Society of Lies

Chapter Forty-Nine Maya

Chapter Forty-Nine

Maya

February 2012

In the week following Lila’s death, the snow melted away, retreating like an ocean tide. That Wednesday morning, I’d woken up an hour before my alarm and had walked up to Small World Coffee on Nassau Street, trying to think about anything else but what had happened. Hands shaking, I unfolded the local newspaper I’d tucked under my arm. A black-and-white photo of Lila stared back.

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY SENIOR DIES ON SKI TRIP

Lila Jones’s body was recovered from under six feet of snow in the New Hampshire mountains on Sunday, February 26. Jones was said to have wandered away from the group with which she was staying, getting lost in the woods overnight. Her body was recovered the following day after an extensive search.

The medical examiner’s office has stated that the official cause of death was hypothermia, but drugs and alcohol were believed to have been a contributing factor. A member of the crew team and writer for The Daily Princetonian, Jones was loved by all who knew her. She is survived by her parents and sixteen-year-old brother.

My eyes focused on the mention of Sterling Club:

Jones was a member of Sterling Club. A spokesperson for the eating club stated that the ski trip was not a club event. The university has declined to comment.

Bile rose in the back of my throat. She died of hypothermia. Drugs and alcohol might have been a factor. She froze to death. Because of me. Blood thudded loudly in my ears and my forehead broke into a cold sweat. I ducked my head and walked quickly back to my room.

—

The rest of the week, Lila’s death was all I could think about. All anyone could talk about. Heads turned as I passed. It felt like they could see the shame and guilt following me as I walked through whispering halls. Everyone at Sterling knew we’d been there too. Everyone knew we’d played a part in this.

Friday afternoon, after not sleeping for two days, I broke down in the middle of an exam. My body shook uncontrollably, and tears streamed out of my eyes. Daisy walked me down to the campus clinic, where they gave me a Xanax and an ice pack.

But it didn’t help. My ears were ringing as I clutched my knees to my chest and rocked back and forth. I sucked in breath after breath but couldn’t pull in enough oxygen. The next thing I remember, my head hit the floor.

What happened next was a blur. I was on the floor, screaming. Then I remember the back of an ambulance. The local emergency room. A nurse injecting something into my IV. The cool sensation of it crawling up my forearm as it entered my system. A doctor told me later I’d had a dissociative hallucination, repeating over and over that I’d killed her.

—

I sat across from a therapist in the mental health office the next morning, hands shaking as I clutched the paper cup of water, my head still numb from whatever drugs they gave me.

“Tell me how you’re feeling today,” the therapist asked in a tone meant to be soothing. Her nasally voice pierced my eardrums.

She was a plain-looking woman in her fifties with thick glasses and an upturned nose. I finished the cup of water in my hands, but my mouth was still dry and painful.

“How I’m feeling?” I repeated, flatly.

“Yes.” She sat with her arms folded in her lap, breathing steadily.

“My friend died. And it was my fault.” I felt that familiar pressure behind my eyes.

“I can’t imagine how that must feel, but it’s all so fresh. Perhaps over time some of the pain will fade. The important thing is to remember that it is not your fault.”

How would you know? I wanted to ask.

“No,” I said. “The pain isn’t going anywhere.”

She inhaled sharply and nodded. “Do you want to tell me why you feel that way?”

A memory of the cool vial of drugs in my hand. Dispensing the liquid into the shot glass. Lila’s face past the steam of the hot tub as she held the shot, laughing. Everyone laughing, the sound too loud, echoing with the howling wind. No one else could have gotten the drug but her.

The therapist stood, muttering some words meant to be helpful as I heaved again and again.

Afterward, I took small sips of the water she’d handed me as she wrote a prescription. “I’m going to prescribe you clonazepam—it’s a benzodiazepine. It should also help you sleep.”

—

As winter turned into spring, the trees filled with leaves and animals shook their branches. With the change in season, my memory softened around the edges.

In the weeks that followed, I floated through classes. I avoided Nate and locked myself in a Firestone study carrel as if it were a prison cell. I couldn’t sleep without waking up in a cold sweat, so I avoided that too.

I no longer attended Greystone meetings. And because of the looks and questions, I avoided Sterling Club as well and ate alone in the dining hall.

The detectives were investigating, I told myself. At the very least, they would find out what Professor DuPont and Marsden had done and fire them. The evidence should be all over Lila’s phone, which the police now had.

One day in April, Daisy, Kai, and I gathered around Cecily’s computer. It was finally in The Prince :

ADMISSIONS OFFICER ACCUSED OF ACCEPTING MORE THAN $500,000 IN brIBES.

But weeks passed with nothing about Professor DuPont, and after Marsden was put on administrative leave, the news stories trickled away completely.