Chapter Sixteen
Sophia
By the fourth morning, I can’t pretend I’m just taking space anymore.
I’ve been hiding in my quarters, drowning in research though I can’t focus, and pretending I’m not falling apart.
Blackwell’s last email sits flagged in my inbox, making my stomach twist. I’m too afraid to open it, too afraid to confirm or deny whatever is going on.
My parents haven’t called, though I half-expect it. Even in silence, their voices echo: Be strategic. Don’t create problems. Don’t damage your career before it begins.
Maybe I’m overreacting. Maybe this is normal academic collaboration. But something in me refuses to let it go.
My email notification chimes.
My breath stutters.
I expect my mother. Or another administrative reminder.
It isn’t.
It’s a Google Scholar alert dated today, August 3, and labeled early access, so it’s about something that’s not officially in print yet.
New Publication: Collaborative Frameworks in Gladiatorial Psychology: Centering Lived Expertise in Historical Trauma Research Author: Dr. Patricia BlackwellJournal of Classical Studies—Early Access
My hands go numb and for a moment, all I see is brightness.
I click automatically, because my body knows how to move even when my thoughts can’t keep up.
The article loads.
And the world tilts.
It’s mine. My ideas. My language. My framework.
Every insight I nurtured here at Second Chance—my previous months of conversations with Flavius, my continuing work with the other gladiators, the crowd maps, the trauma-regulation sequences—woven straight into her paper.
I scroll, heart thudding: “Gladiators as lived-experience trauma experts.” “Collaborative cognitive mapping.” “Embodied expertise as a methodological foundation.”
My phrasing. My concepts.
Then the acknowledgments: “I am grateful to Dr. Sophia Vitale for her preliminary fieldwork at Second Chance Sanctuary, which provided valuable data for this analysis.”
Preliminary fieldwork. Valuable data.
As if I’m her research assistant. As if I didn’t build an entire framework from scratch with nothing but instinct, lived expertise, and hours of painstaking observation.
I force myself to keep scrolling. To look at the submission history.
Submitted: mid-March Revised: late April Accepted: early May Published: late June
March. Two months before I set foot in Missouri. Before my first conversation with Flavius. Before the framework existed anywhere except as scaffolding in my fellowship proposal — the one Blackwell read as a member of the review committee.
She took the bones I hadn’t yet built on. Submitted them as hers.
Then I arrived. And as the real framework crystallized through months of fieldwork, she folded my breakthroughs into her revisions. My language. My methodology. My living sources.
This isn’t miscommunication. Or parallel thinking. Or mentorship.
This is theft. Calculated. Methodical. Strategic.
My breath shortens. The lights overhead hum too loudly. My linen blouse feels like sandpaper against my skin.
I barely make it to the bathroom before I’m vomiting. When it stops, I slide onto the cold floor, forehead pressed to the porcelain tiles because the chill is the only thing that cuts through the rising panic.
I shut my eyes and try to breathe. For a moment, the image that steadies me isn’t academic or rational but something older—the Roman garden behind the sanctuary, the statue of the Roman Goddess Fortuna, the carved wheel on the memorial stone I noticed my first week here.
A reminder that fate turns whether you want it to or not.
Some wheels crush you.
Others shift because you push.
My phone buzzes.
A text from Dr. Blackwell: Wonderful news! The paper will be live soon. So exciting to see our collaborative work published. Your fieldwork has been invaluable—let’s discuss next steps soon.
Our collaborative work.
Rage spikes, bright and destabilizing.
Then the phone rings.
My mother. I answer because my defenses are already stripped bare.
My frame of mind must bleed through my greeting, because her first words are, “Sophia? What’s wrong?”
“My advisor stole my research,” I say flatly. “She took my ideas, published them under her name, and thanked me for ‘preliminary fieldwork.’”
A long silence.
“Oh, sweetheart… are you sure you’re not misinterpreting? Collaboration can be messy. Maybe your advisor simply developed your early thoughts further—”
“She used phrases from my proposal. She used examples from Missouri. She—”
“But does she also have documentation?” Mom interrupts gently.
“I’m not saying you’re wrong, darling, but you know how collaboration works; ideas build on each other.
And Sophia, you sometimes see patterns other people miss.
Are you absolutely certain this is theft and not just…
the messy reality of an academic partnership? ”
She’s blaming the way my brain works—the part of me she’s always tried to sand down.
“It’s theft,” I whisper. “I can prove—”
“Darling, can you prove it enough? Enough for a formal complaint? Enough to win? Fighting a senior scholar could ruin your career. Wouldn’t it be better to focus on building your reputation?
On the doors she’s opening for you? Those opportunities are real.
They’re safe. Let this go and move forward. ”
Move forward. Be strategic. Don’t make waves.
The familiar ache of not being believed settles heavily in my chest.
“I have to go,” I say.
“Sophia—”
I hang up.
The silence is brutal.
I need proof. Something undeniable. Something no one—my mother, the university, the committee—can dismiss.
Flavius.
His memory: Perfect. Specific. Unimpeachable.
He can verify everything: the timeline, the breakthroughs, the language, the moments. But I told him I needed space. I pushed him away.
And now he’s the only person who can help me fight this.
My phone buzzes again.
It’s Dr. Blackwell: Thinking ahead—perhaps our next project could expand the trauma framework to additional historical contexts? Your continued fieldwork is such a gift!
She wants to do it again. Take whatever I create next. Absorb it. Claim it.
A cold, clarifying line of resolve sharpens inside me. No!
I rinse my mouth, splash water on my face, and catch my reflection. The panic hasn’t vanished, but it’s no longer the whole horizon. I look wrecked—red eyes, blotchy cheeks—but beneath that, there’s something solid.
Determination. Anger. Self-respect.
I open my research folder. Timestamps. Drafts. Raw notes. Everything I’ve built.
If I’m going to fight, it must be methodical. Precise. Undeniable.
And I can’t do it alone.
I pick up my phone and text: I was wrong to ask for space. I need your help. Can we talk?
He replies almost instantly: Conference Room B. Five minutes.
I grab my laptop. No time for fear.
Only now. Only truth. Only the choice to stop shrinking.
I head for Conference Room B.