by Katie Zhao
“Mama,” I shouted, trying to keep the rising panic out of my voice, “have—have any of my friends come over lately? When I wasn’t here, I mean?”
“I haven’t seen any of them,” my mother yelled back. “Lái, gāi chī fàn le.”
“I said I’m not hungry!”
I checked all my other drawers, between the books on my bookshelf, under my bed. Everywhere. No Diss Diary in sight.
I sank to my knees on the floor, stunned. Who could have taken it? It must’ve been months since I’d last had anyone over at my apartment. I didn’t like having friends over. Nothing screamed “I’m not one of you” like inviting your rich friends to your dumpy apartment.
I raced out of my room, only to be brought up short by the sight of Mama leaning against the counter, hand covering her mouth, transfixed by the TV. “Oh, no. How awful.”
The solemn reporter was saying, “. . . tragedy strikes the Upper West Side. The body of a teenage girl was found in an empty apartment. The cause of death is still unknown, but police advise . . .”
There was no name, no face, no age, no identifying information whatsoever. The news report revealed nothing about the deceased, except the fact that she was a teenage girl.
And still a voice whispered, whispered. . . .
It’s the end of Jamie’s era.
And I knew, with near certainty, that Jamie Ruan was dead.
CONFESSION FOUR
When the upperclassmen said AP exam week was going to kill us, I didn’t realize they meant it literally —Anon
*****
Secrets never stayed secrets for long at Sinclair Prep. Even the best publicist in the world couldn’t spread the word faster than our student body.
By the next morning, my entire Tip Tap feed was filled with students panicking and discussing far-fetched theories about that strange text from the Proctor. Many reached the same conclusion I had, linking Jamie’s disappearance to the dead girl discovered last night. It was guesswork at best, since there had been no official announcement from the school or the news outlets.
Yet somehow, everyone seemed to know.
A sense of surreality settled over the school. Jamie Ruan was . . . Jamie Ruan. Class president. Shoo-in for an Ivy League education.
Unbreakable. Invincible.
The perfect daughter, Mama always liked to say. Why can’t you be more like Jamie?
Jamie couldn’t be gone. Not when she’d had so much going for her. Not when she’d never known what it felt like to be inferior—or anything less than perfect.
In first hour, students buzzed over Jamie’s empty desk. A few looked teary. Some sat in their seats in shocked silence. Others whispered to their neighbors.
In the hallways between morning classes, in the cafeteria at lunch, students put their heads together. And the whispers, the whispers, they seemed to come from everywhere, seemed to come from the very walls of the school.
“I can’t believe Jamie Ruan of all people . . .”
“I swear I saw her in the library this morning, though . . .”
“Well, I thought I saw her in the girls’ bathroom . . .”
“Maybe it’s her ghost . . .”
To try to escape them, I took my lunch outside to the small courtyard behind the school. The bench in front of Richard Sinclair’s statue was empty, and I claimed it before anyone else could.
The bronze figure of Sinclair Prep’s founder stood tall with a book in one hand, his shoulder-length hair in curls. The other hand pointed toward a spot on the horizon. The plaque at his feet, slightly weathered from years of rain and snow, bore the inscription of the school’s motto: In inceptum finis est.
I’d heard, even from my first week at Sinclair, that this statue was haunted. That these grounds were haunted, that there were ghosts trapped within the walls of Sinclair Prep. They said you could hear them whispering and groaning. Most likely, those noises were the old pipes creaking. Or the living students gossiping and moaning about homework.
Sinclair Prep was no stranger to death, though. Four years ago, a senior who’d failed to get into his first choice college had jumped from the top of the building. Two years later, there was a death in my year.
Spirits, now. Ghosts trapped within these walls, for eternity.
By midafternoon, it was official. During my AP World History class, Principal Bates came over the loudspeaker to make the announcement most of the school had been waiting for.
“Good afternoon, students of Sinclair Prep. Earlier today, we received the sad news that a student at our school, junior Jamie Ruan, passed away last night. At this time, we do not have further information regarding the circumstances surrounding the event. Further, we would ask that, out of respect for Jamie Ruan’s privacy and the integrity of this school, you do not seek out information from her family or friends.”
The loudspeaker crackled as Bates drew a deep, shuddering breath. Nobody in the classroom moved a muscle. “I know we are all saddened by Jamie’s sudden passing, and send our condolences to her family and friends during this very difficult time. For any students who wish to speak with a counselor, we will have crisis stations located throughout the school today and tomorrow. We will provide information about the funeral for Jamie Ruan when it is available, and students may attend with parental permission. Thank you for your time and attention.”
Another crackle, and the announcement was over.
Jamie’s era was over, just like that.
“Hey.” Alexander slid into the seat in front of me as the bell rang, signaling the start of sixth hour. Two hours since Bates’s announcement. Since we’d found out Jamie was dead.
“Hey,” I said in a feeble attempt at a greeting. I wasn’t sure how I’d passed the last two hours. The words from the mass text we’d received last night kept looping in my head.
The end of Jamie’s era.
I wished I knew who had sent that text. But there was no way to trace it; it had come from a restricted number.
This was it. The end of an era. The start of someone else’s—maybe mine, if I wanted it to be. The thought brought me no joy. Only made me sick to my stomach that it was even a thought I had.
Alexander turned to face me, and I noticed dark bags under his eyes. He’d slept about as much as I had last night, I guessed. “You holding up okay?”
I shook my head and rubbed my temples, as if that would somehow make the numbness go away. As if I could wake up from this nightmare where Jamie was dead. Never to walk down these halls. Never to narrowly beat me on an exam again.
Alexander reached out a hand and then seemed to reconsider what he was doing. He left it there, hovering in midair, in the space between us.
Maybe it was the incredible sadness that pressed on my chest. Maybe it was the need to feel that something was real in this situation. Whatever the case, I reached out and grabbed Alexander’s offered hand.
“Pass up your homework, class,” came the sharp voice of our AP Chemistry student teacher, Mr. Shui.
I looked up, and dark brown eyes met mine from across the room. Mr. Shui. Peter Shui. Jamie’s cousin, and one of the infamous Golden Trio who had graduated three years ago. Peter’s eyes were red and puffy, but otherwise he appeared the same as usual: neatly groomed, handsome, cold. We shared a look that contained a world of grief. A world of secrets.
Alexander dropped my hand and pressed his lips into a thin line as he stared hard at Peter.
I broke away from Peter’s piercing gaze, a warm flush creeping up my neck. Nobody could unsettle me like Peter did. Even after all these years, that would never change.
As the papers reached the front of the room, Mr. Delaney, our short, gray-haired teacher, rose from his desk. “As you all know, the AP exam is coming up. We’ll be reviewing in class until then.” In the absence of his star pupil—Jamie—Mr. Delaney looked meaner than ever, his eyebrows drawn together, a frown plastered on his face. His eyes flicked to Jamie’s empty desk, and his expression drooped
with sorrow. “Although one of your classmates has tragically passed, we’ll move forward with our curriculum and do our best in her memory. Remember: there are only three days left until the exam.”
As Mr. Delaney continued his lecture, my mind drifted. I couldn’t focus. I thought of Jamie dead and gone. Jamie, lifeless, with blood pooling beneath her, long brown hair fanned out on the floor.
A loud cough from the front of the classroom startled me back to reality. “Nancy,” said Mr. Delaney. Heat flooded my cheeks when I realized he’d picked me to identify the diagram on the board. “Your answer?”
“I . . .” Peter’s eyes bored into mine. Challenging me. Around me, my classmates’ whispers grew louder. Laughing at me. Waiting for me to fall off my pedestal. Waiting to pounce on my spot as one of the academic superstars of the junior class.
I wouldn’t give these snobby students what they wanted. I’d fought tooth and nail to make it this far, to get into this elite school. To live up to what Mama and Baba had always wanted for me: to become, as of today, the number one student at Sinclair Prep.
And nobody was taking that from me.
Nobody.
“The answer is D,” Alexander said.
“Excuse me?” Mr. Delaney snapped.
“The answer is D, Mr. Delaney,” Alexander repeated, louder this time. “A double bond contains one sigma bond and one pi bond.”
Mr. Delaney’s face turned red and splotchy, a sure sign that he was about to lecture us both. Peter said nothing, but I didn’t miss the scrutinizing look he gave Alexander.
The bell rang. I’d never run out of a classroom as fast as I did then. I was in such a rush that I bumped into Alexander as we both passed through the doorway.
“Thanks for earlier,” I said to him. “You saved my life.”
“No problem.” He stopped in the middle of the crowded hall, backpack slung over one shoulder, turning to me. “Scholarship kids, we have to look out for each other, you know?”
I flashed Alexander a grateful smile.
“Still, you gotta clean up your act a little,” he teased. “The number one student can’t be zoning out in class.”
Number one student. The title should’ve felt like a prize. And I was happy, but not satisfied. I hadn’t beaten Jamie to earn that title. She’d died. And in dying, she’d made it impossible for me to ever win against her.
As Alexander and I walked past a group of freshmen who’d been huddling over their phones, one of the girls choked while drinking from her water bottle.
“You okay?” Alexander asked her.
“It’s them,” a boy murmured. “The ones from the Tip Tap post.”
The group scattered down the hall, away from us. Alexander turned to me and shrugged, looking as confused as I felt. “That was weird.”
“Is someone saying something about us on Tip Tap?”
“Dunno. Haven’t checked.”
Curiosity getting the best of me, I opened the school’s gossip app on my phone. My eyes were drawn to the first post. For a split second, I thought I was looking at an SAT problem.
Jamie has four former friends. Each friend has a secret. One day, Jamie goes missing. Which friend is guilty and deserves punishment?
a) the one who sunk the lowest to get highest
b) the one who ruined a girl three years ago
c) the one hiding a criminal
d) the one who traded conscience for grades
Happy testing,
The Proctor
Worse still was the image attached to the post. I recognized the picture of the five of us—Jamie, Alexander, Krystal, Akil, and me—sitting together at the honors luncheon last year. As the full realization hit me, my head grew dizzy.
Four friends. Each with their own secrets. Their own demons.
Someone was accusing one of us of hurting Jamie.
A loud voice spoke from the intercom. “Would the following students please report to the principal’s office: Alexander Lin, Akil Patel, Krystal Choi, and Nancy Luo.”
Trying to ignore the prying stares, Alexander and I rushed past shuffling bodies toward the principal’s office, the whispers surrounding us, following us.
“We’re not really in trouble, are we?” I couldn’t imagine how the anonymous poster knew our secrets—unless the person behind it was Jamie. And that was impossible because Jamie was dead.
Alexander sped down the art hall. I almost had to jog to keep up with his long, loping stride. “No, we can’t be. I’m sure it’s nothing.”
The flip-flopping in my stomach told me this wasn’t nothing, though. It couldn’t be a coincidence for the principal to summon the four of us to his office, especially after the post on Tip Tap had shown up.
We turned the corner. At the same time, a pair of police officers left the principal’s office, walking the opposite way down the hall toward a back exit. The sight of the police unnerved me, and Alexander swore under his breath. When we reached the black door with a gold nameplate stamped with Principal Bates, Alexander pushed it open and made his way into the room. I followed.
Principal Bates gave us a solemn look from behind the stack of papers on his desk and gestured toward a pair of open chairs next to Akil and Krystal, who’d gotten here first. Their clueless expressions told me that they didn’t know why we were here, either. That they were as shocked by Jamie’s passing, as fearful about that Tip Tap post and what it meant for us.
I sat gingerly in a seat.
“Looks like we’re all here,” said Bates with a feeble attempt at a smile. He correctly interpreted the horror on our faces and added, “Don’t worry. You’re not in trouble. I wanted to ask you some questions.” He closed his eyes and pressed his fingertips together, forming a pyramid with his hands.
“I’m going to cut to the chase. You’re aware that your friend, Jamie Ruan, has died. May she rest in peace.” He inclined his head, a mournful expression on his face. “Jamie was a star student, truly the embodiment of Sinclair Prep’s values. The school will feel this loss for a long, long time.”
We sat silently, unsure if we should speak. I didn’t even know if I could speak, still numb with disbelief.
“In my conversation with the police, I learned they’re still determining the exact cause of death.” Bates paused, the wrinkles lining his face deepening, as though he were torn about which cause of death was worse. He cleared his throat and continued. “In any case, aside from the tragedy of all this, of course the interests of the Richard Sinclair Preparatory School are front of mind for me. I’ve become aware that all of the students have received an anonymous tip with a strange”—he hesitated—“riddle, and a picture. The tipper claims that the four of you might be involved in Jamie’s death.”
The Proctor.
“The police are very interested in this tip, as well as any clues that might point to suspects in this case, which they’ve ruled a homicide,” Bates said. “They’d like to speak with the students referred to in the post, but I cannot grant them permission to interrogate Sinclair students or search our student roll. I cannot deny I think they’ll be back, though, as soon as your identities are confirmed.” He leaned forward, and now he took turns staring each of us dead in the eye. It was impossible to look away, and yet holding the sharpness of his glare was like trying to gaze directly into the sun. “So I need to consult you four privately. I need you to be honest with me, and I need you to give me your word that whatever information we discuss within the walls of the office will stay within these walls. Do I have your word?”
We all nodded.
Bates exhaled. “Good. Now, then. Please answer me honestly. Were you or were you not somehow involved in Jamie Ruan’s death?”
CONFESSION FIVE
You know how they say you can’t spell “studying” without “dying”? Well I figured out that you can’t spell “Sinclair Prep” without “sin” either . . . lmaooo guys we’re in the Bad Place for real —Anon
*****
The st
unned silence in Principal Bates’s office was broken only by the sound of the ticking clock on the wall. Probably the only thing more shocking than learning about Jamie’s death was hearing the police thought it was a homicide . . . and that, because of the Tip Tap post, we might actually be suspects.
Were you or were you not somehow involved in Jamie Ruan’s death?
The shock was evident on my friends’ expressions.
None of us were involved in Jamie Ruan’s death.
But, of course, all of us were involved in Jamie Ruan’s death.
“No,” whispered Akil. His body trembled, as though rejecting the news. “No, none of us were involved. A—A homicide? It’s . . . it has to be a mistake.”
“Mr. Patel, I assure you I wish all of this were an error,” said Principal Bates with a grimace. “The exact details of Ms. Ruan’s death are classified while the police investigate, but yes, I’m assured all signs point to this being a case of homicide.”
“What?” Krystal squeaked. “Wh-Why would you call us here, then? Aren’t you going to find out who did it?”
Principal Bates swept his cold gaze across the four of us. “That’s the question, isn’t it? I was hoping, by bringing you to my office, you’d help me answer it. I need to know what I need to know to protect our school and its reputation. Sinclair Prep has an image to uphold. Can’t have law enforcement swarming our grounds, nor nosy news reporters buzzing about in hopes of tarnishing our reputation.” He shook his head. “And I have reason to believe one—or all—of you might be able to help me decipher the meaning of this note.” He held up his phone and read the Tip Tap post.
Jamie has four former friends. Each friend has a secret. One day, Jamie goes missing. Which friend is guilty and deserves punishment?
a) the one who sunk the lowest to get highest
b) the one who ruined a girl three years ago
c) the one hiding a criminal
d) the one who traded conscience for grades
