Chapter 15 #2
“I mean…Althea Ralston is…she’s lightning in a bottle, isn’t she?
I’ve worked with her eleven years, and still, I don’t think I’m any less…
enamored. In awe. You guys, from the outside, see her as this icon, this fierce fighter, but those of us who know her away from all of that—I’m telling you, it’s almost more impressive.
She’s everything you want her to be and so much more.
I’m very grateful to count her as a dear friend. ”
The screen fades, and the next face I see is one of the performers from earlier, a songwriter who played a song she’d written about Ralston called “Lighthouse.” “She’s everything, isn’t she?
Like, the dream. She’s what we want to be when we grow up, what we want our daughters to be.
I’m just glad—if I have children someday—they’ll get to grow up in a world that Althea Ralston had a part in. I know we’re all better for it.”
The screen goes dark again, and the next face causes my breath to catch in my throat.
Dani.
She looks every bit as nervous as the first time I saw her as she tucks a bit of dark hair behind her ear.
“I remember the first time I met Professor Ralston. You know, I’d spent most of my time in school listening to her speak, reading her books.
My mom, my aunts, my grandma—we were all fans.
Are all fans. I don’t think a holiday meal went by in my house without Althea Ralston’s name getting mentioned at least once.
” She chuckles to herself. “And then when I got accepted here and into her class, I almost couldn’t believe it.
It’s like…being accepted to learn from…I don’t know, Michelle Obama or something.
Professor Ralston doesn’t just teach theory.
She makes it feel like a conversation we’re all meant to be a part of. She makes it feel like we matter.”
The screen goes dark again, and then Jade’s face appears. I swallow, my skin cold. I can’t manage a full breath.
“She pushed me, sure, but in the best way. She challenged me—my thoughts, my assumptions, my fears. She made me see things, say things, I didn’t know I had the ability to say.
That kind of mentorship, of respect—it changes you.
” She looks away from whomever is asking the questions beyond the camera, until she’s staring directly into it.
Directly at me. “Althea Ralston changed me.”
Her voice is joined by a growing chorus of voices, by another image of lips, then another, and another, until hundreds of women’s mouths are on the screen all repeating the same thing: Althea Ralston changed me.
At once, the screen goes black and there’s a message in white letters.
Premiering Summer 2026
The lights come up, and suddenly everyone is cheering, standing, clapping. In front of me, a girl hugs her friend. Both of them have tears in their eyes.
I want to scream.
Slowly, the crowd begins to shift—standing if they weren’t already, stretching, murmuring about dinner plans and how beautiful the program was, vowing to catch up with their favorite artists from the showcase.
I can’t move. I can’t even…think. I don’t know how long I sit there before I feel someone standing next to me.
“I didn’t think you’d still be here.” Her voice is low, cautious.
I look up, confirming. Stella.
I stand slowly, still in a fog. “Well, here I am.”
Stella crosses her arms, sizing me up like she already understands parts of me I don’t understand myself. Maybe she does. Someone should.
“Think you’ll get what you’re after?”
“Probably not,” I admit. “But then again, I’m not sure what I’m after. I just want to make sure no one else goes through what I did. And I want anyone who has, to know they’re not alone.”
“Or you want to know you’re not alone,” she points out, though not unkindly.
“Is that so wrong?”
She lifts an eyebrow. “I’m sure there are others out there like you. Others who she hurt—whether intentional or not. She’s a complicated woman. That’s the point of the film.”
I study her in disbelief. “Really? Because it kind of seems like the point of the film is to thank her for waking the sun up each morning and collecting the earth’s entire fresh water supply by hand.”
She snorts. “She has a lot of fans, but that comes with critics.”
“I’m not a critic,” I argue. “I’m…a victim. She’s a predator. She steals people’s work. Their voices. Their drive. She isolates her students and weaponizes their ambition. She makes us feel worthless for trying.”
“Look…I’m not the bad guy here. I’m a girl’s girl or whatever the kids are saying, okay?
That’s why I’m doing this. Because I believe women should support women.
Women should be the one telling her story.
And if I didn’t, someone else would. It doesn’t mean I believe she’s a saint, just that I think her good outweighs her bad. ”
“Only because those who have experienced her bad have been so thoroughly silenced and frightened, you’ve never actually heard about it.”
Her mouth twitches, and it almost seems like she’s…impressed. Or maybe she’s just fighting a laugh. “You don’t seem so frightened. If Dr. Ralston is everything you claim, why wouldn’t she have had you kicked off campus already?”
It’s a fair question. “She’s had me warned,” I say. “But she also enjoys seeing me suffer. If she can keep me here, powerless, she gets everything she wants.”
“Everything she wants.” She bobs her head thoughtfully. “Some might call that a self-absorbed thought, you know?”
“I don’t care what people call me. I just want the world to know the truth about her. I want people to see both sides of her and be able to decide for themselves.”
She points to the projector screen. “It seems like people have. You saw the footage.”
“Yeah? Go talk to Dani again. See how she feels about her since learning what I told her today.”
Stella’s expression hardens. “What are you talking about? Dani’s interview was filmed a few hours ago. We barely got it edited in time to add the clip.”
The words slam into me. “That’s not possible.” Even if I didn’t have Dani completely convinced, she’s doubting Ralston at least…isn’t she?
“Right after the art exhibit. Dr. Ralston pulled Dani aside. Brought her to us herself. She said it was important that we heard from Dani after she learned we were showing a preview tonight. They seem really close.”
I stare at Stella. The room is spinning.
“She knows what Ralston did. She knows I have proof. I just spoke with her.”
I stop talking. Stop breathing. Because suddenly none of it feels solid. None of it feels real. The thread I was holding—the one that felt like a lifeline—has been pulled from my hand. It’s dropping to the floor in slow motion, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.
“Maybe it’s time to give it up, Lila. And whether you believe it or not, I am saying that out of kindness.” When I meet her eyes, I think she might be telling the truth. She’s watching me with something that looks like pity, and I hate how much it rattles me. “Sometimes being right isn’t enough.”
I open my mouth to argue, to ask if that means she believes me, but before the words leave my mouth, I pause. Behind Stella, near the side exit, someone slips into the room.
Dani.
She hesitates in the doorway, eyes sweeping across the crowd, and when she spots me, her face changes. Not surprise. Not relief. Something like regret.
“Dani.” I move past Stella, but Dani turns—too fast—and slips out the door.
“Wait, please!” I call, rushing after her.
When I enter the hallway, she’s already halfway down the corridor. I push through the crowd, but she’s too fast. Too far away.
She vanishes in the crowd of people, swallowed like my truth in years of silence.
I stand still for a long time, watching the space where she just was, wondering if I imagined it all.
If she was never really listening, if I was always wasting my breath.
If whatever I saw on her face this morning that looked like belief was nothing after all.
A moment of clarity, perhaps, before Ralston’s spell reasserted itself with claws.
In the echo of the crowd moving past me, in the utter aloneness I feel even among so many others—invisible even as they bump my shoulders—it tears through me again.
The twist of betrayal is deeper now—not just from Dani and Jade, though their betrayals sting the worst—but from the system that rewards silence.
That elevates liars and buries any woman who’d dare challenge them.
Eventually, I walk outside into the cold air. People are everywhere, buzzing with energy. Excitement. The night is too loud. Too bright. I remember so vividly when the campus seemed to glow on nights like this.
Of course, that was back when the light could hide all of Havenport’s shadows.