Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
It takes several minutes after Ralston has left the tent for the buzz of excitement to wear off. The rabid fans return to merely excited fans, going for another glass of champagne, the red in their cheeks dissipating.
The first in the lineup of formally scheduled speakers is Dean Carlyle, who welcomes us and gives a rundown of the week.
While he’s on stage, I back out of the tent.
I don’t even realize I’m leaving—not fully.
One moment, I’m watching him, listening to him talk about Professor Ralston as if she built this university with her bare hands, and the next, I’m gone.
Outside the tent. Back to the fresh air. Back to reality.
Then again, nothing here really feels fresh or free or real, not when her name is everywhere. Not when her eyes are around every corner.
Still, the air is cooler than it was in the tent. Damp. I suspect rain is coming, and for a moment, I smile at the thought it might literally rain on her parade. Then I’m picturing her on a parade float, and it’s almost too much to bear. Almost too realistic, too possible.
I wrap my arms around myself and start walking faster with no real destination in mind. I just need to not be here. I could be anywhere else. Away. Away from the soft music, the chipper smiles, the photos. Away from the people who’ve turned my monster into their deity. Their savior.
I don’t belong with them anymore.
The Catalyst Hub student center is still buzzing. It’s not surprising. Havenport’s campus didn’t sleep back when I attended, so why should it start now? I stand across the path for a while, watching students pass in front of the tall windows, several sitting at the tables working silently.
I’m not sure why I head toward it, but once I’m moving, I know exactly where I need to go.
It’s a feeling. A pull that leads me forward.
The door is locked with a scanner for students to swipe their IDs, but I only have to wait a moment for a group of boys to pass through it on their way out.
I stick my foot in the door to stop it from closing, going unnoticed.
Once inside, it clicks. I move quickly, avoiding eye contact with everyone around me.
Past the tables and couches meant for students to study on, around a group meeting for what sounds like a book club.
Around the vending machines against the far wall and down the stairs, passing more framed photographs no one ever looks at.
Sports championships, valedictorian speeches, marches through the quad for one worthy cause or another.
My heels echo in the quiet stairwell, then fall silent as I push through the next door, this one unlocked and labeled University Records.
The room is quiet and mostly empty, except for a lone student at the desk, hunched over a laptop. He’s thin with bushy, black hair and a smattering of freckles across his cheeks. He looks up when the door closes behind me.
“Hi.” I wave, trying to look as if I’m meant to be here. “I’m looking for an old thesis draft. Is this where I’d need to come?”
His eyes shift to the laptop, and he nods, starting to type. “I just need your name and year.”
“Parks.” I clear my throat, relieved. “Should be from 2010. Or late 2009. It was for English, feminist theory track.”
His fingers tap on the keys, laser-focused on his task. Then, he stops. Cocks his head. He squints at the screen, then at me. A nervous hum bubbles from his throat. “This is weird. I’ve never really seen…”
I attempt to lean over the desk to see what he’s talking about, but he turns the laptop away. “What is it?”
“It’s…well, I found something.” He reads from the screen. “But it’s not what you’re looking for. Are you sure about the year?”
“Yes.” My throat goes dry. “Lila Parks. It should be titled Silence of the Second Sex: Voicelessness and Resistance in—”
He finishes the next part with me, “Gothic Heroines.” He nods.
So do I. “That’s it.”
“Yeah, I found it, but it’s not under ‘Parks.’”
My legs go numb underneath me. “Excuse me?”
“It’s listed as restricted by the author anyway, so I can’t open it.” He makes infrequent eye contact with me, searching the screen, but still shaking his head. “I’m sorry. Maybe you’ve got the years mixed up. Maybe there’s another one.”
“I know when I graduated,” I snap, then cool my tone. “Look, that’s my thesis. Who’s listed as the author? Is there a typo or…”
“It just says…” He looks at the screen again, leaning close. “A.R.”
“Ralston.” Her name slips from my lips, burning like poison.
“As in Professor?” He gives me a skeptical look.
“She was my professor. She helped me, but that’s my thesis.
Who can I talk to about this?” I don’t even know why I need to see it so badly.
I know what it says. I know what I wrote.
But now, more than ever, I need to see a piece of who I was back then.
I need to remember the belief in justice I once had. The hope for the future.
“About…” He pauses, waiting for me to finish his open-ended question.
“About why my thesis is filed under the wrong name.”
He shrugs, and my stomach drops.
When I don’t leave, he eventually says, “I guess you could try talking to administration tomorrow. Or you could come by in the morning. My supervisor will be here, but…it’s locked by the author. There’s really not much we can do without permission—”
“I’m giving you permission. I’m the author. Open it, and I’ll prove it. I can still remember parts of what I wrote.” I rack my brain for some of the words, lines of thought I strung together—overanalyzing and agonizing over each syllable that made it into the final piece.
He shakes his head and finally closes the laptop.
“I’m sorry. We’re not even allowed to look at it if it’s locked.
” His expression is blank, and he keeps glancing at the door, as if help might arrive soon.
Then it occurs to me that maybe he has called for help.
Maybe he has some sort of button under his desk that summons campus security when someone gets too upset. Like in a bank robbery.
Maybe this has happened before. Not just to me.
“She stole it,” I say under my breath, maybe just to confirm it out loud for myself. The words taste like rust. Like blood. I hate them.
Hate that this is my reality.
He chuckles under his breath again, as if I’ve made a joke. “She wouldn’t do that.”
I meet his eyes one last time, knowing he doesn’t believe me. Just like no one believed me back then. And with that, I’m moving. The door slams behind me harder than I mean for it to. I’m back up the stairs, past the pictures and the vending machines.
I don’t see the person at first, just past the entrance to the student center. She’s a blur of movement in my periphery, just another student.
Then I hear my name—quiet, cautious. As if she doesn’t believe it’s really me.
“Lila?”
I stop. My breathing is so loud in my ears I’m not even sure I heard it. Slowly, I turn.
When I see her face, something flutters in my chest like wings. “Jade?”
It’s impossible and also…inevitable. Of course she’d be here. She was the me before me. Ralston’s protégé before I came along. I haven’t seen her in years, but her features are the same. Softer, maybe. More tired. Her dark skin is still beautiful, her hair still worn in a buzz cut.
She holds a laptop against her chest like a shield. “Didn’t expect to see you here.”
“Um. Same,” I manage to say.
Her eyes flick over me. “Are you…here for”—she looks away, rolling her eyes—“Ralston Week?” The words sound like they taste bitter on her tongue.
I snort, feeling equally bitter. “Not exactly.”
There’s a beat, and then she nods, almost as if she gets it. Maybe she does. Maybe not.
“Something weird just happened,” I admit, watching her closely.
She waits.
“I asked to look at my thesis, but it was locked under a different name. Her name.”
Jade doesn’t flinch. That’s almost worse than if she’d argued with me.
“How is that possible?” I ask.
She releases a long breath that says so much and nothing at all. “How do you think?”
“I know she used some of my words in her speeches. In her writing. But to lock the paper completely…”
“Can’t have the proof getting out, can she?”
I just stare at her. Is it possible she believes me? Is it possible she knows everything Ralston’s done? “You knew?”
“You really thought you were special, didn’t you?” she scoffs, shaking her head.
Her words sting.
She opens her mouth to speak, then seems to think better of it, her eyes dancing back and forth between mine. “I tried to warn you, remember? I told you not to trust her. I told you what she was like. What she did.”
I can’t speak, can’t think of anything except her words and the truth in them. Why didn’t I listen back then? We both know the answer to that.
“People like Althea Ralston don’t get taken down just because someone points a finger at them.” She glances up at the Ralston Week banner hanging on the far side of the room, and I follow her gaze. “They get ceremonies. Awards. Weeks named to honor them.”
“We have to talk to someone. The dean or…or someone. She can’t get away with this. We can tell the truth about what she did. To both of us.”
Her eyes linger on mine. “There is no we, Lila. No us. We aren’t friends. I don’t even know you.”
My throat aches as I force a smile, despite the shaking of my voice. “Haven’t you heard? The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
She takes a step back. “Don’t be stupid. Ralston doesn’t have enemies. Not for longer than it takes to erase them.”
“Wait—”
But she doesn’t. She’s already walking away, the sound of her steps swallowed by the soft hum of the Catalyst Hub.
I watch her disappear out the door, my chest deflating.
For so long, I’ve felt alone in what happened to me.
I thought my voice was the only one who could tell the truth of it all, but now I know I’m wrong.
There are others. Jade, at least. Maybe more.
The hardest part isn’t even knowing Ralston stole our words. It’s being invisible and powerless while we watch it happen.