I was semi-conscious in the back of the ambulance as it wailed through dark streets. Nothing existed but pain and the siren. And maybe the knowledge that yes, I was now definitely a different version of myself.
Evidently there was some arrangement between the Durham police and the campus police, so no one got arrested. Probably it helped that the events of that fight were unclear enough that witnesses disagreed on what they saw.
There was a campus hearing before a disciplinary panel, the Friday after the fight, where I got to tell my side of the story, and where El Speed would testify to my heretofore impeccable character. I laid it on thick about the fentanyl and its connection to Byron’s frat, describing how Byron had led an anonymous friend into his trap, a friend who was now in rehab
