How We Fall Apart

by Katie Zhao

  “Yeah. I . . . I still think we have to draw them out of hiding somehow. Give them bigger fish to fry.”

  Alexander stared at his phone. He clenched and unclenched his hands into fists. Clenched and unclenched. Then, seeming to make up his mind about something difficult, he began typing on his phone. When he was finished, he dropped his phone onto the table between us. “Think they’ll pay attention this time.”

  “What did you . . . ?” A notification popped up on my phone, and my voice trailed off as I read the latest Tip Tap message.

  @The Proctor, you want us to fess up to what we did 2 years ago, right? You want to expose our worst secrets? I’ll give you an even better secret if you stop things here and show us who you are. Those secrets you know—they’re small fish. I have dirt that could shake the foundation of Sinclair Prep. I’ll tell you and the rest of the school.

  Meet in the cafeteria @ 3PM sharp.

  —A.L.

  Seconds later, the reply:

  Sounds delicious. See you there.

  —The Proctor

  Slowly, the buzz of voices grew louder as more and more of our classmates caught up on the latest exchange on Tip Tap. Their eyes locked onto Alexander’s figure, unable to look away, as if he were a train wreck about to happen.

  It worked. Alexander’s plan had worked. I couldn’t tell if that made me happy, or terrified.

  “Are you nuts?” I demanded. “You’re not seriously telling the whole school about the Incident?” Panic, clawing at my chest. None of us were ready to be exposed like that. To cut ourselves open, letting our bloody secrets hang out for all to see.

  “No. Not that. Eric knew a big secret about the Golden Trio. He told me, but he made me swear I’d never tell anyone.”

  My eyes widened, then darted toward Peter. I couldn’t pretend that didn’t pique my curiosity. “You’re going to break that promise?”

  “Yeah, well.” Alexander swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. Harsh lines formed on his face. “Eric’s not exactly around to stop me, is he?”

  If this secret got out and the Golden Trio’s legendary reputation took a beating, that spelled bad news for us, especially Alexander. Peter, David, and Richard combined probably had enough power behind them to rally a whole army in their defense. We’d basically be poking a wasp nest. “Alexander, it’s okay. You don’t have to do this.”

  “I do. Otherwise, your secret gets exposed next. And who knows what else this sicko has planned?” Alexander’s dark eyes, shining fiercely with protectiveness, flicked to mine. His jaw was set with the determination of a young man about to go to war. “It’s obvious that this person—the Proctor—is the son or daughter of a businessman. You had the right idea yesterday when you called them out. The only way to win against someone like that is to strike a deal with them—a deal they can’t pass up.”

  I glanced over at Peter, who studied Alexander with narrowed eyes and a slight smirk. I didn’t deserve Alexander’s protection. He’d regret giving it to me as soon as he found out what I’d been doing—and who I’d been doing it with. My stomach twisted with nausea.

  “Don’t you want to know my secret?” I mumbled.

  “No. Whatever it is, it’s your business.”

  I looked up at Alexander’s determined expression. For the first time in a long time, I felt—I knew—that I was safe.

  Strange, wasn’t it, that never for a moment had I felt any sense of safety with Peter.

  As soon as class ended, we headed down to the cafeteria. The hallway seemed to stretch forever ahead of us. I barely noticed the stares and whispers of our peers. My mind spun with Alexander’s words: I have dirt that could shake the foundation of Sinclair Prep. What dirt could he possibly have?

  Krystal and Akil joined us as soon as we entered the cafeteria, confusion and concern written across their faces.

  “Bro, you sure you know what you’re doing?” Akil asked after giving Alexander a skeptical look.

  “I’ll beat the living daylights out of the Proctor as soon as they show their identity.” Krystal cracked her knuckles.

  Alexander gave them both a tight smile. He seemed different. Normally, Alexander was comfortable hanging back in the shadows. Now that he was in the spotlight, he stood taller. Seemed much surer of himself. Almost regal. As a crowd of students gathered around us, Alexander stood on a table and cupped his hands around his mouth. “Students of Sinclair Prep, may I have your attention, please!”

  Almost instantly, the crowd quieted. The students were all mesmerized by him. Watching with bated breath. Alexander’s gaze scanned over the crowd, searching for one figure. I didn’t know how he knew what to look for, since we didn’t even know what the Proctor looked like.

  “Show yourself, the Proctor,” Alexander bellowed. “I won’t say anything unless you reveal your identity.”

  Nobody stepped forward. Behind Alexander’s back, Akil, Krystal, and I exchanged nervous looks. The crowd grew restless.

  “Tell us the big secret already, Lin, if you aren’t making it up,” someone hollered.

  “As soon as the Proctor joins us—” Alexander was interrupted by phones buzzing across the cafeteria. In unison, everyone’s hands dove for their phones.

  “Uh . . . ​I don’t think the Proctor is joining us,” Akil said in a quiet voice.

  With a sinking sensation in my stomach, I glanced at the latest post. I found myself staring at a caption, and below it, a dark photo. Two people, arms wrapped around each other, an Asian guy and girl kissing in a dimly lit room.

  My heart, thudding. Palms, sweating.

  On a night, six months ago.

  Dread in my stomach. Dread, snaking its way up my lungs, choking me.

  Jamie has four former friends. Each friend has a secret. One day, Jamie goes missing. Which friend is guilty and deserves punishment?

  Correct answer: d) the one who traded conscience for grades

  Explanation: So now we know why N.L. has been passing AP Chem exams with flying colors. Hey N.L., if you still need a date for prom, I hear P.S. doesn’t have one . . . Oops, I forgot—it’s cuz he’s a teacher, right? And being with him like that wouldn’t be legal. Not that that’s stopped you before, you naughty, naughty girl.

  P.S. Sorry, A.L. We’ll chat about your secret another time. This show’s just getting started . . . ​

  —The Proctor

  Once, on a night six months ago.

  Jamie asked the four of us, “What would you be willing to do to stay at the top?”

  My answer lay in a single choice.

  NOVEMBER, JUNIOR YEAR

  The AP Chem unit test was the last big exam before Thanksgiving break, and I really needed to ace it if I wanted to cling onto my A and stay afloat at the top of the ranks. Everyone was in lockdown mode. Jamie invited us over to her penthouse to study. “Us” meaning Alexander, Akil, Krystal, me, and Peter.

  Peter was the last to arrive at Jamie’s. After the butler greeted him, he took turns greeting us from a careful distance. It was clear that even though he was Jamie’s cousin, he wanted to keep this study group strictly professional. When Peter’s eyes met mine, that heart-stopping half smile rose to his lips.

  My cheeks flamed. “Hi.”

  “Hi, Nancy,” he said with distant politeness, as though greeting someone who had only been to him one of many students. After our brief, secret fling two years ago, Peter had gone off to Stanford for his freshman year. Though he was back at Sinclair Prep as my student teacher, we hadn’t spoken much.

  Nan-cy. I loved the way my name rolled off Peter’s tongue, like it was a tasty sweet he was trying out. It gave me hope that the old feelings were still there. Our two-and-a-half-year age gap seemed smaller than ever.

  “I want to clear up something before we all get started,” said Peter once the five of us were assembled around him at Jamie’s dining room table. Akil and Alexander gave Peter tight smiles. Peter had that effect on most of the guys in our class—I guess t
hey thought his presence threatened their masculinity.

  “I’m here as a resource to answer any questions you guys might have about the course material.” Peter’s eyes twinkled. I was pretty sure I didn’t imagine the fact that they lingered on mine for a heartbeat longer than on the others. “That’s all.”

  “C’mon, Peter.” Jamie batted her eyelashes at our student teacher and made a pout with her perfect cherry lips. “Stop acting like my mother doesn’t hand you your favorite snacks from the Asian market every time you come over. If you were a real good cousin, you’d give us the answers to the final exam.”

  “Ah, but then you wouldn’t be learning, now, would you?” Peter flashed her a grin and then turned to the rest of us with a “well, get to it” look on his face.

  “Ugh. Don’t expect any sweets next time you’re here,” Jamie sniffed.

  Pretty soon, the boys had gotten over their annoyance at Peter’s presence and were hogging all his attention with questions. Jamie and Krystal were studying with their heads bent together, taking turns to peek at each other every so often, then pretending they hadn’t been looking at each other. They were still adjusting to the friend zone post-breakup.

  I had my head bent over my giant textbook, doing my best to concentrate on the text even though it was swimming before my eyes. I could barely focus with Peter in the room.

  I knew what I felt couldn’t be more than a silly schoolgirl crush—at least, not for this year. If anything happened, Peter would get fired, and I’d be in big trouble.

  The scent of Peter’s cologne filled my nostrils. I looked up as he slid into the empty seat next to me. My heart began pounding madly.

  “You’ve been awfully quiet, Nancy,” Peter said with that soft smile still on his lips. Nancy. There it was again. My name, except a million shades more beautiful. “Everything going okay over here?”

  “Um, y-yeah.” What was it about Peter that turned my brain to mush? “Yeah, everything’s fine. I’m, um . . . ​going over some . . . ​some . . .” I glanced at the open page before me. “. . . phosphate backbones.”

  Peter’s eyes danced with mirth. “You didn’t sound too sure about that.”

  “Stop flirting with her, Peter,” Jamie said loudly. “Nancy isn’t like the other girls you fool around with.”

  That stung. Did Jamie mean that I wasn’t like the others, because I was poor, and they were all rich?

  “She’s not one of your airheaded college chicks. She has very high standards,” Jamie clarified. “You won’t win her over that easily.”

  My face heated. Great. Now everyone had stopped what they were doing to stare at Peter and me. My eyes met Alexander’s across the table. His hands gripped his textbook so tightly it shook, and he glared openly at Peter.

  “I didn’t mean it like that. I’m her teacher.” Peter’s reply was smooth. A little too smooth, I thought. Maybe hoped. “I wanted everyone to get the most out of this study session before the final exam.”

  “I’m sure if Nancy needed your help, she’d ask,” Alexander fired back.

  The two boys—well, one man and one boy—stared at each other across the table. The tension was so thick in the air I could’ve cut it with Jamie’s protractor, which lay only inches from my fingers.

  “Does anyone want drinks?” Jamie asked, in a voice full of forced bubbly-ness. “Daddy left some aloe vera in the fridge. It’ll help, uh . . .” Her eyes darted from Peter to Alexander, and she bit her lip. I couldn’t tell if she was fighting back a smile or a cringe. “. . . ​cool us down a bit.”

  “Aloe vera sounds great,” Alexander said, still glaring at Peter.

  “Exactly what I needed.” Peter enunciated each syllable as he returned Alexander’s challenge.

  “O . . . ​kay.” Jamie darted out of the room into the kitchen. She returned with a giant jug of aloe vera and placed it in the middle of the table, along with five fancy wine glasses. The gesture might’ve been casual if it weren’t for the sly little smirk on her face—a smirk that I’d grown to know all too well over the years. That smirk told me Jamie Ruan was up to no good.

  My phone buzzed in my lap with an incoming text.

  Krystal: How does it feel to have two hot guys fighting over you?

  I blushed, not daring to look up in case Krystal was grinning at me. I was sure she was. I could feel those sharp eyes of hers practically drilling holes into my head.

  Nancy: They are not fighting over me. Have you been watching too many K-dramas lately?

  Krystal: LET ME LIVE OK

  Nancy: NOT AT THE PRICE OF MY REPUTATION

  Krystal: Wait, so you admit they’re both hot then

  Nancy: I admit nothing

  “I’ll help myself to the aloe vera first, then, if you guys are just going to stare at it,” said Akil. He seemed to be oblivious to what was going on—either that, or he didn’t care enough to let Peter and Alexander’s staring match get to him. He lunged across the table and poured himself a glass full of aloe vera. “Well, doesn’t anyone else want some?”

  The two boys looked away from each other as we all took turns pouring the aloe vera into our glasses. Jamie was last, that sneaky smile still playing across her lips as she eyed Alexander and Peter over the rim of her cup.

  “Back to studying,” Peter said gruffly. He stacked his papers against the desk and seemed to deliberately avoid Alexander’s gaze.

  Akil took a huge swig of the aloe vera juice, and immediately made a face at Jamie. He swallowed the drink and then puckered his lips, staring down at the cup as though it had tried to bite him. “Did you put something in this?”

  “A little something to make the evening more fun,” said Jamie with an oh-so-innocent note to her voice that fooled no one.

  “Something like . . . vodka?” Akil added.

  Peter eyed his drink like it had grown fangs. “Are you serious, Jamie? You spiked our juice?”

  “Oh, come on. Stop acting like a saint. You drink with me all the time, and plus, my parents won’t be back in town until tomorrow. I don’t know why you’re being such a tight-ass today, but stop. You’re seriously killing the mood.”

  “I’m being a ‘tight-ass’ ”—Peter put the word in air quotes, a disgruntled expression on his face—“because you invited me over as a teacher today, to teach you guys. I can’t teach a bunch of drunk students!”

  Jamie’s lip curled. “Alcohol improves memory,” she said, her tone of voice soft but mocking.

  Peter’s face reddened. I got the feeling he’d told her that once to justify his own actions and was now regretting that intensely. “But going into my exam hungover is not going to help your chances.”

  I felt like I was watching a Ping-Pong tournament, my eyes darting from Peter to Jamie back to Peter, and occasionally sneaking a look at Alexander, who I caught staring at me.

  Jamie leaned over and whispered something into Peter’s ear. When she pulled away, his eyes were closed in resignation. Jamie smiled in triumph.

  Before either of them could say anything, I watched as Alexander downed his glass of aloe vera in three huge gulps, and then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. His eyes were back on Peter, as though challenging him.

  “Now that’s what I’m talking about!” Akil whooped and clapped Alexander on the back. Some of his spiked aloe vera sloshed out of his cup and onto the table. “Whoops. Sorry, Jamie.”

  Jamie crossed her arms over her chest and glared at Peter. “Tell them what you told me about your . . . ​experiments with alcohol and exams in college.”

  Peter sighed and rubbed his forehead. I could practically see the stiff and law-abiding teacher persona leave him, replaced with the young man who was barely older than us. Who, two years ago, had walked the same unforgiving halls of Sinclair Prep as we did. “I drank my way to an A-plus on the orgo final at Stanford,” he admitted, as though convincing himself as much as us. “You know what? Screw it.”

  “That’s more like it,” Jamie said appro
vingly. Akil cheered. Alexander looked on coldly as Peter reached for his cup and downed it, which was all the encouragement the rest of us needed.

  I knew what I was doing was stupid. I knew even if Peter and Jamie thought alcohol improved memory, which sounded like some bullshit college students told themselves as they drank their way through finals week, it was a dumb move for me—someone whose sole alcohol consumption consisted of occasionally getting a sip of her parents’ Chinese white wine.

  But I never did anything stupid. Since Peter and I broke things off two years ago, I never did anything except what Mama told me to do. Never put a toe out of line, never had any excitement.

  And I was sick of it. Tired of day in, day out studying. Day in, day out perfect Nancy.

  Plus, Peter would think I was some pathetic little high school girl if I didn’t drink, too. It was stupid, but I cared what he thought.

  I squeezed my eyes shut and gulped down the spiked aloe vera before I could have any second thoughts. The taste of something sharp and bitter overpowered the otherwise sweet juice. Despite how much I wanted to, I forced myself not to spit it back out.

  “Now it’s a study party,” Jamie giggled. She poured more aloe vera in everyone’s wine glasses.

  “You’re the worst,” Krystal groaned.

  “I hate vodka,” mumbled Akil, who was somehow already bent over his textbook already. “This better get me a damn A-plus on the final.”

  At first I thought I was fine. Even after finishing my second glass, I felt perfectly normal. I even powered through three chapters of AP Chem review.

  And then all the alcohol hit me at once.

  My head belonged to me one moment, and then the next thing I knew, it didn’t. My brain floated away, no longer anchored inside my own body. I watched everything around me happen in a dream.

  Akil lay fast asleep, openmouthed and drooling against the giant chem textbook. Jamie and Krystal had abandoned their textbooks and were making out instead. So much for trying to be just friends. Alexander’s seat was empty, and I had no clue where he’d gone.