One of Us is Lying(86)

God. It’s true. I didn’t fully believe it till now.

I’m not supposed to tell her everything. I’m actually not supposed to tell her anything, but I do. I can’t think how else to have this conversation. When I finish she rises and goes upstairs without a word. I wait for a couple of minutes, curling one hand on my lap and using the other to tug at my earring. Is she calling somebody? Getting a gun to blow my head off? Slitting her wrists to join Simon?

Just when I think I might have to go after her, Janae thuds down the stairs holding a thin sheaf of papers she thrusts toward me. “Simon’s manifesto,” she says with a sour twist of her mouth. “It’s supposed to be sent to the police a year from now, after all your lives are completely screwed. So everyone would know he pulled it off.”

The papers tremble in my hand as I read:

Here’s the first thing you need to know: I hate my life and everything in it.

So I decided to get the hell out. But not go quietly.

I thought a lot about how to do this. I could buy a gun, like pretty much any asshole in America. Bar the doors one morning and take out as many Bayview lemmings as I have bullets for before turning the last one on myself.

And I’d have a lot of bullets.

But that’s been done to death. It doesn’t have the same impact anymore.

I want to be more creative. More unique. I want my suicide to be talked about for years. I want imposters to try to imitate me. And fail, because the planning this takes is beyond your average depressed loser with a death wish.

You’ve been watching it unfold for a year now. If it’s gone the way I hope, you have no clue what actually happened.



I look up from the papers. “Why?” I ask, bile rising in my throat. “How did Simon get to this point?”

“He’d been depressed for a while,” Janae says, kneading the fabric of her black skirt between her hands. The stacks of studded bracelets she wears on both arms rattle with the movement. “Simon always felt like he should get a lot more respect and attention than he did, you know? But he got really bitter about it this year. He started spending all his time online with a bunch of creepers, fantasizing about getting revenge on everyone who made him miserable. It got to the point where I don’t think he even knew what was real anymore. Whenever something bad happened, he blew it way out of proportion.”

Words are tumbling out of her now. “He started talking about killing himself and taking people with him, but, like, creatively. He got obsessed with the idea of using the app to frame everyone he hated. He knew Bronwyn cheated and it pissed him off. She practically had valedictorian sewn up anyway, but she made it impossible for him to catch up. He thought she’d screwed him out of going to the Model UN finals too. And he couldn’t stand Nate because of what happened with Keely. Simon had thought he had a shot with her, and then Nate stole her away without even trying or actually giving a fuck.”

My heart contracts. God, poor Nate. What a stupid, pointless reason to end up in jail. “What about Cooper? Did Simon involve him because of Keely too?”

Janae snorts out a bitter laugh. “Mr. Nice Guy? Cooper got Simon blacklisted from Vanessa’s after-prom party. Even though Simon was on the court and everything. He was so humiliated that he was not only not invited, but actually not even allowed to go. Everyone was going to be there, he said.”

“Cooper did?” I blink. That’s news to me. Cooper hadn’t mentioned it, and I never even noticed Simon wasn’t there.

Which I guess was part of the problem.

Janae bobs her head. “Yeah. I don’t know why, but he did. So those three were Simon’s targets, and he had his gossip all lined up. I still thought it was just talk, though. A way to blow off steam. Maybe it would’ve been, if I could have convinced him to get offline and stop obsessing. But then Jake found out something Simon didn’t want anyone to know and it just—that was the final straw.”

Oh no. Every second that went by without a mention of Jake’s name made me hope he wasn’t involved, after all. “What do you mean?” I pull at my earring so hard, I’m in danger of tearing a lobe.

Janae picks at her chipped nail polish, sending gray flakes across her skirt. “Simon rigged the votes so he’d be on the junior prom court.” My hand freezes at my ear and my eyes go wide. Janae huffs out a humorless little laugh. “I know. Stupid, right? Simon was weird like that. He’d make fun of people for being lemmings, but he still wanted the same things they did. And he wanted them to look up to him. So he did it, and he was gloating about it at the pool last summer, saying how easy it was and how he’d mess with homecoming too. And Jake overheard us.”

I can immediately picture Jake’s reaction, so Janae’s next words don’t surprise me. “He laughed his head off. Simon freaked. He couldn’t stand the thought of Jake telling people, and everyone at school knowing he’d done something so pathetic. Like, he’d spent years spilling everybody’s secrets, and now he was gonna get humiliated with one of his own.” She cringes. “Can you imagine? The creator of About That getting exposed as such a wannabe? It sent him over the edge.”

“The edge?” I echo.

“Yeah. Simon decided to stop talking about his crazy plan and actually do it. He already knew about you and TJ, but he’d been sitting on that till school started again. So he used it to shut Jake up and bring him in. Because Simon needed somebody to keep things going after he died, and I wouldn’t do it.”