Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The email comes when I’m getting ready the next morning. I expect it to be the reporter, but instead, I see Hayden’s name on my screen.
Returning my email.
Except, she doesn’t respond to what I said at all. There’s simply a link.
I hesitate and double-check the email address it came from—wary of scams—then click through and wait.
My heart stalls when I see the headline.
Althea Ralston’s Fall from Grace?
I can’t read the brief article fast enough.
We have confirmed that famed scholar, author, and activist Althea Ralston’s 2014 paper “Always On,” which examined the cost of burnout culture, was quietly retracted from Havenport University’s online archives after a media storm accused her of plagiarism.
There has been no official comment from the university spokesperson.
We will continue to follow this story closely.
My body turns to ice.
It’s from a local, online magazine. Small and insignificant, but it’s there. It exists. It happened. One of her papers has been removed.
The article that’s been removed wasn’t one of mine, but there’s a chance it was flagged in a story on the HEAR US ROAR website. Either way, it’s gone.
I refresh the page, hardly able to believe it. Then I refresh it again, hoping for an update.
I email Hayden back immediately.
Holy shit. Did you have something to do with this?
Then I share the link on the website. I want to shout it from the rooftops, but this is close enough.
By mid-morning, the news is everywhere. Screenshots of the error message you get from trying to read her article in the archives, whispers in the hallways about what it means. A hushed panic has set in across campus.
When the university does eventually issue a statement, it’s vague, stating only that the retraction was due to technical inconsistencies. I have no idea what that means or if anyone believes them.
I can only wonder why that article in particular was the one to go first. The initial crack in the dam of secrets being contained.
Whatever it is, it’s not enough to stop Ralston Week from barreling on. Today’s event is the International Female Voices Symposium, a lineup of virtual panels from scholars across the world.
I’m not going to attend, but I can’t resist peeking inside anyway.
My trip across campus is met with stares and whispers, the kind you can feel crawling under your skin, but no one speaks to me.
There are looks of concern, judgment, and shock, but as much as I hope to see support looking back in their eyes, I don’t.
Still, no one screams or attacks me, and the event seems to be the least-attended event so far, so I’ll take whatever micro-doses of joy I can find.
On my way back to the dorm, the walk is lined with neon yellow flyers I haven’t seen before, all taped to light posts and benches.
One has come loose and skates across the sidewalk on the wind. I stop it with my foot, bending over to pick it up.
Pro-Ralston Rally Today.
She supported us, now we’ll support her!
Bring your signs and support.
3 P.M. The Pavilion.
My body goes numb.
They’re rallying for her. Despite all of it. They still don’t care.
I ball the flyer up in my fist and hurl it into the trash. Before I can walk away, I rip the rest from where they’ve been hung, wadding them into balls and slinging them one by one into the garbage can.
Once there’s no neon yellow left, I keep walking.
We’re still hours away from the rally’s start time of three, but as I approach The Beacon Pavilion, I hear their voices. My thoughts go quiet as I draw nearer, listening to the steady roar of the crowd. When I round the corner, the sight is enough to take my breath away.
It didn’t matter. Throwing away the flyers meant nothing. Stopped nothing.
There are hundreds of people here already, dressed in their Ralston gear, carrying signs made of poster board, cardboard, neon paper, and more. Someone is wearing a giant Ralston mask—like they already had it prepared. Like they always travel with it.
As a young woman shouts into a bullhorn in muffled words I can’t quite make out, the crowd waves their signs proudly.
Our Mentor, Our Hero
We Don’t Defame Our Icons
We Stand with Althea
Girl’s Girls Don’t Fuck with Jealousy
The World is Afraid of Powerful Women, But We Aren’t
Ride or Die for Ralston
RALSTONITES RIDE AT DAWN
One sign has my face on it, crossed out with a bold, red mark. Numbness takes over my body. My skin tingles as if carbonation is building underneath it. White noise drowns out their words. I want to bolt, but I can’t. I can’t look away.
They’re loud. Rowdy. Defiant. There’s chanting and laughter that stings more than silence ever could.
I don’t recognize anyone in the crowd, but it doesn’t make it hurt any less. These women aren’t so different from who I was before she destroyed me. The girl who wanted to fight to change the world.
The one who believed she could.
And now they’re holding signs defending the person who killed that version of me, without ever caring to learn the truth. My heart thuds in my chest, and I struggle to draw a breath.
Without warning, a hand grips my arm, demanding my attention.
Everything stops.
I tense and turn my head, my gaze landing on a campus security officer in a black polo. “Ma’am, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
“I wasn’t going to bother them.” I don’t dare raise my voice, fearful it’ll bring attention to me. I don’t want to consider what this angry mob might do to me if they realize I’m here in enemy territory.
“You need to leave,” he repeats again. “Not just this event, but campus. You’ll find your things waiting for you in the housing office. They’ll ask you to return your key there.” He pauses and raises an eyebrow. “Do you need an escort?”
I swallow. I’ve known this was coming, but it doesn’t make it any easier. I finally got a step ahead, and she made sure someone was around to shove me back down the stairs.
“No. I’ll go.” There’s no point arguing, so I don’t. I turn away from the crowd, from their loud chanting, and retreat, the fire in my cheeks matching the one swirling in my stomach.
Like the security officer said, my bags are waiting for me in the housing office, packed neatly and resting on the floor. I try not to think about the invasion of privacy, of someone riffling through my things, packing them up.
I knew the risks of living in student housing, agreed to them when I signed whatever forms they had me sign. I hand over my key, check to be sure I still have my laptop and phone charger, and then grab the rest of my things from the office floor while the worker watches.
I push open the door and step outside, adrenaline racing. Head spinning.
Then…I stop.
A familiar face stands waiting for me, leaning up against a nearby tree with her arms folded across her chest. She doesn’t say a word, just stares.
“I guess you heard.” I move toward her.
“I guess I did.” Professor Bell’s face is as unreadable as ever.
I nod. “You warned me.”
“I guess I did,” she repeats, slower and more meaningful this time. Her lips twist, and she tilts her head toward the road. “Where will you go?”
Until this moment, I hadn’t thought about it. I haven’t had time. I squint my eyes against the sun, looking toward the road. “The airport, I guess. I’ll have to see if I can change my flight.”
“Do you have a ride?”
“I’ll call an Uber.” At least I’ll get to go home. I picture Mom’s face, wonder if she knows what I’ve been up to, though I doubt it. She’s not someone who’s online often, especially now that she’s busy taking care of Dad.
“Come on,” Professor Bell says softly. “Let me drive you.”
I should ask her to help me, to tell me what to do next. I should tell her I’m not ready to give up, but I don’t. It’s all too raw.
Instead, I follow her in silence to a black Camry in the faculty parking lot. The inside of her car is pristine and smells of the citrus air freshener hanging from the rearview mirror.
She’s still quiet as she backs out of the parking lot, and I open my flight app. The earliest flight out isn’t until tonight.
“It was my article,” she says, interrupting my thoughts.
I spin my head to face her, instantly knowing what article she means. “The one that was removed?”
She gives a small nod without looking at me. “I approached Dean Carlyle with it when it happened. I was as surprised as everyone else to learn they removed it over a decade later, no explanation.”
“Do you think he believes us?”
Her eyes find mine for just a second. “I think he’s protecting himself and Havenport however he can. It’s not about us. It’s not even about her.”
“I don’t understand. Those students, the protest… They don’t even care about what she did.”
She flips on her blinker, slows down, and turns before she answers.
“I told you. It’s bigger than Althea. It’s an entire system at work here, Lila.
A system that doesn’t just break women. It makes the ones who survive easier to ignore.
Reshapes them into something more palatable.
It decides the women who should be believed.
Decides who is worthy of love. Of trust. The system chooses the women who will rise, and the ones who will get left behind. It was never about you. Or any of us.”
I swallow hard. For so long, I’ve wanted to fight against everything she’s saying. I want to believe that truth is all that matters. Kindness. Decency. Integrity. Now, I have no choice but to question it.
“My truth is inconvenient for them,” I say finally, my voice powerless. “For the system, for Ralston. For Dean Carlyle. Havenport. So, it doesn’t get a voice. I don’t get a voice.”
Bell slows down, turning us into the parking lot of a hotel.
“I finally confronted her in the voice message,” I say.
“The one I sent you. I just wanted to hear her say the words out loud, to admit she knows how badly she hurt me. It wouldn’t have solved anything, I know, but I just…
needed to hear it.” I glance up at her. “It’s like she truly believes she’s done nothing wrong. That she was always trying to help me.”
She pulls the car to a stop in a parking spot and turns her head to look at me, leaning back in her seat.
“That’s just it. Althea doesn’t believe she’s done anything wrong.
Even when confronted with the harm she’s caused and its consequences, she insists she’s just doing what she has to.
Belief can be a powerful—and very dangerous—thing. ”
I swallow. Nod. “You think I should take down the site, don’t you?”
Her face hardens, and her eyes shift away. “I think it will be easier for you if you do.”
“Is that why you wanted to talk? To convince me to let it go?”
She taps her fingers on the steering wheel, staring straight ahead. “No. I wanted to see what you wanted.” Slowly, her head turns back toward me, her eyes finding mine. “And if you still need my help.”
The blood drains from my face. “What?”
A small smile tugs at the corners of her lips.
“Bravery can be infectious, Lila. And you’re braver than I realized, maybe even braver than I knew anyone could be.
It will be easier to walk away, erase what you can, fix what you can’t.
But since we met, you’ve never made any attempt to do what’s easy.
I’m assuming you won’t this time, either. ”
Something fierce ignites in my chest. “You want to help me?”
“If I can, yes.”
“We have the proof. Everything I sent you. And there’s more I’ve gotten since. We just…need a plan.” My eyes find the hotel. “What are we doing here, anyway?”
“I have class this afternoon, but I thought you might like to stay in town—somewhere safe—while we figure out our next move.” Her voice has an edge to it, and when I look back at her, there’s a stifled but mischievous grin on her lips. “Ralston Week isn’t over quite yet, is it?”
It isn’t over.
Not by a long shot.