“So,” I said.
“Oh god, Elizabeth.” Eunjin groaned. “Please don’t say something unhinged. You’re using that voice that you use when you’re about to say something unhinged.”
I ignored her. “Anyway. So. Alex. Just wondering. About the whole thing with Leah.”
“Yeah?” Alex said, finishing off their cup and pouring more.
“What exactly happened?”
“We don’t have to talk about this if you’re not ready,” Eunjin jumped in.
Alex waved off her concern. “What do you want to know?”
“I mean, I just don’t get it. To be fair, I’ve only heard one side of the story, but I mean, it’s Leah, for Chrissakes.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, anyone can see that she is so fucking hot. So like, how could you cheat on her? Like, I looked up the person you cheated on her with, and he doesn’t even compare. No fucking way.”
Eunjin nearly spit out her wine. “Elizabeth!”
“It’s fine,” Alex said. “Wait, so that’s what you think happened? Is that what she told you? That I cheated on her?”
Eunjin and I both nodded. “Well,” Eunjin said, “she told Elizabeth, and then Elizabeth told me.”
“Is that not what happened?” I asked, trying my best to not sound judgmental.
Alex groaned and sat up straight. “That’s not what happened at all. But that explains why all of our friends have been giving me dirty looks.”
Alex began to tell us their side of the story. Apparently, a couple of weeks ago, Alex and Leah had decided to open up their relationship. They would still be dating each other, but they were also allowed to hook up with other people as long as they kept it strictly physical. It was only after they came to this agreement that Alex hooked up with their ex-boyfriend. But it wasn’t like they were cheating on Leah, Alex explained. The situation was perfectly consensual among all parties. In fact, even Alex’s ex knew that Alex was in an open relationship with Leah so he wasn’t expecting anything more.
“I just can’t believe she’s playing the victim here,” Alex said. “If anyone was wronged, it was me. She invaded my privacy by snooping through my phone. I was going to tell her the whole thing with my ex but it had literally just happened the night before and we hadn’t seen each other all day, and I wanted to talk to her about it in person. But of course, when I got out of the shower she’s holding my phone, and we have this huge blowout fight, the worst fight we’ve ever had the entire time we’ve known each other. During the whole thing she can’t even pinpoint an exact reason why she’s angry.”
“So if you two had agreed on all of this, why was she so upset?” I asked.
Alex shrugged. “I don’t know. Honestly, I think she’s just mad that it was a guy. She’s always been a little weird about bisexuality, like she can’t fathom that someone can be attracted to men and women equally. And don’t even get me started on pansexuality.”
“So Leah’s mad because she thinks you’re attracted to men, which makes you less attracted to women, i.e., her?” Eunjin asked.
“More or less. She wouldn’t admit it, but that’s the sense that I got. But it’s definitely not like I cheated on her. We talked about it, set boundaries, and came to an agreement. And I even said that it’d be fine if we closed the relationship again. But that still wasn’t enough. She pretends to be all open-minded and stuff but she’s so weird and conservative about certain things.”
“Wait,” I said. “This may be a dumb question, but isn’t Leah also bisexual? Or I guess pansexual, since you two are dating…or I guess, were dating…”
“Not a dumb question at all,” Alex said. “This whole thing is just a projection of how she sees herself. It probably relates to the situation with her parents. They haven’t accepted she can be attracted to more than just men. They still think her sexuality is a phase and she’s going to end up with some nice straight guy who comes from a good family who’s going to mow the lawn at their suburban house every week and buy her a Cadillac.”
Eunjin and I both nodded, listening as Alex continued to psychoanalyze Leah’s mental state. But after an hour or so, the wine ran out and it was getting late, so I said goodbye and returned to my room. I stumbled onto the bed and curled in a fetal position underneath the covers, procrastinating the inevitable bathroom trip I’d have to take before falling asleep. Through thewall I could hear Alex continuing to rant to Eunjin about Leah. I put on headphones, pulled out my phone, and opened Instagram.
The first post on my feed was from Laura. Strangely enough, it wasn’t a photo of her laughing with friends at a tropical resort or posing in front of a museum in some large European city. Nor was it a photo of her at a club meeting or a party at Columbia. Instead, it was a screenshot from her notes app. I started to read the text, wondering at first if she had posted it by accident.
“Oh shit,” I muttered. After reading it the first time, I skimmed it twice more from the beginning.
Columbia and Greenwich Friends Community: Beware!
A couple weeks ago, I received an email at my columbia.edu address that appeared to be from a current Greenwich Friends student, Suzie, asking me to help with her college application essays. I did think it was a bit strange that she didn’t ask me for the favor through her brother, Aaron, who I talk to all the time, but I decided to just help her out.
But over winter break, I saw Aaron and told him about the interaction, and he didn’t know anything about it. The essay I read was about tennis, and it turns out Suzie doesn’t even play tennis anymore since she got injured last year. I sent a screenshot of the email thread to Aaron and he informed me that this email actually didn’t come from his sister. In fact, it isn’t even her email account. Someone was impersonating Suzie, going as far as creating a fake email account and researching how we know each other.
I have no idea how Suzie and I were selected as targets,but thank goodness nothing terrible happened. I’m not sure what this creep’s end game was, probably one of those classic payment scams where they pretend you need to pay them first for them to pay you. Regardless, I’ve already contacted the police and reported the account as fraud.
