Chapter Twenty-Two
TWENTY-TWO
Jason and I would be cohosting the event at a bar in the East Village. Over thirty people were planning to attend, an impressive number for such short notice. Someone was even taking the train from Philadelphia to come to our event. I had never felt more popular in my life.
I looked up everyone who RSVP’d. One was an NYU Tisch grad who spent the past year making short films. I tried watching one but it was too artsy and esoteric for my taste.
Another was an undergraduate tennis player at Harvard College who had gone to Choate.
She would have two Harvard degrees on her résumé, a fact I tried not to feel too jealous of.
I was getting ready for the event when Eunjin knocked on my door. I let her in, then went back to putting on makeup.
“You look nice,” she said. “Are you going somewhere?”
“I am.” I beamed. I had purchased an outfit just for tonight. The meet-up marked a milestone in my journey to becoming someone important, so I splurged on the same dress that I’d seen Laura wearing from a photo a year ago.
“And you’re glowing.”
“Thank you,” I said, and glanced at myself in my vanity mirror. I was glowing.
“Are you going to tell me where you’re going?”
“Oh, yes.” I had gotten distracted by my own glow and forgotten about Eunjin’s question. “It’s all very exciting. I’m going to a meet-up for people who are starting Harvard Law in the fall.”
“Do you have a cold or something?”
I had been practicing lowering my voice and talking a bit faster, but I guess I hadn’t mastered the art of it yet.
“Hm, not sure,” I said. I forced myself to cough a little bit. “I guess I am. Just a little though, nothing too serious.”
“And did you get highlights?”
“Yes! Well, technically it’s called a balayage, not highlights.” I stared at my reflection again. I had gone to a high-end salon using the money left from not getting an abortion. When the colorist asked me what I wanted, I showed them the last picture Laura had posted of herself before she died.
“Oh. It looks nice.”
“Thank you! I think so too.”
She walked over and picked something off my desk.
“Oh. I’m wearing that tonight. Can you give that to me?
” It was Laura’s scarf. I was annoyed that Eunjin had not asked for permission before picking it up.
Who knew what was on her fingers? What if she had just been practicing violin and now was getting sticky bow resin all over my beautiful scarf?
This scarf meant a lot to me. My favorite uncle had given it to me.
I mean, Laura’s uncle had given it to her.
But it was now mine, and I wanted it back.
Eunjin handed it to me, but she didn’t stop looking at it, even after I draped it around my neck. In the mirror, I examined my foundation and eyeshadow. They looked good, so I started to carefully trace my left lash line with brown eyeliner.
“Didn’t Laura Kim have the same scarf?”
Eunjin’s question sent a shiver up my spine. My hand spasmed, smudging brown ink all over my eyelid. I set the eyeliner down and picked up a cotton pad, dabbing it with a bit of micellar water.
“Hm? Did she?” I rubbed the cotton pad across my eyelid, wondering if Eunjin noticed that my entire body was trembling.
“She has it on in some of the photos her parents posted of her on the memorial page,” Eunjin said. She was fiddling with her hands.
“That’s weird. It’s probably just a coincidence. It’s probably just a really similar one.”
“I don’t think so.” She stepped closer to me and picked up the corner of the scarf with her thumb and index finger. “I mean, it has her initials on it.”
I continued rubbing my face with micellar water, throwing the cotton pads one by one into the trash can as I dirtied them with makeup.
I didn’t mean to remove all of my makeup, but it was too late, and I needed to do something with my hands, to do anything that would allow me to avoid looking at Eunjin.
“Why do you have this, Elizabeth?”
“It’s just a coincidence.” I didn’t know what else to say.
“It’s an odd coincidence, don’t you think?”
There was silence, and I could feel that Eunjin was waiting for me to look at her. When I finally did, I saw that the color had drained from her face. When she spoke, her voice was shaky, as though she were holding back tears. But her eyes were dry and clear, and they were focused completely on me.
“Elizabeth. What did you do?”
“I didn’t do anything,” I said, pretending to look for something in my makeup bag.
I could feel the confession creeping up my throat like bile.
At that moment, I wanted nothing more than to tell her everything: the images that had been haunting my mind ever since that night in Laura’s room, the crippling anxiety I felt over the police investigation, the wash of relief when they had arrested Gina and not me.
But I pushed it down with all my strength.
“Elizabeth. This is serious,” she said. “A girl is dead. And you happen to have her scarf. One that she had been wearing pretty frequently. That’s weird. And you should stop wearing it. Otherwise, people may think…I don’t know. People might think things about you.”
“I don’t know what to tell you. You’ve known me for almost four years. And now you’re accusing me of being, what? What are you even accusing me of?”
“I’m not accusing you of anything. I just think this is really creepy. That’s why I’m just asking you to explain.”
“I don’t have to explain anything to you.”
“Okay, if not that, then can you just tell me if you’re okay? You’ve been acting really weird lately. You’re acting really weird right now. Is something going on? Are you okay?”
I wanted to tell her no. I wanted to tell her that I wasn’t okay.
But I knew I couldn’t. In avoiding any real-life consequences for what I did to Laura, I felt as though I had made a deal with the devil: in exchange for getting everything I wanted, I alone would have to bear the burden of what I did, and I would bear it for the rest of my life.
The problem was, Eunjin was capable of breaking down my willpower.
If she knew I was hiding something, she would push further, and I didn’t know whether I could stop a confession from spilling out of me.
To spare her, I decided I would disguise my turmoil with irritation. Then, maybe she would go away.
I dropped my makeup brush and looked up.
“What do you fucking mean have I been okay? Of course I haven’t been okay.
First, I got rejected by Harvard. Then, I got rejected by Stanford.
Then Yale. Then Columbia. The only school I got into was Georgetown.
And then when it turned out I actually got into Harvard, all of my friends thought I was lying.
And it obviously didn’t help that the police practically detained me for buying Klonopin, the only thing that could make me feel better.
You know all of this. Why are you still asking? ”
Her expression softened. “I know that was really hard on you. I’m just asking how you’ve been coping with it, if you had maybe done anything that wasn’t in character for you.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s just…you had been talking about Laura for a while.
She got into Harvard and you didn’t, and I knew that really upset you.
And then you found out you did get in, which is obviously awesome, but that’s a lot of ups and downs for one person in a short period of time.
I’m just wondering if you…did anything about it.
Like maybe you stole the scarf? Or, I don’t know.
I don’t know what I’m saying. I’m just asking you to explain. ”
I scoffed and shook my head. I walked over to the door and opened it. “You don’t just get to come in here and accuse me of things, Eunjin. Besides, I have an event to go to, and now I think it’s time for you to leave.”
—
Once I was alone in my room again, I thought about my conversation with Eunjin.
She knew about the scarf; did that mean she also suspected me of killing Laura?
Maybe deep down she did, but the truth would be so devastating that she wouldn’t be able to admit it to herself.
I didn’t think Eunjin would turn me in, even if she did think that I was guilty.
And even if she did turn me in, the only evidence she could provide was that I was wearing Laura’s scarf.
The scarf didn’t prove anything. Maybe Laura just lost it one day, and I happened to be the one to find it.
I took two swigs from a bottle of vodka that I kept in my mini fridge. My hands were no longer trembling. I turned back to the mirror and started to redo my makeup. I had a meet-up to go to.