“No,” I said.
“I documented what happened.”
Barbara laughed sharply.
“There.
Listen to her.
Everything is research with this woman.”
My advisor turned toward her.
“Perhaps that is why she is standing here ready to defend a doctorate after what you did.”
Barbara stopped laughing.
The committee chair looked at me.
“Selena, we can postpone today’s defense without penalty.”
For one dangerous second, relief flooded through me.
I wanted to say yes.
I wanted a dark room, a locked door, and twelve hours in which nobody expected intelligence or composure from me.
Then I looked at Hunter.
He was watching carefully.
Not with concern.
With hope.
That decided it.
“No,” I said.
“I want to defend today.”
My father turned toward me.
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
The committee chair nodded.
“Then you will.”
Hunter scoffed.
“You’re all encouraging this.”
My advisor looked at him.
“We are allowing a candidate to sit for an examination she earned the right to take.”
The graduate coordinator quietly stepped into the hallway.
Hunter noticed.
“Where is she going?”
No one answered him.
My father gathered the photographs and statement back into the folder.
He had one final page inside.
He showed it only to me.
It was confirmation that he had contacted local authorities that morning after receiving my message and photograph.
He had not filed words in my mouth or made decisions for me.
He had simply asked what options were available and preserved the information necessary if I chose to report what happened.
“I haven’t decided anything for you,” he said quietly.
“I just made sure they couldn’t decide for you either.”
That sentence almost broke me.
I nodded because speaking would have made me cry.
The committee chair asked Hunter and Barbara to leave before the defense began.
Hunter refused.
“I am her husband.”
The chair’s expression did not change.
“And she is the candidate.
You are not required to be present.”
Barbara grabbed her purse.
“This whole institution is poisoned.”
She pointed at me.
“She has turned everybody against her own family.”
The door opened behind her.
The graduate coordinator returned with two campus security officers.
