by Katie Zhao
The only hope we had was in tracking the fingerprints on that note the Proctor had left behind at Green Bottle Coffee. When the four of us went down to his office after school, Bates informed us that the police had only been able to identify the fingerprints of a fresh Fordham University graduate, Andy Markham, the barista from Green Bottle Coffee.
Another dead end.
But at least the Proctor hadn’t made any new threats. At least nobody knew my secret—yet.
The whole school was buzzing with one hot topic. And it wasn’t, amazingly enough, the Proctor. No, it was prom. Everywhere I turned, I saw posters advertising junior-senior prom along the walls. Every day, there was new gossip about who’d asked whom to prom.
Nothing like prom season to remind me that my sorta-fling with Peter was totally over, and I was alone. True to our agreement, we were cordial in the classroom and didn’t speak to each other outside it. There was no lonelier feeling in the world than going from sharing a special bond with someone to being a step above strangers. It was lonelier than never having that bond in the first place.
“I can’t believe everyone’s so caught up with prom. Our classmate is dead, and the Proctor is still at large,” I grumbled at lunch, shoving my green beans around in my Tupperware. “What’s so great about prom, anyway?”
“You’re not going to prom?” Krystal asked.
I’d never been in a less prom-y mood. “No. Are you?”
She shrugged. “Yeah, why not?”
“Who’re you going with?” I asked.
“Akil,” she said immediately.
Akil spat his pizza back onto his tray. “What? Since when?”
“Since now,” said Krystal, rolling her eyes. “You don’t have a date, so take me.”
“You can’t assume I don’t have a date! Wh-What if I do?”
“But you don’t.”
“Yes I . . . well, I at least was thinking about . . .”
“Thinking about what?” Krystal asked. But I had a feeling I might know what—or, rather, who—Akil was thinking about: Kiara. Though, I didn’t see Akil and Kiara hang out much, so I couldn’t say for sure.
“Never mind. No, I don’t have a date.” Akil slunk lower into his seat.
“Do you really think we should be going to prom when the Proctor is out here ruining our lives?” I asked.
Krystal put down her salad fork and sighed. “Nancy, chill. It’s because the Proctor is ruining our lives that we have to make sure we show up to prom.”
“I’m not following.”
“We have to show the whole school that we’re not letting the Proctor affect us.”
I mulled over Krystal’s words, slowly warming to the idea of showing up to prom. She was right. If I were the Proctor, taking some kind of sick pleasure in watching my friends and me squirm—us having the time of our lives at prom would really rub me the wrong way. “If this person is going to ruin our lives anyway, we might as well have fun, right?”
Krystal grinned. “That’s what I’m talking about, Nancy. Now you need a date.”
“A date . . .” Peter’s face popped up into my mind, but I shook my head. Peter and I were finished. Plus, he was my teacher, so it was outside the realm of possibility. I wouldn’t even let myself go there.
It took me a beat to realize that the table had gone silent. Akil and Krystal were staring expectantly at Alexander, whose face had turned bright red. Krystal coughed, and then kicked Alexander not so subtly in the shins.
“Ow!” he yelped.
“You need a date. Nancy needs a date.” When Alexander stayed silent, Krystal sighed loudly. “C’mon, put it together. Aren’t you supposed to be a genius, Lin?” she teased.
“I . . .”
Great. Krystal had made her meaning so obvious that even I was blushing. Alexander? And me? Going to prom together? No way. Yeah, he was handsome, and smart, and a good friend . . . but that was it. We’d been friends for so long now. I didn’t—couldn’t—see him that way. Especially not when I was still hiding this secret, this burning secret.
I was going to kill Krystal after this.
“Nancywillyougotopromwithme?” Alexander dropped his gaze to the table, and his neck was fire-engine red.
“Oh. You mean as . . . as friends?” I blurted out, feeling heat creep up my own neck.
“Yeah, of course as friends,” Alexander said quickly.
“I feel like I’m back in elementary school.” Krystal rolled her eyes. “Nancy, I’ll see you at Meryl’s Boutique after school, ’kay? We have dresses to buy.”
I returned her smile, feeling better than I had since Peter’s texts yesterday. Then, as though my thoughts alone had summoned him, Peter emerged out of the lunch line carrying a tray of food. Our eyes met for a second, and he looked away and quickened his pace. I couldn’t stop my stomach from dropping in disappointment.
Prom. Peter’s senior prom. The memories surfaced. He hadn’t taken me to prom, though we’d been secretly seeing each other at the time. Instead, he’d taken Amy Lee, captain of the girls’ tennis team, who went on to attend MIT. At the time, I’d been green with envy. Two years later, I was still pining after the same guy. Nothing had changed. Pathetic.
“Something the matter?” Alexander asked.
There was an edge to his voice that made me look at him. I saw his gaze following Peter’s movements as he disappeared into the teacher’s lounge. “No,” I said quietly. “It’s nothing.”
“You and Peter . . .” Alexander’s voice was controlled, and suddenly I got the sense that this was something he’d wanted to bring up for a while.
My face heated. Peter and I must not have been careful enough if Alexander had picked up on the vibe between us.
Luckily, I was saved by a distraction in the form of Jack Kimball, one of the rich, cool jock types—and Akil’s former track teammate. He came up to Akil and slapped him playfully on the back.
“Ow!” Akil rubbed the spot where he was hurt and glared at him, nonplussed, before he registered who it was. Jack was the son of a wealthy investment banker, and yet at Sinclair Prep, he was one of the least remarkable attendees. According to rumors, Jack could bench press two times his own body weight, which was already pretty heavy. “Uh, you need something, bro?”
“So that’s how you managed it, Akil,” Jack said brightly. “You could’ve let my buddies in on the secret, you know. We need the grade boost more than you.” He gestured at the table behind him, where half the football team was gathered, staring at us and laughing. “You got any more on you?”
Akil blinked rapidly. “I don’t—uh—”
Jack leaned in. A shadow fell over his face, darkening his blond hair and brown eyes. “Now that you’ve been kicked off the track team, Dartmouth has no choice but to recruit me instead of you.” He leered. “Enjoy Hunter College.”
Akil’s face reddened, but his usual witty retort didn’t come.
“Don’t listen to that idiot,” Krystal said, shooting Jack a glare. “You can still get into plenty of schools, Akil. You’ve gotta rely on your actual grades now.”
“Yeah,” Akil murmured, but he didn’t seem to believe it himself.
“Ooooh, we’ve got a tough one over here,” Jack said mockingly. “Are you gonna almost kill me for that, Choi?”
Krystal stood, her hands curling into fists. Her chair screeched across the floor behind her. “Listen here, you punk—”
“Krystal.” I yanked on her shirt, trying to get her to sit down before she attracted too much attention. Too late. The eyes of everyone sitting around us were glued to our lunch table now, eagerly awaiting the showdown.
“I guess the stories are true,” I heard someone whisper not so quietly. “Krystal Choi is a former delinquent. I mean, look at her.”
“I bet she really did do something to Jamie,” another added.
“Shut up,” I growled, but that only made Jack’s crooked smile grow wider.
“For someone who’s naturall
y smarter, you should’ve been smart enough to know not to butt in,” he said.
“Naturally smarter?” I snapped. “What the hell does that mean?”
“You’re Asian, which means you’re naturally smarter,” sneered Jack. “That’s the only reason you’re able to get top grades.”
My vision turned red. I thought of Mama, her hands raw and split and bleeding. Baba, an ocean away, his face aged with failure and shame. I thought of hours upon hours upon hours, days blurring into weeks blurring into months, of silent sacrifice, silent screams.
Me, studying and pushing and clawing along the path my parents bled for me. My body, raw and split and bleeding.
I wanted to tell Jack that he had no idea what he was talking about. I wanted to tell Jack that the reason I got top grades was because I couldn’t not get them. Could not let my parents’ sacrifices and dreams go to waste.
Me, putting on this same school uniform every day, this same flimsy costume of immigrant success. My mother, wasting. My father, leaving. And through it all, me smiling, me pretending, but nobody seeing me, nobody listening to me.
No lonelier feeling in the world than having people stare at you all the time, but nobody truly seeing you.
I wanted to tell Jack that I had to pretend for my parents, for our family back in China, for myself, that we had succeeded. That we had grasped the American dream. That we hadn’t come all the way to a strange and foreign country, left behind everything we knew, for a false promise—a sham built upon lies and broken bodies.
I said all of these things to Jack. But the words never left my lips.
I said none of these things.
I said, “Go to hell, Jack.”
Krystal, next to me, was barely keeping her fury in check. For a moment, I really did think she was going to swing at Jack. I wanted nothing more than to let her.
But the moment passed, and I realized I had to step in before Krystal or I did something we’d regret. And then an idea struck: we had everyone’s attention, and it was likely the Proctor was in this very room, or at least that whatever we said here would get relayed to them via Tip Tap.
Raising my voice, I announced to the whole lunchroom, “We’re going to Meryl’s Boutique after school today. Tell the Proctor they can meet us there—if they dare. We’ve got information they want, and money.”
Then, leaving the tables around us speechless, I grabbed Krystal’s hand and fled the cafeteria.
“Nancy, you want the Proctor to come after us? Are you nuts?” Krystal hissed at me.
“Maybe.” I hoped I hadn’t made a giant mistake. But I didn’t think I had.
The Proctor might have outsmarted us, might have trampled our morale, but we would only lose against them if we quit fighting. And, after all, hadn’t the Proctor taught us this lesson themselves? That anything, anybody, we tried to bury, could resurface, alive and kicking, when we least expected it.
As I’d calculated, within minutes, my Tip Tap feed was full of posts relaying my challenge to the Proctor. Whoever it was had to have gotten the message now. All Krystal and I had to do was stay true to our word and see if the culprit would come hear us out.
After school, I headed over to Meryl’s Boutique. It was conveniently close to the school, on the corner of West Ninety-Fifth and Broadway, across from a luxury apartment building. It had been Jamie’s go-to after-school shopping spot. The boys would never be caught dead shopping with us, but Krystal, Jamie, and I—it had been our favorite hangout area.
Now, there was only Krystal and me. Krystal was easy to spot even on the crowded sidewalk. She waved her arms wildly at the entrance. When I reached her, her nervous expression gave way to a small smile. “This place brings back memories, huh?” Then, her face darkened again. “You really think the Proctor’s going to show up here?”
“I don’t know,” I confessed. “I think they’ll give us some kind of response, though. People like that really like attention. The more we give them, the more they’ll respond.” I’d observed this pattern in a lot of my classmates, who’d thrived on being showered with attention all their lives.
“Good thinking.” Krystal nodded thoughtfully and ran her hands along the fabric of a black lace dress on display. “I hope whoever it is does show up. I’m prepared to settle this once and for all, with money or . . . another way.” She cracked her knuckles. That steely glint in her eye. A hunter’s glint. It wasn’t hard to imagine what she meant by “another way.”
My senses were on alert as we browsed the store. Meryl’s Boutique was a popular after-school shopping spot, so the store was filled with students sporting the Sinclair Prep uniform. Any one of them could be the Proctor.
“I think this thing is a bust,” I told Krystal after a little while had passed.
“Mmmm. Maybe not.” She nudged me, and I looked toward where her finger was pointing. A middle-aged woman with a blond pixie cut was approaching us. I recognized her as the store manager.
“You’re Jamie’s friends, aren’t you? Krystal and Nancy?” she said, a small, sad smile on her lips. We nodded. “You used to come in here all the time a couple of years ago, along with those other girls.”
Krystal and I waited for the woman to get to the point. She pasted a bright, practiced smile on her face and stretched out her hand, which held a folded slip of paper. “A gentleman came in here, asking me to pass this note along to you. Is this part of some kind of game?” she asked, looking mystified.
“You could say that,” I muttered. A game that we’d never wanted to play.
“What did the man look like?” Krystal demanded.
“Tall, brown hair—he wore sunglasses, so I couldn’t really see his face very well.” The woman gasped, and her hand flew up to cover her mouth. “You two aren’t in trouble, are you?”
“No,” I said quickly. I didn’t think I’d ever been in so much trouble in my life, but I didn’t want to scare or worry the poor lady.
Krystal flashed her a tight smile. “Thank you!” It was a dismissal. The store manager looked like she wanted to stay and talk some more, but a nearby girl tapped her on the shoulder and asked her a question about a dress.
Krystal whirled on me. “Nancy, that means—”
“Yeah. It’s the same person the barista mentioned back at Green Bottle Coffee.”
Out on the street, Krystal unfolded the note. It trembled ever so slightly in her hands. I peered at it over her shoulder and read the printed Times New Roman text.
I admire the effort, N.L., but you’ll never be able to stop me from ruining your lives. Not for all of K.C.’s daddy’s money.
In the meantime, enjoy the rest of the show I have for you! Next installment should be here in 3 . . . 2 . . . :)
—The Proctor
Krystal and I gazed at each other in horror. In unison, we pulled out our phones to check Tip Tap. There, at the top of the feed, was a picture of the empty alleyway in Chinatown. A black-haired teenager stooped over what looked like a homeless man. The identity of the teenager wouldn’t be obvious to just anyone from that angle, but I would recognize that profile anywhere.
Jamie has four former friends. Each friend has a secret. One day, Jamie goes missing. Which friend is guilty and deserves punishment?
Correct answer: c) the one hiding a criminal
Explanation: Our VP A.L. is always busy, but apparently not with school and work, like we all thought. C’mon, A.L.—I know blood is thicker than water, but hiding a wanted man? Not sure Harvard’s going to like the sound of that!
What’s more important? Protecting your criminal scum of a brother, or protecting your precious record? Choose quickly. I hear the police got an anonymous tip-off of big bro’s whereabouts . . .
—The Proctor
“Alexander,” I gasped. “We have to get to him before he does anything he’ll regret.”
Krystal already had her phone to her ear. I waited; we waited. After about a minute, she lowered it. “Went straight to voicemail.”
As she tried again, I sent Alexander a few texts. They showed that they’d gone through, but there was no reply.
Krystal glared at her phone in frustration. “Idiot. Where could he be?”
My gut told me there was only one place Alexander would go to at this moment. “Follow me. I know where to find him.”
CONFESSION SIXTEEN
Anyone know if P.S. is single? Lol asking for a friend hahaha —Anon
*****
We took an Uber from Meryl’s Boutique to Chinatown. We got out of the car when it stopped in traffic on Canal, and took off running—or as close to running as was possible on the crowded sidewalks.
“Nancy, where are we going?” Krystal panted. “Alexander doesn’t live that way!”
“We’re not going to his apartment. It’s—it’s this place where he’s been going, and—well, you’ll see.” I grabbed hold of Krystal’s hand to keep us from being separated by all the people and skirted a large jewelry cart. I rounded the corner and then stopped right in front of the alleyway, causing Krystal to bump into me.
“Ow!”
We were too late. There were two NYPD officers on the scene, a tall Latina and a burly Asian man, speaking into walkie-talkies. Alexander and an older Asian man and woman stood in the alleyway. It looked like they were being questioned.
Krystal grabbed me and yanked me around the corner, out of sight of the police.
“What’re you doing?” I hissed.
“Uh, keeping your best interests at heart. You’re welcome,” she sniffed.
“But Alexander—”
“Needs our help? Uh-uh. The last thing he needs right now is for us to get involved when we don’t even know what’s going on. He’s a big boy. He’ll be able to get himself out of this mess.”
I wanted to shake Krystal. Didn’t she realize? “Getting out of a mess” wasn’t something that most people could afford to do. Alexander had said it himself the other day. People like him, people like us, didn’t get chances like that.
“Unlike you, Alexander doesn’t have rich parents who can bribe law enforcement to clear his criminal record.” The harsh words left my mouth before I could stop them. Krystal’s jaw dropped, but for once, she didn’t have a retort. “Sorry. I went too far.”
