Chapter 3: Flashback: The Night Before High School Graduation

I let my homemade chocolate melt on my tongue before falling asleep that night. The tang of the mind-altering herbs lingered, blending with the sweetness. Something to settle me after my meeting with the dean—grandmaster for my new survival competition. As the familiar stupor set in, time and place began to blur. I felt myself drifting—until suddenly, I was there again: one year earlier, the night before graduation.

One Year Earlier

Coronado Prep

My neck craned sideways—an ergonomic nightmare.

With only a few hours left before my valedictorian speech, my fingers flew across the laptop keyboard in a frenzy. Genius at work, or madman? Probably both.

Neon Post-its were plastered on the walls and scattered across my bed, each one holding a confession I wasn’t ready to say out loud. “My actions have not caused someone’s death.” A lie. I’d written it in bold, sharp letters and stuck it in the back of my high school yearbook, hoping that staring at the words long enough might somehow make them true.

I was still gazing at the Post-it when my phone buzzed across the bed. It was Parker.

PARKER: "Be there in 15. Can’t wait for the Prin Masterpiece. I’m sure it’s a knockout, you 1-percenter :)"

He never missed a chance to tease me about being in the top one percent of our class, especially since I was also the youngest—eighteen months to be exact—thanks to Grandmother’s little lie on my kindergarten registration. But his playful jab couldn’t stop my racing thoughts. I typed back, face hovering over the screen.

ME: "Are you calling me a nerdy overachiever?"

PARKER: "Nah. Not nerdy. Adorable."

Adorable like a puppy, or like your dream girl? I stared at the text stream. After midnight, it was hard to tell if this was flirty banter or just… banter.

ME: "Whatever. Aren’t you a 2-percenter?"

PARKER: "More like 1.5 percent, but who’s counting?"

ME: "The only difference between you and me is you’re still in denial. BTW, don’t forget the espresso jelly beans—I need all the caffeine I can get."

I glanced at the blue Post-it stuck to my laptop: “Vibing confidence and composure.” Another lie. My mantra had been to fake it until...well, I ran out of energy to keep faking it. I wasn’t composed. I wasn’t confident. But somehow, Parker made me feel like I was.

The door swung open, and Zara—my best friend besides Parker—breezed in, her silk robe flowing behind her. She was always like that—elegant, effortless. The opposite of me. 

Tonight, though, she looked concerned as she navigated through the sea of papers to reach my bed.

“Prin! When you texted SOS, I didn’t think it was this bad.”

I shrugged, flipping through the pages of my speech without really seeing the words. “Only nine hours until game time.” If only I were a clutch player.

Zara perched on the bed’s edge, eyeing the mess of papers everywhere. “The speech is excellent, but something’s off.”  Her face puckered, like she was squeezing her thoughts the way one presses a lemon to flavor a French tart.

“Just nervous.” An acidic taste hit my tongue when visions of my classmates’ faces staring back at me from the audience surfaced. Doritos. I should’ve skipped that late-night snack instead of indulging my artificial cheese addiction.

My tension spiked as I gazed at the yellow Post-it stuck in my yearbook: “My actions have not caused someone’s death.” Zara had thrown herself into editing our high school yearbook, her staff photo tucked away on the back page, hidden beneath layers of French tulle, as if camouflaging her grief. Would Zara forgive me if she knew I was the reason her sister died—as if I’d handed her the poisoned apple myself?

Outside, the sound of footsteps hitting the pavement drifted in through my open bedroom window, and I glanced outside. Parker.

Zara arched an eyebrow. “So... what’s going on with you two? Have you finally told him you’re madly in love with him?”

I tossed a pillow at her. “Zara, seriously. We’re just friends.” It was more a statement to convince myself than her.

She caught the pillow easily, smirking. “Please. You two are like the world’s slowest romance novel. Everyone’s waiting for the big confession.”

Before I could argue, Parker knocked on the door and stepped in, wearing his usual faded crimson Harvard T-shirt, jeans, and that calm smile that made everything feel both lighter—and heavier. “Sorry I’m late. Got caught up with something.” Something or someone?

“Thanks,” I mumbled, smiling as I took the bag of jellybeans. “What’s the excuse this time? Another chem emergency with pheromone girl?”  I teased, thinking of the countless Coronado Prep girls who swooned over him—flirty birds of prey fluttering their eyelash extensions like Morse code for what Zara called a BILF—Boy I’d Like To…

Parker grinned. “What can I say? It’s hard being this irresistible.” He leaned against the desk, his posture as casual as ever, like a billboard model pretending he wasn’t posing. But I couldn’t shake the thoughts swirling in my mind. There was so much I couldn’t say. 

Post-it Lie: “I’m grateful for my friendship with Parker S.” My lies kept us firmly in the friend zone. That’s all we could ever be. 

“Here,” he said, handing me the espresso jelly beans.

I eyed them suspiciously. “These look different than my usual ones. Please don’t tell me they're sugar-free and vegan?”

He rolled his eyes. “No, most jelly beans, like these, contain animal by-products. And I made sure they’re loaded with sugar, just how you like them.”

I tore open the bag, grinning. “Thanks. I know your room is a processed-food-free zone. All junk food needs an invitation.” I popped a jelly bean into my mouth and asked, “So… who’s going to supply me when you’re off in Boston?”

He smiled, but there was tension behind it. “You’ll find another sucker. Besides, whose textbooks am I supposed to steal when I forget mine?”

I laughed, remembering the first time we met in the library, after my grades tanked from the failed experiment of studying in the Coronado Prep girl’s dorm. He’d found me face-planted in my biology book, the page still damp from two a.m. drool. A meet-cute nightmare. “That was a one-time thing. And I’m pretty sure you still owe me.”

He shook his head, laughing easily, though something unreadable flickered in his eyes. “I paid you back, remember? That fine dining experience–an E. coli-infested burger from the dining hall.”

I rolled my eyes, feeling a small wave of relief in the banter. “Ah yes, the pinnacle of culinary excellence.” Had he not been so handsome, my compulsive germ-thoughts would’ve won.

He laughed, and I felt a buzz of energy. Darn it. As if my nerves weren’t already raw.

“Let’s hear it,” he said, eyes locked on mine. “Give it to me.”

“She’d love to do exactly that, BILF,” Zara grinned, while I tried to hide my embarrassment.

Parker’s face twisted in confusion, as if he’d only caught half of what Zara said. “Huh?”

“Never mind, Zara. Let me start my speech.” I launched into my rehearsed monologue about humble beginnings and earning the school’s merit scholarship. The Coronado Prep poster child. I had to be—for my grandmother.  

Neither she nor my mom would be in the audience.

I glanced at the wristwatch Parker gave me. Three-thirty-five a.m. I shoved the speech into a binder, hiding the pastel Post-it: My dream school in Boston rejected me.

I hadn’t told them. Not Parker, not Zara. There was too much I hadn’t told them.

Parker wrapped his arm around my waist. “Prin gets a proper meal tomorrow night if she can slip the words ‘backdoor’ and ‘foreplay’ into her last paragraph.” Bubbly laughter welled up inside me. How did he always know what to say? 

When Parker finally left that night, his smile lingering in the doorway, I had a feeling it would be the last time he saw me—at least as the person he thought I was. 

Early the next morning, I reached into the depths of my closet to retrieve my late grandmother’s graduation gift. She had made me promise—her frail figure adorned with IV tubes that fanned out like peacock feathers—to wait until after graduation to open it. With a few hours left before my speech, I figured it was close enough.

As I unwrapped the gift, I was startled to discover a letter she had secretly tucked inside. My fingers trembled as I unfolded the paper and began to read her words, devouring them at light speed:

My Dearest Princess,

If you are reading this letter, my time on this earth has ended, and my spirit has moved on to the heavens...

Your mother would be so proud to see you following in her footsteps. If only you could have known her. I shielded you from certain truths I didn’t have the courage to share. Your mother was brilliant, but she was also sensitive. Weeks after your birth, she sank into a silence I couldn’t break. She drowned herself in Bali. I never had the heart to tell you the truth...

Acid rose up my wind-pipe. I couldn’t digest the words.

And for a moment, I wanted to burn the letter—to pretend it had never existed.

Grandma had always told me my mother died in a car accident. That was a lie. She’d drowned herself—because of my birth. I was responsible for another death...again. Zara’s sister Layla. My mother. Who would be next? Parker? My chest tightened, barely letting in any air. I was drowning, pulled down by the weight of it all to the ocean floor.

Grandma had curated my life like a game of Jenga, stacking each piece on teenage angst and the need for approval. And now, with this truth, she had yanked out the foundation. The storybook version of my mother she’d created was all built on lies. How did I not see it? I was the Queen—no, the Princess—of fabrications.

But why now? Why wait until she was six feet under? For the best reason of all: it’s hard to hate a dead person.

It took me less than thirty minutes to pack my bags and disappear. Gone, just like that. 

Running away? No—I was getting out before anyone else died.

***