Chapter Twenty-One
TWENTY-ONE
I knew that I was going through something.
Probably something serious. I knew I had been through a lot this year.
First, my dream of going to Harvard Law School had been crushed.
Then, I more or less killed someone. Then, I had a miscarriage.
And now, with the baby out of the picture, I would have to come up with another way to get into Harvard.
Plus, I wasn’t talking to anyone about any of it.
But I didn’t need help. I was no victim; I would not wait for someone else to save me.
I was a strong believer that there was a solution to every problem, and that most of the time you could find the solution on the internet.
I looked up what you should do when you’re going through something.
The self-help influencers offered me a solution that I quite liked: To be kinder to myself.
To love myself. To forgive myself. To pursue activities that made me happy, to hang out with people who brought me joy.
To be mindful about how I was spending my time.
I knew what brought me joy, what helped fill the void.
It was hanging out online with all of the other future students of Harvard Law School.
Previously, I only let myself experience this pleasure once I finished drafting one hundred words toward my law school addendum.
But I decided to no longer withhold this pleasure from myself.
There was nothing that satisfied me more than seeing someone “like” one of my clever comments, or say “thank you” for one of my thoughtful suggestions.
Some even began tagging me in posts that they thought I would enjoy, or for which I could contribute something insightful.
For instance, almost immediately after one girl posted that she was looking for French conversational partners, I received a notification from Jason Applebaum, another very active member of the Facebook group who had added me as a friend on Facebook even before I added him.
“@Laura Rose, didn’t you say that you were fluent in French?”
I immediately liked and replied to the comment. “Oui! Always down to meet more Francophiles.”
During my Facebook sessions, I enjoyed tying Laura’s scarf around my neck so that I felt like I really embodied her essence.
There was an inscription on the end of the silk fabric that I had not noticed until after it came into my possession.
“LRK.” It sounded like “lurk.” I found that quite amusing.
Maybe the scarf really was meant for me after all.
—
Jason and I had never talked to each other directly before, only interacted in the comments section of Facebook posts, so I was thrilled when I saw a private message from him in my inbox.
It’d be great to make a new friend before law school even started.
We made small talk, and I told him facts about myself that I had already posted about in my introductory post in the Facebook group.
(Of course, I knew that not everyone was as diligent about following other people’s social media presences as I was, so I didn’t mind repeating them.) He said that he was currently working as a paralegal at a firm in New York but would be quitting soon to backpack around South America before the start of school.
“So many people in our class are in the city, it seems!” he said. “I was actually wondering if it might be nice to host a meet-up.”
“That’s a great idea!!!!” I replied. “I’d love to help organize!”
After sending the message, I remembered my mistake.
He knew me as Laura, and I wasn’t actually Laura.
I was Elizabeth. Briefly, I considered pretending to be Laura (or at least someone named Laura, it didn’t have to be Laura Kim) at the meet-up, but I dismissed the idea as outrageous.
I would just RSVP and attend the meet-up as myself.
I was already working on a follow- up email about my application to Harvard Law School, about how I planned to break barriers by attending law school as a single mother.
They didn’t have to know about the miscarriage; if they asked about it afterward, I’d just tell them that the miscarriage occurred after I had already been accepted.
Laura’s death meant there was an extra spot in Harvard Law School’s incoming class for Boring Asian Females, so it was only a matter of time before I got in, especially with my new compelling narrative.
I didn’t think I was doing anything wrong; I mean, I really had been planning to keep the baby, and it wasn’t my fault that I had miscarried before I sent the email to Harvard about my plans.
I would just be lying a bit about the timeline.
I finally managed to pull together a five-hundred-word draft of the addendum that was merely bad and not abysmal.
Time was running out. It was already April, and from what I’d heard, they only considered applications until May.
I would edit and finalize the addendum in the next few days, but first, I would go to the meet-up.
It couldn’t hurt to spend time with the people who had accomplished the very thing that I was trying to accomplish.
Maybe some of their sparkle would rub off on me, catalyze my brain into coming up with the most compelling way to frame my addendum.
All the pieces of my story were there, floating around my brain, I just needed to put them all together to form the perfect representation of who I was.
I wouldn’t turn in an addendum that was anything short of perfect.
I had gotten this far in my plan; I wouldn’t fuck it up now.
“So, selfishly, I would love for this meet-up to happen before I fly to Argentina,” Jason said. “But I leave in just a few days, so it sucks that I didn’t think of this idea earlier. Do you think this Saturday would be too short notice to get a good group of people to show up at a bar?”
“Not at all!” I said. “Saturday is perfect.”