Erased

Chapter 3

CHAPTER THREE

The halls reek of memories and cleaning products. Fifteen years later, it’s still familiar. I think some part of me was already nostalgic for this place long before I left it.

I pass photos of the university presidents, one after another, their polished frames gleaming. It used to be a punishment for students who had broken a rule—dusting the frames and cases of old trophies and plaques—in order to return to good standing. I wonder if that’s still a thing.

The first event on the itinerary I was given is a mixer held in the Solace Garden.

I make my way through the mostly empty halls with a puffed chest and trembling hands—further proof my emotions are battling inside me.

Every action, every decision, is met with further questions.

I still don’t know if I’m doing the right thing here. If the right thing actually exists.

I spot the giant white tent the second I exit the building. The flaps wave in the breeze, fighting against their ties. There are easily two hundred people here, maybe more. The place is a sea of purple. Lavender shirts, plum blazers, violet scarves.

Ralston’s face is everywhere. Following me. Smiling at me. She is on pins, T-shirts, tote bags, books, posters.

There’s a large photo of her placed on an easel in the corner when I first enter the tent. A quote below her photo reads, “The revolution starts with us.”

Us.

Lies.

I hover at the edge of the gathering, turning down a glass of champagne when it’s offered by a waitress. From my corner, I watch people laughing and hugging, seeming to buzz with energy. They take photos in front of the poster, posing with her books.

They’ve made her into a legend. Almost a mythical creature. Something to be admired from afar, something only the luckiest few ever get to touch.

I was one of the lucky ones, once, until that luck dried up.

There’s no time to dwell on that, no sense in it either. I know the instant the crowd changes. It’s a ripple. A visceral shift in the air that I feel before I realize what’s happened. Heads turn. Phones come out. It’s as if, collectively, we’re all holding our breath.

Then…

“She’s here!” A voice squeals the words, seemingly disembodied. Ethereal.

The air in my lungs swells, the muscles in my chest tightening. I turn my head slowly, sensing her before I see her.

And there she is.

She glides into the tent like she alone owns the earth below our feet, dressed in a neatly tailored purple suit.

Her lipstick is just a few shades lighter than her suit, but perfectly complementary.

Her graying-blonde hair is brushed back behind her shoulders, pinned near her ears, not a strand out of place.

A slow roar builds in the crowd, and people start to cheer.

Actually cheer.

As if we’re at a concert. As if she’s Taylor Swift.

Her small smile grows wide on her lips, proud as she scans the crowd, waving away their applause in an effort to look self-effacing. She plays humble, and they assume she is. They assume she doesn’t want any of this.

As if she’s read my mind, her eyes find me. Sharp. Dangerous.

My blood goes cold. Frozen. Nothing moves. Even my breathing stops.

For just a moment, her smile falters, and I have my answer. For the first time, I’m certain she had no idea I’d be here. She wasn’t the one who put my name on the list after all.

Why do I feel sad about that? I swallow, refusing to look away. Forcing myself to wait. Our eye contact lasts only a second or two, my breath still frozen in my chest, before she’s gone again, swallowed by the crowd. Her adoring fans.

I search inside myself for what this feeling growing in my stomach should be—anger, sadness, frustration. Maybe? But it feels different. A word, a feeling I don’t have a name for. Jealousy. Uncertainty.

I feel as if I don’t belong when I so desperately want to.

And I hate myself for the wanting.

The memory hits me all at once—

Students file out of the classroom, the lesson already forgotten by most as they chat. I remain in my seat, too afraid I’ll be just like them if I leave, that I’ll lose all of this. The feeling of being in the room with her, of learning from her.

In the months after finding out I’d been accepted to Havenport, I’ve learned even more about the woman I’ve spent most of my teen years admiring. She’s everything I want to be. Strong. Confident. She doesn’t question herself or her place.

She’s almost inhuman in that way, in her absence of doubt.

I’m nineteen and nervous, watching as she writes notes on the board for her next class. In her first memoir, she mentioned how she rarely prepares for her classes. That she lets her students lead the way, goes where they need to go, teaches what they need to learn.

She’s brilliant.

I, however, am clutching a spiral notebook that has nothing profound in it. Most days, I’m certain I have nothing profound in me.

Maybe, if I’m inconceivably lucky, a trace of Professor Ralston’s brilliance will rub off on me through the course of this semester. How could it not?

I scoot my chair back, and it squeals on the wooden floor.

Professor Ralston doesn’t even look over her shoulder, doesn’t flinch.

Just before I leave my aisle, I hear her voice.

“Lila.”

I turn my head, looking over my shoulder, surprised she knows my name. “Yes, Professor Ralston?” My voice doesn’t even sound like mine. It’s shaky. Nervous.

I hate it.

I want to sound confident the way she does.

She’s still not looking at me, eyes on the whiteboard as she finishes her thought there. I’m still not sure how she knew it was me.

I take a few steps her way, wondering briefly if maybe I misheard her. Dreamed it. Imagined my name on her lips.

I glance down, tucking my hair behind my ear.

I wish I was wearing something else. The sweater I bought at Goodwill is plain, boring.

Simple. Professor Ralston would never wear anything so dull.

Even now, in class on a random Wednesday, she’s impressive.

Wearing a paisley dress with matching shoes and earrings, she looks as if a stylist dresses her. For all I know, one might.

Finally, she turns, and there’s a warm smile on her face. The features I’ve practically had memorized for most of my life. Impossibly, she’s even more beautiful in real life, up close. She assesses me, her eyes taking me in slowly. Then she meets my gaze again. “You should speak up more.”

I swallow. “I-I should?” It’s all I can bring myself to say. Her words are so direct. So much like I imagined her. Straight to the point. Honest.

Her smile is smaller then, unreadable. “I see something in you. Potential, perhaps. But only if you’re willing to use it.”

My throat goes tight. It’s the kind of thing you want someone like her to say to you. The kind of thing that could change your life. That you remember forever, hold onto forever.

“That’s…wow. Thank you, Professor Ralston. It means a lot, coming from someone like you.”

“Someone like me.” She mulls over the words, appearing pleased.

“I’m a huge fan,” I admit, regretting the words too late to stop them from spilling. “I’ve read all your books. My mom took me to one of your public speeches at Yale when I was thirteen. Your work means so much to me.”

She’s quiet for a moment, and I worry I’ve said too much. She probably gets this a lot. Fans annoying her. Perhaps she’s questioning whether or not I should be here. Maybe she’ll ask the dean to place me in another program.

Finally, she gestures toward my notebook. “Do you write?”

“Fiction, mostly.” My face burns. “It’s… I mean, I’m not very good.”

Her eyes narrow at me, chastising me without saying a word. She holds out her hand, waving her fingers to tell me to hand over the notebook.

I consider bolting, but don’t. Instead, I unfurl my hands from the sides of the notebook, releasing it from my chest and placing it into her waiting hands.

She gives me one more look before opening the notebook. Silently, she reads. My body tingles, burning like I’m under a microscope and bright lights, like she’s slowly setting me on fire.

I wait.

For her to say something. For her to say nothing.

For her to have been wrong. For her to have been right.

She turns the page, and my throat tickles. I fight the urge to cough, to clear it. I’m going to be sick…or pass out. The lights above my head are too bright, too revealing.

She takes her time—there is no hurry to her movements as she reads through my pages. A few poems, a handful of pages from a dystopian novel I’m working on. My life. My hopes. My dreams, all in different formats.

Finally, she closes the notebook, and I release a shaky breath, waiting.

“I want you to keep writing.” She hands the notebook back.

I glance down at it, unsure if that’s a good or bad thing.

“You were wrong. You’re good, Lila. You could be great.”

I blink up at her. Did she really just say that?

“If you’d like,” she continues, “you could bring me some of the pieces you’re working on privately. I can help you get better.”

I’m pretty sure I’ve blacked out. My ears ring, eyes water. “I—”

She smiles, flicks a glance at my notebook, then looks back up. “Sometimes the most interesting ideas need a safe place to grow.”

I swallow her praise like wine. I think I nod. I try to, at least. Her words warm my whole chest. Like hot cocoa on the coldest day.

This is the best moment of my life.

The sound of microphone feedback jolts me back to the present as the applause finally dies down.

Ralston steps onto the small stage near the refreshment table.

She holds her hand up, still and patient until the crowd settles completely.

With her hand in the air, she looks so much like the photo from the tote bags it’s almost as if she rehearsed it.

She smiles over us like a queen on her throne. Perfect. Practiced.

“I wasn’t planning on speaking today,” she begins, then pauses for the crowd, who—on cue—chuckles in unison, as if she just made the most hilarious joke.

If she doesn’t speak again soon, I’m worried they might start chanting.

Thankfully, she inhales and goes on. “But seeing all your faces, your enthusiasm and support, your purple,”—she gestures to the wave of lavenders and violets around her, wrinkling her nose with delight—“I just wanted to say thank you. I have to admit, receiving a Lifetime Achievement Award when I’m still this young,”—again, the crowd chuckles—“feels wrong at times. But I’m just…

I’m so grateful for the work I get to do with you.

Because of you. All of you. Dean Carlyle, my students, my friends, my family.

” Her eyes bounce around the crowd from person to person.

“I can’t tell you what it means to have you here.

Together. In this place that means so much to all of us. ”

She pauses, letting the words sink in. “I’ll end with this for now—this week isn’t about me, despite my name being on the banners.

It’s about each and every one of us, using our voices for the common good.

I’m just so thankful to be doing the good work alongside you.

” She blows a kiss to the crowd as a slow clap starts. “Now, let’s go have fun.”

She whispers the word “fun”as if it’s sacred. Like it’s a new idea she just invented.

The audience beams and cheers, clapping their hands above their heads, raising their glasses of champagne. Cameras flash as she passes the microphone to one of the student volunteers and delivers a quick wave of her hand to the crowd.

She doesn’t sweat, even packed under this tent with so many bodies. Doesn’t stutter as she thanks everyone again, this time without the mic. She doesn’t seem to have a single flaw.

But some of us know the truth. And she can’t escape that. Can’t escape me.

I watch her, zipping through the crowd like a celebrity on a pap walk. Squealing girls hold out their books, and she signs them quickly with a Sharpie passed to her from a waiting volunteer, smiling for selfies and offering kind words of thanks and praise.

“No, you’re amazing,” she repeats, pointing to a teen girl who has tears streaming down her cheeks.

They all watch her with bright, hopeful eyes, and she knows it. She knows her power and wears it like armor—polished to hide the rust only I can see. How long will it be before they see it, too? How long will I be exiled alone here on this island of truth?