Nooo.
Yes. They were at the Witches Brew. I wanted to scream! Miri went without me and took those kiss-ass girls to our secret place with Fatima. That was our café. Our spot. How dare she! Anyone else could see the menus and figure out where they were.
Pretty thoughtless.
And they were sitting there with pasta and dumplings. I was sooo hungry!
The Absolution of Brady Stevenson
BY FATIMA RO
(excerpt)
Thora sat so close to Brady that their legs touched. “Everything’s all right,” she said. Brady felt the author’s hand on his back as she leaned closer, smelling of vanilla and ChapStick. “There are no secrets here. We’re inside/out in my house, remember? In my house we can be who we are with all our bruises, and we’re good enough,” Thora said. “I promise you that we are.”
In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.
“I’m good inside. I’m good. I’m not a bad person . . .” Brady said, because he believed it was his precious truth.
Thora grasped the boy’s hand. “Of course you’re good inside. Of course.”
Brady thought about Sunny and how it felt to kiss her under the sky. “I still deserve stuff,” he said, to convince himself as well as Thora.
“You deserve everything you want, Brady. No one thinks you’re bad.”
Thora was the most brilliant person Brady knew. If he were rotten inside she’d be able to see it. Brady pressed Sunny’s blanket to his forehead, aching to ask two questions: Do you believe in absolution, the cleansing of the body, mind, and soul? Is that why you wrote The Drowning? He just couldn’t bring himself to say them.
“No one’s judging you. We all care about you so much. What happened to you doesn’t change that.”
Brady began to cry, overwhelmed by her belief in him.
Thora leaned forward. “I can help you, Brady. I can lift this weight for you.”
Brady sat completely still.
“I was selfish and horrible to my mother before she died. I wasn’t there for her when she needed me the most because I was too afraid to watch her slip away,” Thora said. “I couldn’t accept that she could actually leave me. I thought, as long as I was the same bitchy, ungrateful brat, she’d have to stick around to set me straight the same as she always did. I said and did unforgivable things. I didn’t make up with her when she was alive.” Thora twirled the charm on her necklace—the letter T set in diamonds and white gold. “I thought I’d never survive the regret. Some days I thought I’d die from shame. But it’s possible to get past that.”
Brady clung to her every word. How? How could he get past his shame? He could never hold his breath long enough.
“In The Drowning,” Thora continued, “Jules reconciled with her mother before she died. I fixed my mistakes through her. Don’t you see, Brady? I’ve done it before—I rewrote myself out of pain,” she insisted. “Now that I know your precious truth, I can do it again; I can lift your weight, too.”
Brady could hardly believe what Thora was saying: she would rewrite him.
“And then your pain will take on another form. It’ll be outside of your body. It’ll scatter and be absorbed into the universe.”
Grief can be contained and revised and measured in pounds! Brady squeezed his eyes tightly, imagining his anguish severing and dividing and then vanishing into thin air.
“You saw the timeline I made. You read it, didn’t you?”
Brady wiped his tears. “Yeah. I read it.”
Thora squeezed the boy’s arm as she whispered, “What did I feel by the end—me and Jules? What did we both feel?”
Thora’s sure, steady eyes told Brady that everything she was saying was possible. She could give him a revision, a do-over. Today was opposite day. She could make it so that wrestling camp never happened. Or she could give him a decent life with a future to look forward to. Thora Temple could write anything.
“Tell me. When I finally reached the end of the timeline, how did I feel?” Thora asked one last time.
Brady collapsed on the author’s shoulder and cried. “Free.”
“That’s right.” Thora hugged him. She was going to make Brady one of her characters, and she would love him like one.
Miri
We took flyers from the entryway—ads for bands and craft fairs, notices, things like that—and we wrote notes on the back. We came up with this whole plan for how the theory of human connections could reach more people. It was a three-point strategy to spread the theory from different angles. I delegated each of us to be in charge of a specific branch: social media for me, school outreach for Emma, and recruitment for Quinn.
Very thorough.
Believe it. We laid out three sheets of paper, one for each branch, and we brainstormed ideas. I don’t know what the hell they put in that green tea, but our ideas just kept flowing and flowing. We were on fire. Fire.
NEW YORK CITY MAGAZINE
FOUR-PART SERIES
* * *
Stranger Than Fiction
The True Story Behind the Controversial Novel
The Absolution of Brady Stevenson
SOLEIL JOHNSTON’S STORY, PART 2 (continued)
* * *
Journal Entry
10:25 p.m.
Fatima’s kitchen
Can’t go in yet. Jonah is in the living room with her. Trying to make out what they’re saying but can’t hear it all.
J: I’m good inside. I’m good . . . (blubbering) I’m not a bad person . . . (blubbering)
F: Of course you’re good inside. Of course. You deserve everything you want, Jonah . . . No one’s judging you. We all care about you so much. What happened to you doesn’t change that. And I can help you, Jonah. I can lift this weight for you. I was selfish and horrible to my mother before she died. I couldn’t accept that she could actually leave me. I thought, as long as I was the same . . . be the same . . . (whispering) . . . the same as she always did . . . I didn’t make up with her when she was alive. I thought I’d never survive . . . (whispering) . . . it’ll scatter and be absorbed into the universe . . . (whispering) . . . You read it, didn’t you?
J: (blubbering)
F: (whispering) . . . I feel by the end? . . . Jonah? . . . Tell me . . . (whispering) . . . how did I feel?
Jonah’s crying now on her shoulder. He’s relieved.
Thank you, Fatima. I owe you my life.
Penny
The next thing I knew, there were pictures from the café of, like, a dozen people.
Oh, jeez.
Didn’t I tell you that would happen?
You knew it would.
It was a mob of Undertow people from the courtyard: Natalie Singh, Elena Westcott, Yasmin Contreras, the Levys, Ava, Inés. Even Greg Tivoli and stuffed-dead-animal girl. Everyone! They were in our café, acting like they’d been hanging out there for years. Such wannabes. Miri was only being selfish, trying to be the center of attention. There went the Witches Brew. Miri spoiled it for all of us. Fatima couldn’t hang out there after that, not with those random kids hounding her.
Of course she couldn’t.
Where would she get her green tea?
The Absolution of Brady Stevenson
BY FATIMA RO
(excerpt)
The temperature had dropped since Brady and Sunny left the courtyard. On the author’s front stoop, Sunny hugged her blanket tightly around her body. Brady, eyes closed, filled his lungs with the crisp air.
“Are you glad we went in?” Sunny asked after a beat.
“Yeah. Thanks for coming with me.” For the first time since wrestling camp, Brady felt that better times were coming his way.
“You don’t have to thank me,” Sunny said. She thought Brady was so brave to talk to Thora and to stand here with his head held high.
The two weren’t quite sure what to say. They heard the lock turn on the other side of the door. The
front hallway went dark, leaving the couple in a shadow. Brady’s eyes adjusted to the dimness. He smiled a little at Sunny. “You remind me of Linus from Charlie Brown.”
“That’s just what a girl likes to hear.” Sunny laughed, and he did, too. Brady rarely laughed that way. They stood for a moment, shuffling their feet. “So, you had a good talk with Thora?” Sunny asked.
Brady nodded. Thora’s words were floating around in his head. He deserved everything. “I can’t believe I’m friends with her, you know?” He was Thora Temple’s fan, and by some magical stroke of luck, she was his friend, maybe the best friend he’d ever had.
“I know. Neither can I.” Sunny’s eyes widened. “I still look over at her sometimes, and I’m like, what is my life right now?”
Brady turned his phone over in his pocket. Thora had given him her number and told him to call anytime. Day or night. He would call her, too. She never said anything she didn’t mean. His relationship with her wasn’t a romance but “one beating heart meeting another beating heart.” She was going to make everything better.
“Brady, I just . . .” Sunny didn’t know where to begin, but Thora had told her to be honest about her feelings. “I know that you’ve been through a lot. But no matter what happened in the past, I’m here. I’ll always be here for you as a friend. Or even . . . as more, if you want that. But if you don’t, I understand. It’s a lot. I know.” Brady must not be ready to get close to anyone. That’s probably why he’d broken their kiss in the courtyard. Even so, Sunny wanted to keep the option open.
“I’m happy about that,” Brady said.
“So . . . friends? Or . . . ?” she asked. “Not that you have to know now, because you don’t. I’m just saying that either one is okay with—”
Brady pulled at Sunny’s blanket. “I’m freezing.”
She raised her arms over Brady’s shoulders and pulled herself toward him. “Is this all I am to you? A warm blanket?”
No, you’re my second chance. You’re my reclaimed innocence. You’re my hope beyond hope, Brady thought.
Brady didn’t break in her arms. He didn’t shatter or pull away. Sunny hugged him closer. Brady’s body drew warmth from hers. They held each other until they were both warm.
Brady only wanted to express his gratitude to Sunny for being such a loyal friend. But Sunny squeezed the back of his head in a way that begged, Kiss me, Brady, please kiss me. So, he kissed her. But as he did, he promised to earn this kiss by becoming the boy she believed in. He cupped Sunny’s face in his hands as they parted. “Be my girlfriend,” he whispered. If Sunny—Morley honor student and favorite of Thora Temple—were his girl, he must be good inside. It had to be the precious truth.
Miri
There I was with the three-part plan spread out on the table and my book open, right? So I start talking about Fatima, about the grueling emotional process she went through to write Undertow. And then all of a sudden, we understood Fatima and the whole book. Over brownies and tri-flavored gelato, something clicked for us in that café. [snaps]
Something?
[looks through her phone] We were talking about the book and its parallels to Fatima’s real life, how chapter after chapter, the character Lara follows Fatima’s emotions almost exactly.
Okay.
She was writing autobiographically, not in terms of plot, but in terms of her human connection with her mother and in terms of Fatima’s emotions and the consequences of her actions.
Yes, I noticed that.
But then! The parallel ends. [slaps table] Just like that. There’s a distinct point of separation between Fatima and Lara. They’re not in tandem anymore. Right here. Look. [shows timeline photo on her phone]
* * *
Chapter 23
ME: I used to feel everything, emotions aflame. Joy, fear, adoration, frustration. But now, nothing but regret—while awake, while asleep, while waking and falling asleep—regret has replaced everything and all, completely. I’ve forgotten anything but.
LARA: Finally, we are us again. I am me and she is Mom. And that is that. “Tell me about the date you had, remember, the one at the beach” is all I had to say. She laughed. I laughed. And we are back. So is the light. A ray of light. Lighthearted. We are feather-light. You are the light of my life.
* * *
Do you see what I see?
[pauses] Fatima didn’t reconnect with her mother, but Lara did.
Yes! That’s exactly what happened. In reality, Fatima pushed away from her mother when she was ill. But the moment Lara asks her mother about the beach date, Fatima changed the course of Lara’s ending. And by doing this . . .
Fatima and Lara were able to reach the same emotional conclusion.
That’s right. Fatima lived through Lara. She made different choices and got a different ending.
She got a do-over.
NEW YORK CITY MAGAZINE
FOUR-PART SERIES
* * *
Stranger Than Fiction
The True Story Behind the Controversial Novel
The Absolution of Brady Stevenson
SOLEIL JOHNSTON’S STORY, PART 2 (continued)
* * *
DATE: October 15, 2016
TO: [email protected]
FROM: [email protected]
Subject: !!!!
Home now. 11:49 p.m. Under the covers. Typing so fast and trembling. Too much to process. Can’t wrap my brain around it.
I’m so confused. Please don’t judge me. When he told me about South Carmine, I was wondering—Does this mean we aren’t going to kiss again? I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m supposed to be horrified about what he told us. I am. I really am. BUT . . . I made out with him on your front stoop. And I can’t help that I’m soooo excited and happy that it happened. I know this makes me a selfish person. He was crying not five minutes earlier on your living room sofa. He was a mess, face smudged, voice raspy, and his lips were salty from tears, which is something I shouldn’t even know because I shouldn’t have kissed him in the first place. I should’ve offered to listen and comforted him with supportive words, not jumped his bones when he was so obviously not emotionally healthy enough to have his bones jumped. What the hell is wrong with me??? I’m a selfish, selfish, lustful person. They say you never know your true character until tragedy strikes. Well, I’ve just discovered the real me: I’m the passenger on the Titanic who shoves children and elderly out of the way so that I can get into a lifeboat.
I’m small and weak.
Weak.
Weak.
Weak.
And then (yes, it gets worse or better) he asked me to be his girlfriend, and I said yes. What was I thinking?
Now I’m Googling, and I can’t stop. These articles are horrendous. Poor Jonah, poor Jonah, poor Jonah. Nothing about these articles tells me that it’s okay to go out with a guy who’s been through this. I’m only going to screw him up even more. I don’t know what I’m doing.
liherald.com/stories/South-Carmine-High-School-students-assault-program
At South Carmine High School, Students Call Sex Assault “Part of the Program”
From August 27–September 1, 2015, 18 students ages 14 to 17 from South Carmine High School attended wrestling training camp. On the first day of classes in September, only 17 of those students returned to school. By third period, rumors were circulating throughout campus that the absent tenth grader was sexually assaulted at camp. Details of the assault spread as the day went on: the boys had been drinking beer in their room past curfew; three ringleaders ordered five other teammates to wake a sleeping sophomore team member; they stripped his clothes off and dragged him to the floor. The attack, which lasted 13 minutes, according to a blurry video clip of the event, involved forcing the sophomore to perform various sex acts with a wrestling dummy (a stuffed, life-sized body-shaped training device). When they returned to South Carmine High School, some members of the wrestling team were overheard boasting about the incident. Others de
nied that any wrongdoing had occurred. When questioned in the hallway by friends about what happened at training, one wrestling camp attendee winked and answered, “Nothing that wasn’t part of the program.”
Penny
I was about to leave, really, I was just about to turn the key, but then Fatima’s door opened. So then I couldn’t go. They would’ve heard me and seen my headlights.
Right.
I should’ve left two minutes earlier. Then I wouldn’t have had to see their whole make-out session.
They were making out?
Yes. Right in front of Fatima’s door—Soleil must’ve loved that. She should’ve added a picture of that to her art project. But it gave me a second to text Fatima and ask her if she’d heard from Soleil and Jonah.
What’d she say?
She said no.
Oh.
Why’d they all have to lie to me?
I don’t know.
Eventually Soleil and Jonah stopped sucking each other’s faces and left. I went straight home after that.
It was some night.
Maybe for other people. It wasn’t so much for me. [sighs]
Sorry about that.
It doesn’t matter.
Still, it sucks to be left out.
[shrugs]
The Absolution of Brady Stevenson
BY FATIMA RO
(excerpt)
BRADY
Hey.
THORA
Hi. Got home ok?
Yup. Just checking if this is really your number.
It is. You’re looking for Tony’s
Pizzeria, right?
Uh . . .
I’m kidding! It’s Thora!
Haha funny. So thanks for the talk and for letting us come over.
All of This Is True Page 10
