The rest of the story is nowhere near as convoluted as it feels in my head. It’s a very simple and straightforward series of colossally stupid decisions.

“Oh, Henri,” Mr. Vu says. “That was . . . just a very dumb thing to do.”

He sounds like he’s trying to skirt some line of professionalism in his mind: stuck somewhere between what he wants to say and what the FATE handbook prescribes in exchanges like these.

“We take misrepresentation very seriously here,” he finally says, chin slightly up and fingers laced again. “We have to, I’m afraid.”

I realize then that a disappointed Mr. Vu and my record here at FATE are in free fall. The floor is still falling.

“Am I suspended?”

Am I expelled? Will FATE still let me graduate?

“Not at the moment, no. But we’ll discuss it more Monday morning.”

Is there even a tomorrow, or is the meteorite starting to pierce the atmosphere right now, headed straight for New York?

“Maybe you should take the afternoon off, after all,” Mr. Vu says, catching a glimpse of the phone in my hand. “Go home, talk to your parents. I expect they might have been contacted by the university too by now.”

“And Dean Troy?” I ask, already knowing the answer.

“Oh, she has definitely been contacted.”

My body seems to understand that I should be moving now, which is how I find myself at the door of Mr. Vu’s office, feeling my phone vibrate with yet another text.

“Henri?”

“Yes?”

“I’ll send Columbia an email on your behalf,” he says with a weak smile. “I don’t know if it’ll do anything, but . . .” He sounds genuinely concerned, which is nice, I suppose. “You’re a good kid. I know that.”

“Thanks, Mr. Vu,” I say, without smiling. I’m not that, but it’s a nice thing to say.

Once in the hallway, I get another text from Dad: a string of question marks that look like they’re vibrating.

Ma is coming home from work too! We have to celebrate!

Crap. She just told me not to tell you she was coming home! Never mind!

Pretend to be surprised, OK, college boy?

So my parents don’t know yet what happened.

I realize now that this isn’t rock bottom. Rock bottom will be seeing the looks on my parents’ faces when I tell them what I’ve done.

Twenty-Six

When I was a kid, riding the subway home from school was the highlight of my day. I liked people, the very concept of them. Making eye contact with them, asking them something about their clothes or where they were going, and watching their faces brighten as they opened up. It was a game to see if I could make smile the grumpiest elderly man with a dusty bow tie if I performed for him long enough.