. Dilates. Everything here feels eternal. Like it will always be this good, we will always feel this powerful.
I know better.
I pass the Catalyst Hub—Havenport’s name for the student center—and the Bonnie Yates Memorial Library on my way without paying either much attention.
Someday Ralston will have a place here named for her, too.
The thought hits me at once, taking my breath away. The painful truth of it. It’s inevitable. Of course she will. Probably sooner than later.
The path curves past the central green, and that’s when I see it.
The banner.
It stretches across the breezeway at the head of the Equity Walk, a deep purple for the school’s color, with bold white letters:
Ralston Week:
Honoring a Legacy of Truth and Inspiration
Below it, students in matching plum-colored T-shirts are handing out glossy programs and tote bags with her face printed on them.
Althea Ralston.
Her eyes seem to find me even while inanimate. She’s still beautiful, even in that brightly colored, artistic portrait—reminiscent of an Andy Warhol painting—one hand raised mid-lecture like she’s throwing glitter into the crowd, dusting them with her sparkling light.
Two women walk past me, talking under their breath, and I get a closer look at the tote bags. Close enough to see that the quote under her portrait reads, “They tried to erase us, but we won’t let them.”
I stop walking, my palms slick with sweat.
There are students taking selfies in front of the banner. A few wear enamel pins shaped like tiny compasses—Ralston’s signature symbol.
Always pointing toward the truth.
The irony of it all makes my stomach clench. She built her entire career on the idea of navigating truth, on building tables for women who had never been offered a seat at one. On giving a voice to the voiceless.
But I know what’s buried under that polished image. She lies. Cheats. Steals.
She destroys people.
She destroyed me. And got celebrated for it.
And now, here I am to witness the crowning of a fraud.
I shouldn’t be here. I stop, contemplating turning back. I don’t know why I agreed to come anyway. I should’ve left that email in my trash folder where it belonged. I should’ve just said no. Or said nothing at all.
She’d never have been bothered by my absence.
I dry my hands on my jeans. I don’t know why I came. Maybe I needed to see it all again for myself, to understand how the lie has grown so big no one even questions it anymore.
Or maybe I just hope someone will.
Someone braver than I was.
Am.
With that, I square my shoulders and continue. I’m already here. I may as well get a glimpse of her. If nothing else, I need to bear witness to what this has become. I need to know. To remind myself of what she is.
The housing office is up ahead, looking just the way I remember: a squat brick building with stained-glass windows too small to belong to churches and too decorative for classrooms. Inside, a student worker in a Ralston Week polo hands me a key attached to a faded leather tag.
Everything has to look old. Expensive. Even when it isn’t.
His dark skin is youthful and untouched yet by time as he smiles at me and offers up a Ralston tote bag. I pretend not to notice the gesture, turning away quickly as though I’m distracted.
He doesn’t offer a map or guidance to find my dorm as I make my way to the door, just a warning. “Watch your step—some of the stairwells in the alumni housing aren’t fully reinforced yet.” He seems to rethink his words. “They’re safe, I mean. Just…you know, be careful.”
Lovely.
The leather tag lets me know my temporary housing—or as they’ve chosen to call it in the welcome letter from the event coordinator, Historic Alumni Lodging—is Addison Hall, a building in the southeast corner of campus.
If I remember correctly, it’s near the Prism Gallery which was constructed during my first two years of college and showcases feminist art.
Everything about this place sells a story, a lie. Including the neatly trimmed and well-maintained landscaping that leads to Addison Hall. I snort when it finally comes into view, remembering.
Ahh, yes. Right.
The complex is a ghost town full of peeling paint and rotting wood trim, a building that appears to have to hold its breath, so it doesn’t collapse. No wonder it’s so vague in my memory. It was student housing before my time and had already been condemned before I arrived.
They’ve made attempts to clean it up, it’s obvious, but I suspect they’re only opening it now because it’s the fall semester, and they don’t have any other housing available for the massive guest list Ralston must’ve given them.
I force that thought away before it can take root in my brain.
The wondering. The questions that have been on my mind for months now.
Did Ralston invite me herself? Did she put my name on the list?
Or was I only chosen because I was one of her prized students once? Such wondering could drive me mad.
My room is on the second floor, and the stairs creak under my weight. The halls bustle with other arrivals, many wearing shirts with Ralston’s picture or her quotes on them, others carrying her books clutched tightly to their chest. The hallway smells of fresh paint, with a hint of mildew.
My room is cramped, with a twin bed, a desk bolted to the floor, a tall, narrow dresser, and a too-small mirror on the wall. There’s no bathroom or laundry in the rooms themselves. I’ll be back to using a communal facility.
But it’s clean, at least.
I drop my bag on the bed, exhaling. My entire body buzzes with an emotion I can’t quite understand. Part of me wants to run, part of me dreads seeing her.
Part of me is ready.
I’ve been waiting fifteen years for this moment—something deep inside of me knowing it would come. That I’d find myself back here, find myself facing her again.
Ralston is somewhere on this campus. Maybe already doing press, shaking hands, signing books. Her fans are out in full force, ready to laud her for all she’s done.
It’s almost religious—the reverence, the hunger for proximity to her. The way they quote her, follow her, trust her. People want to believe her. To believe in her. They want her to be everything she claims to be. Maybe that’s why it has worked for so long.
Sometimes all it takes for something to be true is for enough people to believe it is.
I was one of them once, one of the blind. The enamored.
I believed her. Looked up to her. Trusted her. I let her lead me, and I followed with blind faith. She was everything I wanted to be someday.
But now I know better.
I know the truth, and I know all the lies.