All of This Is True Read online

  You’re welcome. I meant everything

  I said. You’ll be fine, Brady. How are

  things with you and Sunny?

  We’re good.

  Happy to hear it. She’s such a great

  girl. I think you’re good for each other.

  Me too. I asked her to be my girlfriend. I’m ready to take that step, move on with my life, thanks to you.

  Aww, that’s great.

  You think so?

  Yes. I’m happy for you. Let’s talk

  again—same time tomorrow, ok?

  Ok. Sweet.

  Should I text you or . . .

  Just call me. I’ll be around.

  Ok bye.

  Good night. Everything’s

  going to be all right. Bye.

  Miri

  Quinn came up with a plan to have tank tops made to help us with recruitment.

  Tank tops?

  Her mom owns a print shop that makes promotional items. She handles practically every bar and bat mitzvah and event on Long Island. For Quinn’s sweet sixteen pool party, Quinn gave all the girls booty shorts that said SWEET across the ass. They were vulgar and adorable. We adored them, naturally. So for Undertow Society, she got us these teeny little tank tops with the words LOOK INTO MY EYES NOT AT MY CHEST across the boobs and #TheTheory on the back. Whenever we wore the tanks, people would ask, “What’s #TheTheory?” And so we’d explain it and invite them to a meeting.

  Clever.

  Quinn Donner is a marketing phenom. Then I came up with a Twitter account to work with the T-shirts; anyone could share a precious truth with #TheTheory. [searches through her phone] Look. People posted things like, “My precious truth is that I’m afraid of red foods. #TheTheory,” “I still cry every night about my dead cat. #TheTheory.” See? There must be hundreds of them. “Me and my girl made an authentic human connection with our pants down. #TheTheory.” Okay, well, that one’s probably a joke, but most of them are serious. And here’s a picture of us in the tank tops. [shows photo of several girls pouting, wearing white tank tops with red lettering]

  Vulgar and adorable.

  [sits tall] Thank you so much.

  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: RE: !!!!

  Soleil, you poor thing. Don’t be so hard on yourself. You haven’t done a thing wrong. You’ve been the best friend to him that anyone could possibly expect. Jonah felt comfortable enough with you to kiss you; he even trusts you enough to want you as his girlfriend. Those are good things.

  We’re both doing the same thing—reading these awful articles. It’s frightening to learn that someone you care about has been hurt. But you can’t ignore his past. He’s been through unimaginable pain that will probably always be a part of who he is. Reading about South Carmine is a way to achieve an authentic human connection, especially if he doesn’t want to talk about it.

  Get one thing straight. You’re not screwing him up! You’re making that sad, troubled boy happy. What a beautiful thing. I’ve seen him moping around. You’ve given him so much to feel optimistic about. You’re not weak—you’re compassionate and affectionate. Don’t feel guilty for a second.

  You can also be sure of this: he and I talked until he was spent. Believe me, he had nothing left to say by the time you two left. And if it didn’t feel natural for him to get physical with you, he wouldn’t have. Do what feels right for you. You and Jonah are adorable together. It was apparent from the start that you two had something special. Nothing heals wounds better than love. If you make each other happy, that’s all that matters.

  I hope you know that I’ll never judge you. I thank you for being transparent with me. You and I are the only ones who know Jonah’s secret. We have to keep it for him and tell each other everything, and I mean everything, or else it’ll be too much for us to shoulder alone. Jonah needs us both, and you and I need each other.

  Penny

  The worst thing was that when I got home I still kept seeing food pictures from Miri, Natalie and the Levys, and the rest of them. I was so mad. They were having mac and cheese and sliders and brownies . . . ugh. So I was going to make macaroni and cheese for myself, but we didn’t have any left. We have a smart pantry—when we’re low on something the computer puts it on our grocery list. Then a service delivers it. It was on the list, I checked, but it was Friday, and our delivery doesn’t come until Saturday. [sighs] Sometimes life is so unfair.

  The Absolution of Brady Stevenson

  BY FATIMA RO

  (excerpt)

  Brady opened his laptop to visit Sunny’s Facebook page.

  RELATIONSHIP STATUS: single

  He wasn’t expecting to see anything different. He’d only dropped her off at home thirty minutes earlier. He couldn’t believe such a disastrous conversation ended up so, so, so . . . hot. He and Sunny were so freakin’ hot together on Fatima’s front stoop.

  Sunny hadn’t posted anything for three days, not since an announcement for the Undertow meeting. Was that meeting only hours earlier? It felt so long ago. Sunny’s profile photo, of her leaning against a railing on a boat, was gorgeous. Her hair was windblown. She was looking up at the camera so that you could somewhat see down her top, and her expression was sexy and cute combined. He’d always wanted a girlfriend who was sexy and cute combined. But the picture might’ve been too perfect. While he appreciated the cleavage and the hair, the photo made Sunny look one-dimensional, which she most certainly wasn’t. She was kind and compassionate. The photo zapped those qualities away. Kindness and compassion are a lot to ask of a photo, so while Brady looked at it, he also thought of her saying, “. . . 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.” Man, she was such a sweet girl.

  Sunny was one of the only people he knew who was on Facebook. She said she did it for her grandmother in Florida, who liked to keep up with Sunny’s life. Among many admirable qualities, Sunny was also a good granddaughter.

  Brady opened a second tab to play an Ed Sheeran video, a song that Sunny liked when it came on in the car. Suddenly it was Brady’s favorite. He was more into alternative rock at the moment, but this is how wrapped up he was in Sunny Vaughn.

  He opened a third tab and visited the Morley school website. The students on the site were perfect and perfect together: the black guy, the white guy, the Asian girl, the white girl, the Latino guy. They stood in Morley blazers and science lab goggles behind beakers and vials of bubbling liquid. Their ethnically ambiguous teacher wearing a lab coat looked on proudly. One Heart and One Mind. There were dozens of events listed on the calendar that Brady didn’t know about. There was the Snow Ball, Student Art Exhibit, Charity Banquet Night, Junior Ring Ceremony, and a Junior Class College Fair.

  He usually didn’t pay much attention to the goings-on at school. He attended Morley in body, but emotionally he was empty. He went through the motions, collected high enough grades, kept a low profile, and left all forms of school spirit to the girls. If he and Sunny were a couple, he’d have to become a more active participant in order to keep up with her. The thought of joining and belonging to something again and having someone special depend on him was exciting. He could take Sunny to the Snow Ball in January. She’d like that. Dances were a very TV teen drama thing to do. He could ask the DJ to play the Ed Sheeran song. He was thinking like a good boyfriend already.

  Brady traced his cursor over the words “Junior Class College Fair.” At one time he thought he might like to go to Cornell, Northeastern, MIT, or Harvard. After wrestling camp, he’d dismissed
the thought. But now? Thora made him think that it might still be possible. Sunny had been talking about Vassar or Sarah Lawrence, BU, maybe Columbia (like Thora). He wanted to be in her league, at the very least. The worst boyfriend is the kind who holds a smart girl back. He didn’t want to be that guy. This relationship was going in a very positive direction, and they hadn’t even been official for an hour yet.

  Brady opened a fourth tab. He skimmed quickly through Marni’s Instagram photos from the Witches Brew. She was still at it, posting The Drowning quotes up to the minute.

  “This escape was only temporary, Jules knew. But it was good enough for now. Who was ready to face forever anyway?”

  #TheDrowningUninterrupted #CantStopTheDrowning

  You had to hand it to Marni. She definitely knew how to commit. That’s what Thora expected from true friends. That’s what Thora would get from Brady, too: devotion.

  Brady checked on Sunny’s Doors project at #VargasStudioArt. Sunny was making progress. One illustration was replaced by a photo of Thora Temple’s front door. Brady recognized its dry wooden paneling and the glass on both sides. He had stared at it from the car and also kissed Sunny in front of it. He thought about his mouth on hers and clicked back to Sunny’s Facebook photo.

  RELATIONSHIP STATUS: in a relationship

  Brady laughed. He was the luckiest guy. And wouldn’t Sunny’s grandmother be thrilled? He shut his laptop and yawned. The events of the evening fell over his eyelids. Unlike every other night that year, he fell asleep immediately after the Lord’s Prayer.

  Miri

  How are you doing today, Miri? That top is a great color for the camera.

  Thanks. [clears throat] My allergies are kicking in. I’m good, though. [coughs] I want to talk about Monday morning at Graham Assembly. Everyone was talking about my meeting the way they used to talk about the parties.

  Graham Assembly?

  Faculty and students meet in the auditorium every first and third Monday for goal-setting and unification. “Unius animi, unius mentis.” One heart and one mind.

  Must be a private school thing.

  Graham is steeped in tradition. But like I said, getting chased out by security was the best thing that could’ve happened to us. Picture it. Suddenly Undertow Society was this dangerous, forbidden meet-up. Everyone wanted in on it. Do you know what Fatima once said about hosting?

  No. What?

  She said, “There’s one thing cooler than owning the scene, and that’s disowning the scene.”

  [laughs]

  She was right. Quitting parties earned us a certain mystique. The whole school wanted to know what we were into if not the parties. Fatima Ro became the next big thing.

  You seem to have a lot of influence on your classmates.

  Trendsetters! Click! [pretends to take a selfie] [laughs] Yeah. Everyone was talking about the secret society that got chased off campus. Once the story built some momentum, people were saying that the cops came. There was even talk of us smoking pot and burning candles while chanting passages from Undertow. The stories took on this very dark element. And dozens of kids claimed to have been there who weren’t. We took attendance, remember. But just so you know, there were no drugs. That wasn’t Fatima’s thing. She actually has a whole philosophy about alcohol and drugs in life and in novels—that they’re a cop-out excuse for poor behavior and a weak device for advancing plot. There’s always a deeper reason, a psychological motivation for our actions, and it’s an author’s job to figure that out. But that’s beside the point. There were no drugs. Ever.

  But you didn’t correct any of the inaccuracies about the Undertow meeting as you heard them.

  What are you, crazy? [laughs]

  Publicity.

  That’s right. At assembly, kids were asking if we really knew Fatima personally, so we rapid-fire posted pictures on Instagram. Now, you have to remember that our pictures were not the kinds that any fan could’ve taken with Fatima at, say, a signing or even bumping into her on the street. They were clearly taken over time, very intimate in nature. We were wearing different clothes in each one; we were lying on the woman’s living room floor; Fatima and Soleil were modeling their topknots in the bathroom mirror. Some of the Undertow fans commented, “Photoshopped!” and were being catty. Jealousy is an ugly troll. Fatima used to say, “There will always be negative bitches.” [laughs] [coughs] Becoming a successful writer at twenty-two made her no stranger to that.

  I’m sure.

  That topknot, by the way, became an absolute thing at Graham after Soleil posted that photo, and Soleil couldn’t get enough of showing everyone how to do it the Fatima Ro way. Teachers were wearing that rat’s nest of a hairdo, I’m not even exaggerating.

  I can imagine.

  Fatima joked that I made her famous at Graham.

  Now she’s just famous. Period.

  Right. The famous “seductress.” [uses air quotes] [sighs] You know, I would’ve wanted Soleil to be more involved in the movement. Normally it would’ve been exactly the thing she’d jump on. But after she and Jonah got together, I just didn’t see her devotion to it anymore. Obviously they left the meeting to feel each other up, since that was just so much more pressing an issue. [pauses] Isn’t it funny? How we could pick apart and analyze Undertow for months and months, oh, with its themes of the temptations of the flesh and the sins of the daughter, but the second a cute guy shows a glimmer of not being gay, all logic and any previous loyalties just fly out the window.

  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 3

  * * *

  DATE: October 16, 2016

  TO: [email protected]

  FROM: [email protected]

  SUBJECT: Articles

  Have you seen these???

  longislanddaily.com/metro/news/features/293849/

  South Carmine: A District Steeped in Hazing Culture

  Prior to last month’s alleged hazing incident involving high school wrestling champions, there were dozens of complaints to the South Carmine School District regarding hazing, as indicated in records going back several years. South Carmine is known among its students, as well as those in neighboring towns and rival sports districts, as a school with a hazing culture that runs deep. Complaints have ranged from name-calling and “checking” in the hallways (where a student bumps another in order to knock the books out of his arms) to “pantsing” (pulling someone’s pants down), and dousing students with urine, and escalate to the most recent case of sexual simulation and assault. School administrators failed to pursue the majority of complaints from years past, while other incidences were barely investigated past the questioning stage. In some cases, students were advised to drop their complaints or run the risk of jeopardizing their place on a sports team.

  Hazing practices were also reported in South Carmine Middle School. Complaints date back six years, which is as long as the district holds disciplinary records. These include reports of a student’s clothing getting stolen from a locker room, a student being held down while being smothered with soiled underwear, and food tampering.

  When asked about the frequency of hazing in their school district, South Carmine student athletes said they are well aware of the school’s history of hazing. In fact, they expect some degree of initiation upon joining a team. “Everyone knows it goes on,” said Henry Lafferty, 18, a South Carmine senior. “When you go out for a sport, you brace yourself because you know that something’s coming.” Jeff Bukowski, 17, a South Carmine senior, said, “Some people get it worse than others, but it’s meant to toughen you up. If you’re respected, if you’re good enough, you don’t have anything to worry about.” Michael Yang, 18, basketball team cocaptain, said, “I don’t know that everything that’s been said about the wrestlers is true. I
f a guy’s got something against another guy, you never know what he’ll make up about you.” Bryant Hersey, 17, a South Carmine honor student, said, “When it comes to the hazing in general, it’s just part of being in the group. A lot of kids would trade places with you if they could be part of something important.”

  nychronicle.com/articles/news/headlines/920392221/

  Long Island Community in Uproar

  Parents and community members in the South Carmine School District have expressed outrage today at Judge Perry Larsing’s swift decision to sentence the three ringleaders, ages 16, 17, and 17 of the high school wrestling team hazing incident to 9 to 12 months in a juvenile detention facility. Judge Perry Larsing had already been criticized for trying the boys as minors; many South Carmine residents expected the boys to be tried as adults due to the nature and severity of the crimes. Psychologist Rosemary Vince of Stony Brook University stated, “The brain isn’t fully developed until around the age of 25. It is unreasonable to expect adult behavior from an underdeveloped brain.” However, many Long Island parents disagree. “These kids are old enough to know right from wrong. If they’re old enough to win a tournament and get on honor roll, they’re old enough to take responsibility for assaulting a teammate. They should’ve been tried and sentenced as adults,” said Thomas Lerner, South Carmine resident. In response to the public criticism of his leniency, Judge Perry Larsing responded that sentencing the young boys as adults would likely “cause more harm than good” and that he wanted to spare the former championship high school wrestlers from “undue trauma.”

  SOLEIL