[Sophie’s POV]

The room is already full when I arrive, and that alone feels wrong.

The editorial board usually trickles in late, coffee in hand, jackets half off, casual confidence hanging in the air like they own every conversation before it starts. Today, they are seated. Papers aligned. Laptops open. Eyes already lifted when I step through the door, like they were waiting for me specifically.

“Morning, Sophie,” Mark says from the far end of the table, too brisk, too neutral. “Go ahead and set up.”

I nod, walking toward the screen with my laptop tucked against my ribs like a shield. My heels sound too loud against the floor. Every step feels measured, observed, recorded. I can feel my pulse in my throat, but I keep my face smooth because that is what editors do. We perform calmly even when something is clawing at us from the inside.

I connect my laptop. The projector hums to life. The first slide appears: LISSETTE VAUGHN — WORKING TITLE: UNBOUND.

The title lands heavier than it should.

“All right,” I say, turning back to face them. “Thank you for making time. Today I’ll be presenting the revised manuscript and positioning strategy for Dr. Vaughn’s memoir.”

A few heads nod. A few pens lift. No one interrupts me, which should be a relief, but instead it tightens something in my chest.

I launch into the overview. I talk about market appetite. About cultural relevance. About how the narrative situates itself within conversations on power, mentorship, and consent. My voice sounds steady, even to my own ears, and that steadiness feels almost dissociative.

“The manuscript blends personal experience with critical reflection,” I continue, clicking to the next slide. “It’s framed through the lens of recovery, accountability, and systemic critique.”

“That’s the revised version?” someone asks. It’s Elaine, senior nonfiction editor, sharp-eyed and impossible to bullshit.

“Yes,” I replied. “The revision leans more heavily into specificity.”

Elaine hums. “That’s one way to put it.”

I pause for half a beat, then keep going. “Vaughn uses detailed scenes to illustrate emotional manipulation, particularly within academic environments.”

I click again. Excerpts appear on the screen. Carefully chosen. Or so I thought.

The room shifts.

I feel it before anyone speaks, the way bodies still, the way attention sharpens instead of drifts. I glance at the text and my stomach drops so fast it feels like falling through myself.

A leather room described in controlled, clinical prose. A mentor who frames dominance as education. A student who is praised for intelligence while being slowly unmade. The language is polished, restrained, devastatingly familiar.

Someone clears their throat.

“This,” says Richard from legal, pointing at the screen, “feels… specific.”

I swallow. “Memoir often is.”

Elaine leans forward. “The structure here,” she says slowly, “mirrors a lot of rumors I’ve heard over the years.”

The word rumors lands like a crack in glass.

“Rumors?” I repeat, keeping my tone level through sheer force.

“Yes,” she says. “About certain professors. Certain arrangements.”

My mouth goes dry. “The manuscript doesn’t name anyone.”

“No,” another editor says, flipping pages. “But it doesn’t need to.”

I feel heat creep up my neck. “The intent is to illustrate patterns, not individuals.”

Mark finally speaks. “Sophie, maybe you can contextualize this excerpt.”

I look at him. Really look. His expression isn’t hostile. It’s cautious. Protective of the room, not of me.

“This section,” I say carefully, “is Vaughn’s account of coercive dynamics. It’s meant to challenge—”

“Is the student character based on you?”

The question cuts clean through the air.

I turn toward the voice. It’s Janet, senior acquisitions, arms crossed, eyes steady in a way that feels surgical.

“I’m sorry?” I say.

“The student,” she repeats. “The one entangled with two professors. Is that you?”

The silence that follows is so complete it feels engineered.

“That’s not an appropriate question,” I say, my voice tight but controlled.

Janet doesn’t back down. “It’s a relevant one.”

“Why?” I ask.

“Because,” she says, “the descriptions align with things that have circulated about you. And if this book is perceived as autobiographical beyond Vaughn’s experience, we need to know what we’re walking into.”

My hands curl around the remote. “My personal life is not material for this discussion.”

Elaine tilts her head. “Isn’t it, if it’s shaping the manuscript?”

I feel something in me go very still.

“The manuscript is Vaughn’s,” I say. “My role is editorial.”

“And yet,” Richard says, “this passage references dynamics that match complaints, informal or otherwise, involving two former professors. That overlap is concerning.”

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