Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Bell’s office feels farther away than before. By the time I reach her wooden door, my extremities are ice cold, and my chest is burning. I’m a ball of nerves and excitement—the emotions swirling inside me without signs of easing.
I knock on the door and wait to hear her voice.
“Come in.”
Stepping inside, I close the door, and my eyes find the long rows of bookshelves first. Professor Bell is where I found her last, sitting behind her desk, glasses resting on her nose.
Everything is so similar to my previous visit that I have to wonder if her feelings will be the same too. Does she still believe what she told me before? That this is all a waste of time. That it’s not worth the fight. Or will she surprise me?
The window is open just an inch, letting in a cool breeze that smells faintly of smoke and fallen leaves. I study her face, looking for a sign of what to expect, but she’s a blank, unreadable canvas.
She gestures to the seat across from her desk. “You got my email.”
“Thanks for responding. Most of the others haven’t.”
She looks down at her desk, lifting her glasses from her face and sliding them up into her hair. “I almost didn’t either, if I’m honest. But I needed to.”
I step forward and brace myself, taking a seat. This could be very good or very bad, and I still can’t place a guess as to where she’s going. Will she help me? Or destroy the last remaining salt grain of hope I have?
“You spoke to Dean Carlyle for me, didn’t you?” I venture a guess. “You’re the reason he didn’t make me leave.”
One brow rises. “Yet.” She weighs her words carefully, in no rush to speak.
“People are talking, Lila. About you. Not just the dean. It’s…
everything you’re doing—everything you’ve done since you arrived—it’s spreading.
” She pauses, lips pressed together in disapproval.
“Like wildfire, and not in the way you want. You’re making people uncomfortable.
Closed off. They don’t trust you. Don’t—if I can be frank—like you. ”
It stings, but I sit up straighter, gripping the chair’s wooden arms. “Good. I don’t need them to like me. I just need them to listen.”
Professor Bell sighs. “I know you think you’re doing the right thing. The important thing. But is this really how you envisioned the fight?”
She studies me, and for the first time, I think I can read her emotions. She’s neither angry, nor hopeful. She just looks…tired.
“You’re trying to burn down a house with yourself still inside it.” She takes the glasses from her head and places them on the desk.
“Wrong,” I say. “The house is already on fire. I’m trying to open a door so no one else gets locked inside.”
She leans back in her chair, pinching her lips together. Finally, her eyes meet mine. “If we destroy Althea, we destroy the only woman who ever made it to the top here. The only woman they listen to. Is that worth it to you?”
Her words sit heavy in the air. She said we, but I don’t give my heart time to celebrate it. There’s no fight in her voice, not for me or anyone else.
“Is it really worth it to fight among ourselves? She does a lot of good, whether or not we like it.” She doesn’t raise her voice, but then again, she doesn’t have to. Her point is made.
I keep my tone steady. “If we don’t, we’re allowing her to hide behind her womanhood. Weaponize it, even. We bring her down to save the rest of us—every person she stepped on, stole from, cut down, ruined.”
“Do those numbers outweigh the women she’s helped?
” She’s asking the question as if it’s something that perplexes her, not as if she actually wants an answer.
She closes her eyes, squeezes them tight, fingers pinching the space on her nose between her eyes.
“I do understand what you’re after. I know how much it hurts.
I’ve been stolen from more times than I can count.
My work, my ideas, my ambition. My point is that…
most often, the thieves are men. Men whose names are now carved into lecture halls.
Althea isn’t worse than them. And yet, she’d be the easiest one to take down. ”
“So we take down all of them,” I say softly. “One at a time.”
Her eyes widen, like I’m suggesting we stop by Neverland on the way. “It’s not that easy. And why should she be first?”
It takes me a moment to answer, mostly because I’ve asked myself the same question. It haunts me not to have answers. To be this deep in the fight and still wonder if it’s wrong just because it’s not clean. Just because I can no longer see the lines.
“Because she’s built a career on lifting women. On being one of us. And it’s all a lie. She’s in a position built on inherent trust—not just because of her career, but because she’s a woman. Her betrayal stings the worst of all.”
Professor Bell looks down at her hands. The rings on her thin fingers glint dully in the lamp’s light.
“You’ve said no one else has responded? Who else have you emailed?”
I tell her their names. Ralston’s crimes.
“None of them want to come forward,” she says with a slow nod. “Because they know what it’ll cost. Not just for her. Perhaps not even mostly for her. But for them.”
“I know,” I admit.
“In battle,” she tells me softly, “everyone gets hurt. Everyone bleeds.” There’s no judgment in her tone now, just sadness.
“Everyone’s bleeding anyway,” I say. Then I meet her eyes, an idea sparking in my head.
I think of Jade, of Naya, of Dani. I think of the missing laptop.
I think of the countless names we’ll never know, the women who’ve been hurt by her in ways we’ll never learn.
I think of Ralston, smiling back at me from the head of the classroom all those years ago, of Ralston yesterday smiling at me across the gallery—both times thinking she’s already won. “What if there’s another way?”
She cocks her head to the side, intrigued.
“What if the truth could exist somewhere neutral? Somewhere outside of Ralston’s control?”
She glances around the room, then back at me. “What do you mean? How?”
I smile. That wasn’t a no.