“Exactly,” I said. “I can’t stop thinking about that part. That’swhy I lied about being sick to you guys. I’m not actually sick. I’ve just felt like I’ve been dying from anxiety and I didn’t want to see anyone.”
“Oh, Elizabeth,” Eunjin said. There was a pause, and a couple of seconds later, both of them entered my room, squeezing me while I sat in the chair. Tears welled up in my eyes, and I tried to wipe them away before anyone would notice. I had forgotten what it felt like to be taken care of, to not feel like I was bearing the weight of the world on my own shoulders. I knew the feeling was only temporary, but I tried to savor it like the warmth of the sun shining on my face.
“I know this is so stressful, but I wouldn’t be too worried yet,” Alex said, their voice muffled because their mouth was pressed to my hair. “Maybe it was just the simplest way to get a hold of you. You don’t live in a house, where they could just come in and sit on the couch and ask you questions. You literally live in a tiny dorm. You’re probably fine.”
“And what evidence do they have? A silly little Venmo charge?”
“Exactly,” Alex said. “And I’m sure they don’t care about some kid who bought a few Klonopin. They care about the dealer.”
Eunjin handed me a tissue and I wiped away the tears from my face. “Let’s just wait to see what happens,” she said. “I’m sure it’ll be fine.”
—
Even though Alex and Eunjin’sreassurances provided me some small amount of comfort, I knew I wasn’t out of the woods. I had only confided the most minor of my legal worries to them. At any moment I could be pulled into the police station as the prime suspect of a murder case. Even if Alex were right,they didn’t have the most important context: I had actually played a part in Laura’s death.
There was also the matter of the baby. I promised myself that if the police did charge me with anything, I would get an abortion. There would be no point in having it anymore, since there was no way that I could go to Harvard Law while also being tried for killing someone. After Alex and Eunjin’s visit, I stopped pretending to be sick, but found my mind constantly wandering to the hypothetical prison cell where I could be spending the next decade of my life. I felt like I was dying from the uncertainty of the situation, of the two outcomes that could not be more different from each other: a spot in a prison cell, or a spot at Harvard Law. Both outcomes were ones you could say I deserved, and I found it ironic that there was no middle ground, that there was no outcome that would match the ambiguity of my own deservedness. Sometimes, it felt as though every inch of my body were itching from the anticipation, whether the investment I had made in my worldly achievement would prevail or if the karmic retribution from my role in Laura’s death would. Fate, or probability, or God, whatever you wanted to call it, was presiding over a scale, assessing which side of my deeds she would throw out. I felt like a maiden from a fairy tale waiting in a quaint cottage for her suitor to return. How long would I have to wait by the open window to find out my future?
It turned out I was just being dramatic. I did not have to wait very long. The following Thursday, Eunjin ran into my room, cheeks pink with excitement and eyes glued to the phone in her hands.
“Holy shit,” she said, then tossed the phone onto my bed. “Holy shit,” she said again.
“What? Are you okay?”
“They charged someone for manslaughter.”
“They charged who for manslaughter?”
“Someone at Columbia.”
“Wait. What? Someone at Columbia killed someone else?”
“Laura. They charged someone for manslaughter for Laura. We were all wrong, turns out therewasfoul play.”
It took me a millisecond to make the connection that there was no way they could’ve charged me for manslaughter without me knowing. I was frozen, staring at Eunjin’s face as I waited for my heartbeat to slow down.
“Right? I reacted the same way you did when I found out. And wait, I’m pretty sure you know the girl they arrested. We might’ve bumped into them earlier in the school year but I can’t be sure. Here, let me send you theSpecarticle,” Eunjin said, pulling her phone out of her pocket.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
A Columbia College senior is facing a voluntary manslaughter charge, accused of assaulting and killing a fellow student during a dispute in a dorm room, the police said.
The woman, Gina Lam, 22, was charged on April 16 with first-degree manslaughter in connection with the March 14 death of Laura Kim, who was found unconscious in her dorm room by a friend. She was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital.
Two Columbia College students said they witnessed heated interactions between Kim and Lam. It was common knowledge that the two had “bad blood,” one ofthem said. The students spoke toSpectatoron the condition of anonymity, citing fears of retaliation.
Lam’s attorney declined to comment.
Gradually, new details began to emerge, and the public pieced together a story that was so convincing even I started to believe it was true. It started freshman year. Gina and Laura became friends when they both joined Theta. Like richer, cooler versions of Eunjin and me, they had a lot in common. They both were planning to major in economics, and they both were considering going into finance or law. They even spent a summer abroad in Paris together, rooming together in a little flat in the Latin Quarter and flirting with boys from the Sorbonne.
During the start of senior year, Gina went to a mixer at SigEp and met Harrison. They started seeing each other. Well, Gina said they were seeing each other. Harrison probably would’ve described it as “hooking up.” A few months into their situationship, Harrison suddenly stopped responding to her messages, and Gina spent days crying over him in Laura’s room.
Gina started skipping mixers at SigEp. But of course, Laura still went, just with other sisters. One night, when they were both on their third or fourth drinks, Harrison made a move, Laura reciprocated, and the entire party saw them making out near the bathroom together. The sorority sisters argued among each other about how to break the news to Gina. Together, they decided to confront Laura in an act of sisterly love. “If you don’t tell her, we will.” So Laura did. That was the week before she died.
But one thing people were still stuck on: why did Laura go to Gina’s party if they were on bad terms? The rumor was that Gina had pretended to forgive Laura the week before, which waswhy Laura showed up. In reality, Gina had been plotting her revenge all along. After the party, she had waited for Laura in her room, then attacked her with pepper spray as soon as she arrived.
This was the first time everyone was hearing about the involvement of pepper spray. Just as the gossip had started to die down a little, the news of the murder weapon only spurred more speculation about Laura’s death. It seemed like I was the only person on campus who didn’t want to think about it. The news just confirmed what I had thought all along—the pepper spray had killed Laura.Ihad killed Laura. The realization didn’t shock me as much as haunt me, constantly simmering under the surface of my consciousness, sometimes taking the form of a dull headache or a thumping in my chest. I could temporarily ignore it if no one brought it up. But there was no way of avoiding the conversation on campus. It was all anyone wanted to talk about.
“Pepper spray on its own isn’t likely to cause someone’s death,” I overheard someone saying in the dining hall. “It was probably that with the combination of too much cocaine.”
