All of This Is True

by Lygia Day Penaflor

  Blank.

  She must’ve autographed a different copy for him at Book Revue. She’d written, “For Brady—What is your precious truth?” He’d been lying to her ever since.

  Brady knew there was no defending himself. Deep down, he’d known this months ago when he drove away from his South Carlisle house. His mother and father had been ready to send him to military school. Even they didn’t think nine months was enough punishment. His grandparents had insisted they give him a second chance at Morley. But no North Shore private school, no grandparents’ prayers or perfect girlfriend, could change the facts for him: there is no forgiveness or tabula rasa. The weight of his past was too great to lift. It was heavier than his hope and his religion. It was heavier than his soul. Quietly, swiftly, without slamming the door or dramatic parting words, Brady slipped out of Thora’s house.

  Sunny felt for the sofa behind her and sat on its arm. “Are you okay? Sunny? Sunny? Are you all right?” Marni asked.

  “I can’t breathe. I can’t . . .” Sunny clutched her chest.

  Marni turned to Paloma. “Get her some water.”

  “No, no,” Sunny said. “I just, I need—” she said, and then broke into tears.

  Thora threw Brady’s book across the room. “Take her home.”

  “What?” Paloma said with one hand on Sunny’s back.

  “I said take her home.” Thora opened the front door.

  Marni shook her head. “But Thora—”

  Thora stared at the unopened fortune cookie on her coffee table. “Just go. Please.”

  Miri

  We were all in shock. Shock. [looks into the camera] If you missed that, the word was shocked. Positively effing shocked. [sits back] Hear me when I say this: Jonah was the quietest, mousiest kid I ever met. So, to think of him calling himself the Master of Sexually Deviant Ceremonies or whatever the hell he called himself, ordering his teammates to rip a kid’s clothes off and fuck a mannequin, was near freaking impossible.

  Soleil asked Penny to pull the car over so that she could throw up. Imagine how dirty she must’ve felt. Jonah had his tongue down her throat and who-knows-what-else where. I will never forget how white he turned when Penny called him out that night. “It was the look of a sinner caught in a web he had spun himself.” That’s from Undertow, chapter nineteen.

  [Pauses] Miri, I took a drive out to South Carmine and spoke to a few of the students.

  [leans forward] Seriously? What did you ask them? What did they say? Do they know the guys who did this? Did they defend them? What?

  They have a young adult book club over there.

  Oh.

  Absolution was at the top of their list because of the “former high school wrestler” plotline. I spoke to a few of the girls who read it. They were pretty surprised to read all the other similarities.

  Jesus.

  And then they did a little digging on #FatimaWasHere.

  They didn’t.

  Yes. They showed their boyfriends. Then their boyfriends found Jonah.

  Shit.

  Their friend, the sophomore who was attacked, he’s not doing well at all—homeschooling, depression, he’s a wreck and getting worse. And the guys who hurt Jonah, they’re convinced that colleges rejected them because of the scandal.

  [exhales deeply]

  South Carmine kids all thought Jonah was sent to military school. When they read about “Brady” living it up in a North Shore prep school with a new name and applying to Cornell and MIT, that was it. They snapped.

  [drops head in hands]

  In the book found at the crime scene, the South Carmine boys scrawled FUCK NO! on the last page.

  [shakes head] [pauses] It’s ironic, huh? [looks up] The one person who swore he’d never read Fatima’s work ended up with three copies of her books.

  It’s pretty messed up. [pauses] Fatima’s novel really pissed them off. It really did lead them to him.

  [sighs] Don’t say that to Penny, okay? She’ll lose it.

  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 4 (continued)

  * * *

  PENNY

  You’re probably awake. I’m still in shock.

  I know you are too. I’m sorry, Soleil.

  I just had to tell you. I didn’t want to hurt you.

  You’re my best friend.

  MIRI

  Are you okay, Soleil? Have you heard from Fatima?

  She’s probably in shock. We all are.

  I’m sure she’ll call you soon.

  Penny

  [crying] I didn’t know any of this would happen.

  It’s not your fault . . .

  I did it for Soleil.

  Of course you did.

  She deserved to know.

  You did what you thought was right.

  [blubbering] No. That’s not true. [crying]

  What do you mean, Penny? What’s not true?

  I didn’t do it for Soleil. I did it for me. I wanted to impress Fatima. I wanted her to pay attention to me. She didn’t think I had anything important to say. I just wanted to walk into her house and say something that would make her interested in me for once.

  Oh, Penny.

  I shouldn’t have told her. I should’ve talked to Jonah and left it up to him. It was his past. [cries] Fatima told us to share our precious truths. But that wasn’t my precious truth to tell! [cries] I didn’t know she would write about it! I ruined Jonah’s life just to impress some author whose book I never even read. [sobs]

  [pauses] Wait. What?

  [cries]

  What did you say? You never read Undertow?

  No! No! I never read it, okay! I can’t even keep up with books for class. I went along with the book club the way I go along with everything. [cries] And now Jonah’s brain-dead ’cause of me. [covers the camera with her hand] Turn it off! Don’t let them find out that I never read it. Please, just turn it off and edit it out! Please! I want to talk about something else now. Can I talk about something else?

  The Absolution of Brady Stevenson

  BY FATIMA RO

  (excerpt)

  If Brady were a character in one of Thora’s favorite movies, he would’ve driven full speed down the highway into the night. But in real life, he only drove two blocks away. He stopped the car randomly in front of the security call box outside a two-story modern home. Brady pressed his head against the steering wheel and cried. Do you want me to start over? Is that what you want? Do I deserve another chance? Brady had asked God these questions countless times—in the chapel at the juvenile detention center where he’d prayed every day without fail, in his old bedroom as he’d stared at the ceiling, each morning as he’d pulled on his Morley Academy blazer, and the very instant he’d kissed Sunny on the mouth. He thought he had received an answer, but he was wrong. God was only answering now: No. There was no way to start over. Brady deserved nothing.

  Brady heard a crackling from the security call box. He lifted his head. There was a beep followed by the voice of a woman with a European accent. “Hello? Hello? You there! Who’s there, please? I see you on the camera. Who’s there?”

  If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Brady opened his window. He clutched the call box with his left hand and pressed the red button with his right. “I’m Stephan. My name is Stephan Brady.” He cried into the speaker and shivered at the sound of his own name. “And I’m sorry . . . I’m sorry . . . I’m sorry . . .” he sputtered. “They pulled me out of bed, stood me up in front of everyone. I was so scared that they’d picked me, I was shaking. . . . But then they said, ‘Tell us, Stephan. Who’s tonight’s MVP?’ So I pointed . . . I pointed to the bed next to me, and I told them, ‘Donny’ . . . because he was sma
ller and weaker. I was so scared that it was me.” Stephan was a coward. He knew this without a doubt, because he had thought about it long and hard. Fear makes guys on teams do what they do. “But I’m good,” he insisted. “I’m a good person who did something bad. . . . I’m sorry,” he sobbed. “I’m so fucking sorry. . . .”

  Miri

  Jonah, I mean Nicholas—or whatever the hell his name is—was still at Graham after that, can you believe it?

  That’s ballsy.

  No, it wasn’t. He hid from us like the coward he was. He switched out of art class, ate lunch in his car. But he was still around, taking up oxygen at our elite private school, which he had no right to attend. He probably didn’t have a choice but to stay, because what would he tell his parents? He already transferred once, right?

  You’re right. Graham was already his second chance. I’m sure his parents were counting on him to fly under the radar, get on a straight and narrow path, and then move on after graduation. I doubt they planned at all for what he would say to his classmates at Graham, whether or not he would tell the truth about South Carmine. That must’ve been a tough line for him to navigate.

  Oh, no, don’t do that. Don’t sympathize with that pervert con artist.

  I’m not. I’m just acknowledging that it was a rough situation, having to decide how much of his past to reveal to new people.

  Okay. You can stop right there before I ask you to leave my house.

  What?

  A bowl haircut and buckteeth—that’s a past. Having your period leak through your pants in middle school—that is a past. Doing time for being a sick fuck is grounds for mandatory disclosure. It’s grounds for not being admitted to one of the most prestigious schools on the East Coast in the first place. We should sue Graham for letting him within a hundred feet of us. How did he get into our school anyway? We should’ve had him expelled. But we weren’t thinking straight. We were waiting for advice from Fatima. If Nicholas lied to get in, he would’ve been kicked right out of—

  He didn’t lie to get in. As a minor, he wasn’t required to give Graham that information.

  That’s insanity.

  That’s how the system works. As a society, we have to believe that our young people can be reformed.

  Do you believe that?

  In some cases, yes, I think so.

  What about in this case?

  I don’t know what I think about it yet. But it was probably for the best that you kept it quiet. Nothing good would’ve come out of it if you’d exposed Nicholas at Graham.

  You mean like him ending up brain-dead in a coma?

  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 4 (continued)

  * * *

  SOLEIL

  Fatima? Are you there???

  I’ve been skipping school. I can’t go back with him there.

  Can’t stop crying. I feel disgusting. How could he do this to me?

  Why aren’t you answering my texts?

  Calling you now . . .

  Is there something wrong with your phone?

  I need to talk to you. Please answer if you get this.

  Sending you an email.

  Penny

  It’s all right, Penny. We don’t have to talk about Undertow. That’s over with now. We can talk about what happened afterward, okay? [passes her more tissues] After you told Fatima and everything died down. You can tell me about that.

  [sniffles] Okay. [blows nose]

  What happened after?

  [wipes face] I, uh, I waited for Fatima to call me. I waited and waited.

  Why? What did you expect?

  I thought that . . . [sniffling] I thought she’d be thankful that I found out Jonah’s secret—me, the one she ignored all year. [takes a deep breath] And we all needed her. I mean, we didn’t know if we should tell people about Jonah. Or should we ask him why he lied to us? We wanted Fatima to help us figure out what to do.

  But Fatima didn’t call you, did she?

  [cries] . . . No.

  Miri

  I was devastated for Soleil. What a sad, sad situation.

  She must’ve been distraught.

  She missed days of school. The poor thing couldn’t even hold out until Christmas break. She was literally sick over Nicholas. She only came in later to take her midterm exams and finish that art project. I knew that no one but Fatima could help her deal with everything, so Penny and I went to Soleil’s house. When we got there . . .

  What?

  We went up to her room. [pauses] She was sitting in front of her full-length mirror, cutting her hair with a pair of purple kindergarten scissors and reciting the steps to making the perfect topknot.

  Christ.

  “With your hair upside down, spray your roots with dry shampoo. Then secure a high ponytail. Then tease. Teasing the ponytail is key.”

  Poor kid.

  We couldn’t stop her; she’d already cut part of her hair off—right above her shoulders. She was just so angry at Fatima, and at herself, I guess, for being so trusting.

  We forced Soleil into the shower; she was not smelling like roses, I can tell you that much. She refused to put anything on besides sweats, but at least she got out of her ratty pajamas. Then Penny and I took her to Fatima’s house.

  It was good of you to do that.

  Soleil was my best friend. I wanted her to get the help she needed. Nicholas’s head games shredded her into pieces.

  What happened at Fatima’s house?

  We rang the bell. Fatima came to the door, but she wouldn’t open it all the way. She left the chain on.

  That wasn’t like her.

  No. [sighs] It wasn’t like her at all. I could see her through the four-inch crack in the door, and she looked even worse than Soleil.

  I’m not surprised.

  Soleil said she needed to talk to her. But all Fatima could say was that she wanted to be left alone. Soleil started getting loud. “You can’t leave me alone in this,” she kept saying. “You’re the only one who understands. I need you, Fatima.”

  That’s so sad.

  It was. But then Soleil started saying some stuff that was completely out of line, like, “You made me go out with him! You pushed me into it! I almost slept with him because of you! This is your fault!”

  Wow. That’s rough.

  She was out of her mind at that point, honestly. I mean, no one can force you to go out with someone. She was grasping for somebody to blame for her pain. I told her that, but it only made her angrier.

  So, then what happened?

  Fatima shut the door.

  That’s it? She didn’t even respond to Soleil?

  No. That was the last time any of us spoke to her.

  I don’t even know what to say about that.

  Have a little bit of perspective. Soleil wasn’t the only one who was hurt. As far as Fatima knew, Nicholas was a kid who needed help. He took advantage of her goodness by expecting her to rewrite him. That’s what happened. He manipulated Fatima. Get it straight.

  But why would Fatima shut Soleil out like that?

  Fatima was heartsick, I’m sure. Her own theory led to this disaster. That’s humiliating. How could she face us?

  You won’t consider that maybe she was ashamed because she was betraying you with her manuscript?

  No. [sighs] Fatima wasn’t betraying us. She was being loyal to Nicholas and to her writing. And she retreats when she’s hurt; you know that. I tried to remind Soleil and Penny, but they were only thinking about themselves. They’re still thinking about themselves.

  NEW YORK CITY MAGAZINE

  FOUR-PART SERIES

  * * *

  Stranger Than Fiction

  The True Story Behind the Controversial Novel

  The Absolution of Brady Ste
venson

  SOLEIL JOHNSTON’S STORY, PART 4 (continued)

  * * *

  DATE: December 17, 2016

  TO: fatima.ro.author@gmail.com

  FROM: soleil410@gmail.com

  SUBJECT: THE PRECIOUS TRUTH

  I’ve texted you. I showed up at your door. I’ve emailed. You wanted me to tell you everything, but now that I need to talk—WHERE ARE YOU? You only cared about Jonah, didn’t you? You chose him over me—his happiness and his well-being over mine. He was your pet because he seemed to need you and love you more. You wanted to give him food, shelter, compassion. You wanted to give him me. “Be calm and girlfriend on!” “Do what feels natural.” “You’ve found his hidden talent!” “Let yourself go!” But now that he’s lied to you, you have no use for me anymore. Who cares that he lied to me, too? All that matters is that he hurt YOU. It’s always been about You, Yourself, and Fatima Ro. WHAT ABOUT ME???

  This is the last time I’m going to write, because I cannot give you any more of myself! You pried every word out of me! “WWJ???” “What exactly goes on behind the pottery shelf?” “I’m dying to know how the date went.” “Tell. Me. EVERYTHING.” You made me feel that I owed you. You squeezed my guts out—my energy, my time, my thoughts, my emotions, my experiences. And for what? To see how much I was willing to give you, because your old friends couldn’t care less about Undertow! Waah, waah, you poor, underappreciated author. You bled on those pages, but your old friends did nothing in return but throw your deck chairs in the pool! But Miri, Penny, and I—we really were “your people.” We were your adoring fans who raised you up when you felt like a disappointment of a doctor’s daughter.

  And my psych notes! You couldn’t get enough of them to help you understand my boyfriend and get closer to him. “Helpful and insightful. Necessary.” You want my class notes, Fatima? You want to know what I’ve been learning? You want to see my research? You want to hear the precious truth? Well, here it is: