Chapter 26
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
I slam my hands over my ears. Everyone around me does the same, and Hayden squeezes her eyes shut. At once, the scattered, chaotic conversations and pattering of footsteps all around the auditorium dies down. The room falls silent as everyone searches for the source of the sound.
The piercing shriek of microphone feedback ends abruptly.
“Sorry. Sorry.” A voice cuts through silence. It’s sharp, clear, and loud—impossible to ignore.
When I look back toward the stage, the screen has gone dark, and she’s standing behind the lectern, dressed in a plum suit.
No.
“Look…um, she’s a powerful woman, right?
” Standing alone on the stage, Dani looks more certain, calmer, than I’ve ever seen her.
“Professor Ralston has always been a force to reckon with. That’s why we love her.
People have tried to tear her down for years.
Why? Because she won. Because she refused to be quiet. ”
My stomach tightens, and I feel Hayden tense beside me. What is happening?
“You might call me biased because I’ve been lucky enough to know her better than some of you,” Dani continues, her voice steady and with an edge I haven’t heard before.
She sounds angry. “She gave me chances when no one else would. When I was nothing, Professor Ralston made me someone. I know what you just saw, and I know how you must feel, but as someone close to the situation—close to her—I feel like I can tell you the truth.”
She takes a deep breath. “The truth is Professor Ralston is everything you want her to be. Exactly what she presents herself to be. She’s been nothing but kind to me, nothing but supportive. I have grown so much with her guidance. She doesn’t deserve this.”
She gestures toward the projector screen.
“This is the work of someone jealous and cruel. We know who Professor Ralston is. She’s never hidden herself from us, and she deserves our support now more than ever.
” She bounces on her heels, looking around, begging for applause she’s not getting.
“I can’t be the only one who feels that way. ”
A soft, slow murmur snakes its way through the crowd—disbelief, maybe. Confusion. Or support.
I risk a glance over at Hayden and Professor Bell. Hayden’s jaw tightens. Bell’s eyes flash with something fierce. Naya takes a small step back, but Jade is there to prevent her from bolting.
Another woman joins Dani on the stage. “Professor Ralston is the only reason I got accepted for the scholarship I needed to stay at Havenport. She saw something in me, even when I didn’t see it yet.”
Then another woman. “Professor Ralston saw me when I first started teaching at Havenport. I was nervous and far from home, worried about whether or not I deserved to be here. Althea made sure I found my place. She was warm. Kind. She’s the one who made sure I felt secure here. She’s been a good friend to me.”
Soon enough, others join them. Students, faculty, alumni. They share stories of Ralston’s mentorship and her unwavering commitment to bettering the world for women. The doors she’s opened, the battles she fought.
It’s all so cinematic it could’ve been scripted, like they’ve all just been waiting in the wings for their moment in the spotlight.
One woman recalls how Ralston sat by her hospital bed when she was battling cancer, lending strength and bringing laughter when no one else came.
A man speaks of Ralston’s relentless fight for funding to support marginalized scholars.
Every voice adds to her monument of respect, admiration, devotion. All around me, the truth I know about her is cast into shadows as they shine new lights on her once again.
She just can’t lose.
I stand still, the ground shifting beneath me as hope crumbles at my feet. Every time we take a step forward, she makes sure we’re pushed three steps back. And the worst part is, it’s not even her doing the pushing. She has people for that now.
I know the truth beneath the stories shared on that projector screen. The ones they can never take away. The shadows beneath all of her light.
As I watch the support in the crowd growing, I’m drowning in the silence of all those who’ve never been given the chance to speak.
Someone touches my arm, and I look over my shoulder. Hayden juts her chin toward the exit, and I take the hint, slipping past the people in the doorway, my heart pounding so loudly in my ears I can no longer hear the stories being shared.
Outside, the late-afternoon sky is already gray.
Like it, too, knows what just happened. We make our way to the parking lot without ever really planning where to end up.
There are no words, just heavy looks exchanged.
I don’t think any of us knows what to say, how to address the weight of everything.
We worked so hard—they worked so hard—and it was wiped away as if it was nothing.
“There’s a place nearby where we can grab food,” Hayden says. “Away from…”
She doesn’t need to finish her sentence. Away from the wreckage. The ruins. We nod in unison and begin to walk.
The diner is small, set back on a quiet street about twenty minutes away from the glare of Havenport.
Hayden walks in first, leading us to a booth in the back.
We crowd in—Hayden, Jade, Naya, me, and then Professor Bell.
The air smells of fried food and coffee, a nauseating but somehow comforting contrast to the sterile chemical stench of the auditorium, which always smells of floor wax and age.
“It doesn’t take away from what we did,” Hayden says, trying to rally us. “It got new eyes on her crimes.”
“All it did was make us look stupid,” Naya says.
She’s on her phone, scrolling through comments from her live feed.
“Someone else is going live now, showing all the people talking about how she, like, saved their life or whatever. Anyone who saw what happened—whether they were at the ceremony or watching from home—is seeing all the stories being shared now too.”
“It was never going to be easy,” Jade says. “We knew that.”
Professor Bell’s voice is soft. Sad. “All it takes is to change one mind. You don’t bring down empires all at once. And all of those stories, no matter how true, don’t erase the bad she’s done. It doesn’t absolve her. An abusive husband who tips the waitresses well is still an abusive husband.”
“Holy shit.” Naya lifts her phone closer to her face.
“What is it?” Jade asks as we all lean in.
“Someone said they just saw Ralston loading boxes into her car.” She looks up, eyes wide. “Do you think she was fired?”
“Impossible.” The word leaves my mouth before I’ve had time to process it. “They’d never fire her.”
Professor Bell looks as if she agrees, but no one speaks.
Hayden’s phone buzzes next, and she lifts it up. “Umm…”
“What?” Naya asks.
“Someone just sent me this.” She turns the screen around so we can see it. It’s an independent media website, one riddled with ads, but there it is. The headline I’ve dreamed of seeing for so long.
Dr. Althea Ralston Resigns from
Havenport University
There’s no fanfare or explanation, just an article quoting an anonymous source.
“We don’t know if it’s true,” Professor Bell says, worry lines etched into her forehead.
And that uncertainty is all we have until Naya turns her phone around a few minutes later, showing us a photo someone snapped of Ralston placing a box into her trunk.
There’s no question this was taken tonight. In the photo, she’s wearing the violet suit from the award ceremony.
There are too many people around, all here to celebrate her big night. Nothing is going unnoticed.
The email from Havenport comes after we’ve finished our meals.
Again, it’s simple.
Havenport University thanks Dr. Althea Ralston for her years of dedicated service to our institution and its legacy. Tonight, as we celebrate her many achievements, we want to wish her well in her future endeavors.
There’s no mention of the scandal at the ceremony. Or the allegations. No apology. No admission or accusation of wrongdoing.
I look up at Naya, then Hayden. We’re all holding our phones, reading the same university email.
Every face at this table is unreadable. Professor Bell’s jaw clenches, her eyes dart away. Jade taps her fingers on the table nervously.
“Is this what we wanted?” Naya asks, her voice low, hesitant.
I don’t speak first because I’m starting to realize maybe I’m the only one celebrating this turn of events. Maybe I’m the only one who thinks this is exactly—
“She deserves it,” Hayden says.
It doesn’t really answer Naya’s question, still hanging in the air. But it’s honest. And sometimes, that’s all we get.
“We put the truth out there,” Professor Bell says, “because it deserved to be told. We’ve started something no one can stop now. Not even Althea.” She smooths her hands on the tabletop in front of her, nodding. “War doesn’t ever feel good.”
As her words settle—meant, I suspect, to soothe herself as well as the rest of us—a cold truth sinks in. I blink, looking around at the women at my table. “Someone will replace her. Someone worse, maybe.”
“Maybe,” Bell says, eyes locking with mine. “But that’s a problem for another day. Today, fairness won. Kindness won. Justice won. We should celebrate that.”
“I’m almost afraid to celebrate,” Jade admits. “She got me the job at Havenport, and even if I got it unfairly”—her eyes flick to mine—“I still need it. What if people find out I had something to do with this?”
“None of our names are tied to what happened,” Naya says quickly, defensively. “I was livestreaming because I was attending. That’s all.”
“My name is tied to it all,” I admit. There’s no point denying it.
All eyes find mine, some faster than others.
I shrug, my voice low. “I wanted to be remembered, not erased, so I can’t complain.
At Havenport, we all learned to survive by disappearing in plain sight.
That’s what Ralston wanted. It’s what she built her empire on—women feeling invisible.
She thrived off a system that wore us down, reminded us who held the power.
She decided who was protected and who was silenced.
Until we changed the rules. For that to happen, someone had to step into the light.
” I swallow, her words about self-importance echoing in my mind. I hate that she can still get to me.
Did we win? Or is this the part where power reshapes itself into something familiar wearing a different face?
The truth is, even in the celebration, there’s an emptiness. A dread. A feeling that something worse might come next.
Or that Ralston might still find a way to win.
“This fight isn’t over,” Hayden says, as if she’s read my mind. “But I’m not going anywhere.” She lowers her head, finding my eyes, and I press my lips together with a firm nod.
“Me either,” Jade says.
“Same,” I agree.
“I’m with you, girls,” Professor Bell says, though she looks just as wary as before.
All eyes fall to Naya, who sighs. “Fine.”
A smile crawls across my lips. Even if Ralston stole so much from us, I guess she gave us something, too.
A reason to fight.
A reason to hope.
Sometimes all it takes is the smallest spark to ignite a fire that can’t be put out.