by Kelly Yang
“You can’t be here!” I say to him.
The movers and delivery guys look up at us.
“Is there a problem?” one of them asks.
“Yes!” I say. “I don’t want this guy here!”
Jay explains to the movers, “She’s my girlfriend. We’re just having a fight.”
The movers nod sympathetically—Been there, bro—and get back to unpacking. I reach for the phone to call the cops.
“Please, Claire! Hear me out!” Jay pleads, grabbing the phone out of my hand. Tears brim in his eyes. He puts his hands together and begs me for two seconds.
We go outside.
I hold on tight to my jacket, my arms across my chest in a brace position. “How’d you find me?”
“My family has real estate connections all over town,” he says, handing my phone back to me. “We know every real estate transaction that occurs.”
I roll my eyes. Of course he does.
“Claire, look, I’m sorry. I lost control. You hurt me, and I just . . . I lost it.” His voice rises and falls. “Haven’t you ever lost control before?”
I shake my head. No, I’ve never raped anyone before.
Jay puts a hand to his head and grabs a fistful of hair. There’s remorse in his eyes, I can see it. But that doesn’t make it any more bearable. “I haven’t been able to sleep. I haven’t been able to eat . . .”
“I don’t give a shit about your appetite.”
“I know, I’m just saying, I’m hurting here. I’m already hurting. You don’t have to go and ruin my life,” he says.
I shake my head at him. It’s so unfair he puts this on me—he did this. He ruined his own life. One of the mover guys squeezes by us, and Jay moves closer to me. “Please, I’m in so much shit with my parents.”
“As you should be!”
He plunges his eyes, and he’s silent for so long that I turn around and start walking back. “If you care about me at all, if you have even an ounce of feeling toward me, you’ll call this thing off,” he mutters.
I turn around. “I did care for you, Jay—”
“Yeah, funny how you showed it.”
We’re done here. “I’ll see you on Thursday,” I say, slamming the door behind me.
After Jay leaves, I sit on my new couch for the next hour, trying to figure out how the hell I’m going to survive being in the same room as him for hours when I feel gutted after a five-minute conversation.
Seventy-Two
Dani
I search for Claire. According to Messenger on my phone, she hasn’t been online in five days. I switch over to email.
To: Claire Wang
From: Danielle De La Cruz
Hi Claire,
I saw you looking into the ad board room. Are you in some sort of trouble? I saw Jay looking in there as well. I don’t know what happened but you should know Jay’s family is heavily invested in the school. They’ve been selling houses to Chinese families, packaging them as some sort of American dream home + American dream school deal. They’ve poured millions into American Prep through various subsidiary companies. They practically own the school!
Call me when you get this message!
—Dani
I type PS, debating whether to include a postscript. In the end, I decide against it and send the message as it is, hoping the urgency of my words can convey to Claire what I’m too proud to say outright: I’m sorry.
I head down the hallway after I send the email. Maybe I can catch Claire before she goes home. Instead, I bump into Zach.
“Zach!” I call. He looks up from the water fountain. “Do you know where I can find Claire?”
He wipes the water from the corners of his mouth and starts walking away.
Is he just going to ignore me? I rush after him. “What’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong? She’s kind of going through a lot right now, that’s what’s wrong. You should know.” He walks briskly and I struggle to keep up.
“Know what?” I ask, picking up the pace.
Zach stops walking.
“Hey, do you know anyone on the ad board?” he asks.
Shit, so it’s true. I tell him only Mr. Matthews. But if she’s going before the ad board, she should know the administration is ten times more powerful than she thinks.
Zach shakes his head like he doesn’t understand. I pull him into an empty classroom and finally tell him the whole truth about everything that happened to me this year. About Seattle, xomegan.com, the real reason they took away my headmistress commendation. Everything.
“Oh my God,” he says. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he asks. My gaze falls to my feet. I don’t have the words to explain why I kept it a secret. It wasn’t like by keeping it small, it disappeared. Instead, it just burned a hole inside my pocket.
“I’m so sorry,” Zach says, putting his arms around me.
As Zach holds me, I breathe into his sweatshirt. I think about all the times he’s cheered me up this past year, lifted me when I felt defeated. As I pull away from him, I say, “I hope you and Claire are happy together.” I say it from the most genuine part of me, the part that misses both of them.
“Thanks.” Zach smiles.
He pushes open the door to the hallway. “I’m sorry again, Dani,” he says. “I wish you had told me earlier so I could have helped you.”
I raise my eyes. “You did help me,” I tell him.
Zach gives me another hug and wishes me well at Snider. “I’m proud of you, De La Cruz,” he says. “I’ll be rooting for you.”
Seventy-Three
Claire
Early on Wednesday, the day before the ad board meeting, I go to find Ms. Jones. My parents are still really unsure about this whole ad board thing, but I reassured them that my English teacher’s going to be on it. I push open the door to my English class, but instead of finding Ms. Jones at her desk, I find Mrs. Wallace.
“Where’s Ms. Jones?” I ask.
“Home!” she exclaims. “I’ll be teaching this class again.”
I immediately make an excuse to go to the bathroom. In the bathroom stall, I tap into my in-box, closing my eyes as I hit refresh and wait for my emails to load. Please please . . . let it not be true.
And then I see it.
Dear Claire,
I’m so sorry to be writing you this email. At five o’clock yesterday, I was dismissed from the school. The official reason was that my services were no longer needed as Mrs. Wallace’s suspension has been lifted. The unofficial reason, I suspect, may have to do with my trying to get on the ad board.
Please do not feel at all responsible—I am only telling you this because I feel it is important that young people know the real facts of a situation, not the sugarcoated version. If I had to do it all over again, I would do the same thing because I consider it my utmost duty as a teacher to protect my students. After all, if we cannot offer even this basic level of care in our schools, what right do we have to call ourselves educators?
Good luck tomorrow. I know you’re scared but trust you are doing the right thing and every rational, impartial adult who hears your story will believe you. I certainly do. Do you still remember the thing I taught you about the hero’s journey? Well, this is it. You are the hero, and tomorrow you will find the strength to take back control of your journey. I have faith in you. It has been an honor teaching you.
All my love,
Sharisa Jones
I read and reread the email from Ms. Jones. How could they do this to her? She was the best teacher I had! My in-box notifies me with another email from Dani and I tap Junk Mail before I even read it. I quickly reply back, thanking Ms. Jones for all her help and apologizing for what happened. The bell rings. As I pick up my backpack and walk out of the stall, I try not to think about what this means for tomorrow.
The night before the ad board meeting, I wake up in a cold sweat. I don’t know how to explain it, this inexplicable fear I have. It grows inside me, breeding worries and anxieti
es I can neither articulate nor control whenever I think about what Jay will say tomorrow. Will he deny anything ever happened? Or fill the room with lies, saying that I consented to it, that I asked for it, even enjoyed it?
And if he does, will I sit passively, eyes glazed over while he spews these lies? Or will I lunge forward and put my enraged hands around his throat?
I call Zach in the middle of the night. He stays on the phone with me while I try to calm down.
“It’s going to be okay,” he says. “Have faith . . . it’s like your English teacher said. Any rational adult will see you’re telling the truth.”
“Thanks, Zach,” I whisper. He’s been steadfastly sweet to me, coming by every day, sitting with me and my friends at lunch, even though Jess eyes him like he’s a statement button I picked up at Gap Outlet.
“Hey, I talked to Dani today,” he says.
“And?”
“I think you should talk to her.”
I sigh into the phone. I’m not ready to talk to her. I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready. Instead, I bid Zach a good night and hang up to try to catch some sleep. I tell myself there’s nothing to be scared of tomorrow. The worst thing that can happen to me has already happened.
Seventy-Four
Dani
Ming takes me to the airport. We linger in Starbucks until the last minute, so I don’t have to join Mr. Connelly and my teammates any earlier than I have to.
“How do you feel?” Ming asks.
“Like I really don’t want to go on a five-hour flight with those assholes.”
“Don’t think about them,” Ming says. “You’re not debating for them or for American Prep. You’re debating for you.”
I lean in to hug her. “Thanks.”
As I gather up my boarding pass and start walking toward the gate, Ming calls out to me, “Hey, Dani!”
I turn around.
“Show ’em you don’t need a parachute to soar!”
It takes five and a half hours to fly to Boston, during which time I ignore the whispers from my teammates and Mr. Connelly downing one Bloody Mary after another, two rows up. I repeat Ming’s words in my head—I’m doing this for me. I’m doing this for my mom, for Yale, for a future I can’t afford to give up on.
When the plane lands, I text Claire again on Messenger. Still no response. She’s not checking her messages. We get two Ubers to the hotel. As we pull up, I see the banner hanging on the Charles Hotel: Welcome to the 5th Annual Snider Cup: The Nation’s Top Debating and Public Speaking Tournament. I take a minute to take it in. This is it. I made it.
Mr. Connelly assigns me to a room with Audrey. When we unpack, Audrey wrinkles her nose at my polyester-rayon black dress. She hangs up her own Theory stretch wool dress in the closet and points to my cheap Payless shoes.
“You might want to draw over your shoes with a permanent marker,” Audrey says.
My face reddens. My pumps are so overworn, the fake black leather’s peeling off.
“No, thanks,” I say, picking up the shoes and hugging them close to my chest.
At the opening ceremony, the Hotchkiss kids huddle next to us going over last-minute motions. I peek over at their motions.
This house believes the state should lace water supply with a chemical that homogenizes people’s intelligence to the intelligence level of an average university graduate.
This house would force all companies worth over $1 billion to list publicly.
This house believes that developing countries should heavily disincentivize rural to urban migration.
Holy shit. These motions are so much harder than the ones we’ve been studying. Audrey and Josh are on their phones talking to their private debate coaches. My airways are closing up. Heat crawls up my neck as I realize I may be out of my league here. My phone rings. It’s my mom.
“Hi, honey! I just wanted to wish you good luck!” she says. “I’m sorry I can’t be there, but I know you’ll do well!”
The enthusiasm in her voice collides with the impossibility of the motions I’ve just seen. I think of all the extra nights she’s worked to save up so I can come here, all the things she’s had to give up, including her own education, and I’m filled with the most soul-crushing guilt.
“I don’t know if I can do it, Mom . . . ,” I tell her. My voice wobbles.
“What are you talking about?” she asks. “Of course you can do it!”
I glance at my teammates on the phone, their coaches feeding them arguments, giving them talking points. “The other kids, they all have extra help.”
“You don’t need extra help!” my mom says. “And besides, you know things that they don’t know. Things you can’t learn from a textbook! You can do it—I know you can!”
I cover my mouth, shaking my head into the phone. There’s so much she doesn’t know. My mom hangs up, and I turn back to the table. Mr. Connelly looks over at me, opens his mouth like he’s going to say something reassuring, and then closes it. Instead, he turns to my other teammates and builds them up.
That night, I grapple with major imposter syndrome. As I listen to Audrey’s loud snoring, the doubts swirl through my head. What am I doing here? Do I really have what it takes? Eventually, these questions lead to even bigger questions of What’s even the point? They’re just words! Even if I win, will it make one iota of difference? I glance over at Audrey, in her silk pajamas and fuzzy eyeshades. Tomorrow, she’ll get up and say a bunch of woke words she doesn’t believe, and everyone will clap and smile and feel good about themselves, while the world continues to spin in the sexist, racist, classist mess that it is.
I toss and turn on the hotel bed. I close my eyes and picture my mom, but that only stresses me out even more when I think about returning home empty-handed, having wasted her hard-earned dollars. Finally, I find solace in the most disgusting of places . . . Mr. Connelly’s old words to me: “You’re better than all of them.”
As I drift to sleep, I wonder whether in replaying his once cherished words to me, am I forgiving him? Am I betraying myself?
Seventy-Five
Claire
On the day of the ad board proceedings, I’m in the bathroom, checking my email in one of the stalls, getting ready to head to the meeting, when I hear two parachute girls walk in.
“Can you believe she’s actually going through with it?” one of them asks the other in Chinese. “The ad board?”
I peek out through the crack. I recognize the girls from my year, but I don’t know their names.
“She’s not going to win,” the other one says as she reapplies her lipstick in the mirror.
“I hope not. If she wins, what if it gets out? It’ll make the school look so bad, and all our degrees will be worth way less.”
My jaw drops. That’s why they don’t want me to win? Because their degrees are going to be worth less?
“I don’t know why she doesn’t just switch schools,” one of the girls says, flipping her hair to one side. She turns on the faucet to wash her hands.
“Or stay and just, like, avoid him,” the other one suggests.
“Totally.”
I want to laugh at the absurdity of this conversation, me pressed up against the bathroom stall while these two girls discuss how easy it is for me to cruise on through the rest of high school and “blend in” like I’m a tree lizard. I grab my backpack and unlock the door. The two girls freeze. The water collects in the sink.
“Claire! We didn’t know you were in here!”
I walk over to the sink to wash my hands as nonchalantly as I can. As I walk out, I turn to the girls and say, “Excuse me, I have to go devalue your degrees.”
Adrenaline and fear press me forward as I head over to the faculty conference room. The fear that if I don’t do this, this will be my normal, having to listen to people talk about how I chickened out while hiding in a bathroom stall.
Jess and Zach are already inside, waiting for me when I walk in. I smile and take a seat next to them.
>
“Nancy and Florence texted,” Jess says. “They’re on their way.”
I nod. Jay hasn’t arrived yet, thankfully, but the ad board members have. There are four faculty members on the board. They are Mr. Matthews, the school counselor; Mr. Francis, a PE teacher; Ms. Sloan, a teacher I don’t know; and Mrs. Mandalay. The door opens and in comes the student representatives. My eyes flash with surprise when I see Emma Lau, the girl from my class.
She gives me a small, guarded smile as she takes a seat—I can’t believe she’s here! Jordan Bekowski, the other student rep, sits down beside her. Nancy and Florence quietly come in after them.
“Great, are we all here?” Mrs. Mandalay asks.
The door opens. I draw in a sharp breath as Jay walks in.
“Sorry I’m late,” Jay says.
He takes a seat across from me. I sit up, trying not to be intimidated as Zach stares Jay down. The door opens again, and a bunch of other parachutes follow Jay in, faces both familiar and new. They must be his character witnesses. Mrs. Mandalay calls the meeting to order and goes over the rules of the proceedings.
“Claire, since you are the claimant, we will start with you. Can you please walk us through what happened the night of Friday the fifteenth?” she asks.
I pull out my speech. I’d prepared it in advance and rehearsed it a thousand times in my room, like Dani always did before a big debate. As I read my statement, my voice is nowhere near as strong as hers. It wobbles with emotion. Still, I manage to get the words out. When I get to the part where he pushed me onto the bed, Jay interrupts me.
“Excuse me, I didn’t push you onto the bed. You climbed onto the bed with me,” he corrects.
Mr. Francis leans forward. “So you’re saying it was consensual?” he asks Jay, scribbling on his notebook.