by Katie Zhao
“Jamie . . . Jamie was the one who—”
“You could have stopped Jamie that night. And instead you helped her.”
Em had never done anything to us. And we’d almost killed her.
“I . . . we . . . were scared. We didn’t know what to do.” The explanation was pathetic even to my ears.
The door banged open behind me. Em’s eyes darted toward the sound, and I took the chance to try to wiggle out of her grasp, but she only tightened her death hold on my wrist. “Good. Everyone’s here now.”
“Nancy!” I heard multiple voices yell in unison.
My stomach sunk. Even before I turned around, I knew what I would see: Alexander, Akil, and Krystal racing down the steps toward me.
“You guys shouldn’t have come,” I said, ignoring the swell of relief in my chest. “I told you not to come. H-How did you even find us?”
“Peter found me and told me you came this way.” Even now, resentment in Alexander’s face as he spoke Peter’s name. “He said he saw you coming out of the ballroom, saying you didn’t look . . . like yourself . . . and then I made the connection, and—”
Alexander stopped, horror dawning over his face as he took in the scene before him. I could practically see the wheels turning in everyone’s heads.
“What . . . Louisa? What’re you doing?” spluttered Akil, looking bemused.
“Get away from Nancy,” snapped Alexander and Peter at once.
“S-So . . . Louisa,” Akil said, “you’re . . . the Proctor?”
“Her name isn’t really Louisa,” I said. “It’s Emily Yang.”
“That’s not possible,” cried Krystal. “Emily Yang is dead.”
A catlike, triumphant smile twisted Em’s face. “That’s what my family wanted everyone to believe, so I could start over when I returned to the States after getting plastic surgery and a new life. Made it easier to get revenge, too, of course.”
“H-How did you know all our secrets?” Alexander demanded.
“Jamie knew everything—well, except the fact that I was Em. After you all abandoned her and I became her closest friend, she sold you out,” Em said with a nasty grin. “Showed me photos of your troubled past”—her eyes landed on Krystal, whose jaw clenched—“showed me what she’d been dealing you”—Akil stiffened—“told me all about your convict brother”—Alexander’s fists clenched—“and couldn’t resist telling me about a certain student-teacher scandal.”
Em’s eyes flicked over to Peter and then burned into mine, but I forced myself not to flinch or look away.
“Jamie couldn’t stand that I was better than her, so she got you all to team up against me. I may have been forced to fake my own funeral, and I may have lost everything, but I knew my family would be back one day. So I bided my time while my parents slowly rebuilt their fortune. I re-created myself and planned my revenge.”
“Okay, what you’re saying is . . . really wild,” Alexander said, holding his hands up.
Em cut her glare at him. “You don’t talk to me. Do you know how frustrating it was to always be so fake? To tiptoe around Jamie like I was walking on eggshells, so I didn’t upset her and she’d ruin my life? How is it fair that my parents would punish me for not being the best, and when I finally became the best, my peers punished me instead?”
“Stop playing the victim here,” Krystal spat.
Shame rose within me. If I could go back in time and change what had happened, there was no doubt in my mind that I’d do that. I’d never shove Em into the statue. I’d never even let Jamie bully Em. I’d never let Jamie have her way so easily again.
“Em . . . I know this won’t change anything, but . . . I’m so sorry,” I whispered. “I know Jamie would be sorry, too.”
“You’re not sorry. None of you have ever been sorry. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have done what you did to Jamie Ruan when the Ruans fell from grace.” Em’s voice was cold. Unfeeling.
There’s that saying—the higher you fly, the harder you fall. The Ruans didn’t fall from grace, really. They plummeted. They shattered.
“Maybe we’re not the best people, but you . . . you killed someone, Em,” Alexander said in a harsh voice. “You killed Jamie and tried to pin it on us.”
Krystal was edging her phone out of her pocket, but Em raised something she’d been clenching in her hands. A stick lighter. “If you call the cops—if you call anyone—you’re done for. I’ll light the grass on fire. I’ve already coated it with gasoline. Do you think you can outrun fire? Put the phone down, Krystal.”
So that explained the vague, sickly sweet odor. The grass beneath my feet, not slippery with dew—slippery with gasoline. My heart thudded, panic clouding my thoughts as I tried to come up with an escape plan. But I couldn’t see a way out.
The flame on Em’s lighter flickered, casting an orange-yellow glow across her face. The rhythmic sounds of the contraption provided an eerie beat. Click. Light on. Click. Light off.
Slowly, trembling, Krystal obeyed. “Th-The faculty will be here any moment now,” she stammered.
That cruel smile once again. “That’s perfect, then. I want to see them. It’s been so long, and they’ve all forgotten Emily Yang. The whole school forgetting made everything so much easier.” Click. Light. A soft, sad smile on Em’s lips. Click. Darkness.
“We didn’t forget you.” Not for lack of trying, though. I’d desperately wanted to erase Em from my memories forever. “We—We had to . . . to move on.” Otherwise, the guilt would have consumed us.
Click. Em hissed, “You didn’t remember me because you didn’t want to remember me. You didn’t want to acknowledge what you’d done.”
Click, click. Click, click.
“Put the lighter down, Louisa—Emily.” Krystal’s voice might have seemed calm to anyone who didn’t know her, but the slightly higher pitch told me she was scared. “Whatever you want to discuss, we can do without that lighter.”
Click. The light was back on, the flame close enough to my face that I jumped back in shock, freeing my wrist from her grasp.
Em staring at us, but not really seeing us.
Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Akil slowly edging back toward the school, taking advantage of the fact that Emily had taken her eyes off him. Moving seamlessly, wordlessly, Alexander shifted his profile to block Akil out of sight. Akil disappeared around the corner. He was taking the long way around, out of Em’s field of vision.
“For all her book smarts, Jamie was so easy to trick in the end. I guess she was so desperate for a friend—a real friend, or so she thought. That idiot told me everything, including all of your dirty little secrets.” And she was talking more to herself than to us now, musing, face illuminated by the glow of the campus lights. “Jamie was sick. Really sick. And instead of helping her, you abandoned her. You’re the worst kind of people.” She spat the words with a savage satisfaction. “So I thought, rather than getting rid of only Jamie, it’d be best to get rid of the rest of you, too.”
“B-But I still don’t get one thing.” All I could think was that I had to keep talking, keep Em talking, keep her attention on me. Draw out as much time as possible so Akil could get help. “Why would you wait so long to kill Jamie?”
“What fun would it be to just end Jamie’s life? Stretching out her suffering to the point of making her want to commit suicide—now, that’s a much more suitable ending for her. Plus, I wanted to take my time and ruin all of you. First, reveal your secrets and destroy your reputations. Next, end your lives—for good.”
“You’re sick,” Krystal said. “Really, really sick.”
Jamie had believed “Louisa” to be one of her only friends in the aftermath of everything that had happened. And all along, “Louisa” had counted on Jamie breaking.
“I might be the Proctor, but I didn’t kill Jamie. Jamie killed herself.”
“You’re lying.” Alexander’s voice shook, as though he weren’t as certain as he tried to seem. “Jamie would
n’t have killed herself. She had everything.”
“She had everything, and that’s exactly why she killed herself. There’s a time limit for one person having so much, you know. Nobody can stay on top forever. And once you’ve tasted the air at the top—you never want to be away from the throne again. I know. I was there once, too.”
A soft laugh. A cruel laugh.
“You’re not wrong, though, Alexander. Jamie didn’t want to go at the very end. But that’s why I was there. To assist. I knew she was weakened, mentally and physically. Nobody believed she might have mental health issues, not her parents, not her teachers, not her so-called friends, and least of all herself. It was easy to finish the job.”
I opened my mouth, then closed it. Words failed me.
Em whirled around and asked sharply, “Where’s Akil?”
Time. Time was up once again.
“Stop!” Alexander dove toward Em, but she ducked, then kicked him in the stomach. “Oof!”
Click.
“Stay back,” Em warned, holding up the stick lighter. The flame danced in her eyes. Those eyes, burning. Those eyes, black coals, licked with the flame of a long-burning fire. “I’m leaving this shitty life for a better one, and you’re all coming with me. Consider it a gesture of mercy.”
Run, I urged my feet. Horror rooted me to the spot. This fear, electrifying and all-consuming—had Jamie felt it, too, in her last moments?
Em hissed, a prayer, an oath of revenge: “In inceptum finis est.”
And she dropped the burning lighter to the ground.
CONFESSION TWENTY-FIVE
Um . . . is it just me or does anyone else at prom smell smoke??? —Anon
*****
“No!” I lunged forward to grab the lighter out of the air. If I could reach it before the flame lit the grass, everything would be okay.
Unfortunately, Alexander had the same idea. My fingers collided with his hand. The lighter fell through both of our grasps. A spark, flickering to life. There—out of the dark. Mesmerizing. Beautiful.
The gasoline-soaked grass burst into flames.
Flames, blazing. Heat, searing. Screaming. The ancient school grounds, and all its ghosts, screaming.
Had to move my feet. Had to tear my gaze away from the glorious sight.
Had to get out—now.
I turned to run, but Em grabbed my hand and tried to drag me back, back toward her and the statue of Richard Sinclair.
“Nancy!” Someone grabbed my hand and yanked me away from Em, toward the school door. It was Alexander.
“But Em—!”
“Hold your breath and run!”
Krystal, who’d sprinted ahead, got to the door first. Burning, my lungs. Burning, my legs. Burning, everywhere. And the exit rose in front of me, and so did the flames.
My feet stumbled at the bottom step, and I fell, Alexander’s hand slipping out of mine.
The flames spread quickly. Too quickly. My mind grew foggy with panic and lack of breath. I turned around—to see Em’s crumpled figure. Crumpled in front of the statue, like two years ago.
Coughing and spluttering, my eyes watery from the force of the fire, I reached for Alexander’s hand. The heat threatened to smother me. Pain shot over my body. I held in a scream. Flames licked at my skin, leaving what I knew would turn into ugly scorch marks—even if I survived this.
I would survive this. I couldn’t die yet. I’d barely begun living.
Faces flashed before my eyes. Mama. Baba. There were so many words left unsaid between all of us. I couldn’t die without getting them off my chest. Without hearing the words I deserved from them both.
The air in my lungs had run out. The flames were too high, too fast, too deadly.
Hands reached for me, tugging me away from the brightness of the fire into a different kind of light. Maybe I’d already died and was crossing over into whatever awaited me next.
“Chief, we’ve got two more here!” someone yelled, his voice fuzzy and far away. I thought I could see the blurred forms of faculty and firefighters around me.
In the distance, flames licking the sky. Dancing around the stone statue of Richard Sinclair, that stone hand still pointing at the horizon, pointing at something none of us could see.
Burn it. Burn down that statue and this school and everything along with it.
I slumped sideways. The world faded to black.
I dreamed that Mama and Baba lived together again. Dreamed I’d gotten into Harvard, and my parents were so overjoyed that they bought me my own penthouse, as fancy and huge as Jamie’s.
That was how I knew it was a dream. I never would get into Harvard. Baba would never return to the States no matter how much Mama believed he would, no matter how hard I worked. And my parents would never be able to afford such a nice place.
When I woke up, I was lying in a white room, tucked into clean sheets. It took my groggy brain a few moments to realize that it was a hospital. Then another few moments to process another image—Mama, sitting right next to my bed, fast asleep.
Mama wore her black restaurant hat and uniform. She’d been here for a while, judging from her unconscious state.
“Mama?” I said groggily.
Mama’s eyes flew open. She began sobbing. She leaned over and clasped my hand into hers, as if making sure I was real.
“Nurse!” Mama yelled. The sound of rapid footsteps answered.
“Where am I?” I groaned as pain traveled up and down my skin. I looked down to find that my arms and legs had been wrapped in stiff bandages. “What . . . happened?”
“You’re at the hospital.” Mama’s tear-filled eyes searched my face. “You . . . were in a fire at the school. Some firefighters rescued you.”
I remembered now. I thought I could still feel their hands on me, pulling me to safety.
“The police told me . . . told me it was started by one of your classmates.”
At my mother’s words, the blurriest of memories returned. The statue. The lighter. Em, waiting for us in the dark.
And the fire. The smoke that choked me. The flames that burned me.
I paused before I could explore the memory further and changed the subject. I wasn’t ready to go there yet. “What happened to the others?” My voice was croaky and hoarse from disuse. “Alexander? Krystal? Akil? Peter?” I paused. “Emily?”
“Your friends are alive,” Mama said, but her eyes didn’t meet mine. “They were taken to the hospital, too. One of your friends called the police and fire department, so they were able to get to you quickly. But . . . there was one . . . who they said . . .” Mama hiccuped, her lip trembling. “They said . . . she didn’t make it out.”
Emily.
As much as I was horrified by what Em had tried to do to us, I couldn’t feel angry at her. Only sad. Frustrated. Upset.
Em had told us she wanted to go, like Jamie had. Yet I couldn’t erase the image of how she’d looked right after she’d dropped the lighter, when she’d caught on fire.
That hadn’t been the face of someone determined and willing to die. That had been the face of a young, scared girl, one who didn’t really know what she wanted, and now would never know.
My chest filled with sadness and grief. Em was dead. And there was nothing I could say or do to bring her back.
A nurse entered the room. “You were very lucky,” she said as she examined my skin. “Your wounds are relatively minor, and these burns should heal up within a few weeks.”
“What about the others?”
“You were all very lucky,” the nurse clarified. “The police arrived quickly. That was some fast thinking on your part to call them so soon.”
After running a lot of tests and forcing mountains of paperwork onto my poor mother, the staff released me—on the condition that I took care of my burns according to the doctor’s detailed instructions, and came in for follow-up appointments with a burn specialist. She recommended therapy appointments for trauma, too, and insisted I
“take it easy” for the next three weeks.
I was pretty sure I didn’t know the meaning of “take it easy.” But at least physically, I could do that.
Unfortunately, there was no doctor to release me from Mama’s imprisonment.
“I’m glad you’re going to be okay,” Mama told me as soon as we got home. She swallowed hard and brushed a strand of my hair behind my ear. “But you can’t do anything like that again. Do you understand, Nancy?”
“I know. I should focus on my studies.”
“That’s not what I was talking about. I can’t bear to lose you, my bǎo bèi.” Precious child, a term Mama hadn’t used to refer to me in years. She squeezed my hand, her shoulders shaking, the tears flowing forth freely, unabashedly. “You’re all I have left. Baba couldn’t stand to lose you, either.”
“Mama . . .” Tears stung my eyes. I couldn’t remember the last time my mother had looked at me with so much fragile emotion in her face. Those eyes that told me I was a real, living, breathing human, with thoughts and dreams of my own, precious to both my mother—and my father, wherever he may be.
“But you are grounded for life,” my mother added.
“Grounded for life?” I repeated in disbelief. “Since when did we turn into a white family?”
Mama glared at me. I thought I’d crossed a line. But then, amazingly enough, she grinned. “I’m becoming more American by the day, aren’t I? Your father . . . he might not recognize me, the day he returns. If he returns.” Then she began to laugh, and I joined in.
Mama held on so tightly to my hand, like it was a lifeline. And knowing she was here with me—for the moment it was enough, I was enough.
MARCH, EIGHTH GRADE
The day I was accepted into Richard Sinclair Preparatory School was one of the best days of my life. I told both my parents over text—separately, because they’d been fighting for some time now, and Mama refused to speak to Baba.
Baba sent me a thumbs-up, which was kind of disappointing. He’d never been good with words in the first place.
