one of us is lying

Bronwyn

She has her heart set on going to Yale and would do anything to maintain high grades and protect her sister Maeve. She is the brains of the group from detention and seemingly never breaks the rules.

Addy

Is seemingly perfect but is never seen without her controlling boyfriend Jake. She hangs out with the athletic kids but after the incident with Simon, she realizes that none of them are her real friends.

Cooper

Is an athlete at his high school and is doing well on the baseball team but after Simon dies he is suspected of using drugs. He begins to recieve unwanted attention.

Nate

His dad is an alcoholic is his mother left them. He was able to support his family by selling drugs but got caught and is now monitored by Officer Lopez. He is the only one from detention with a criminal backgroung making him the most suspicious.

Simon

Simon ran a webpage that exposed people at his school and revealed their darkest secrets. Almost everyone at school hated him and he had a peanut allergy so when he died after drinking peanut oil, the police assumed it was murder.

Cause of Simon's Death:

Simon was in detention and couldn't find his water bottle. He went to the sink in the back of the room and filled a little paper cup. When he drank the water, there was peanut oil in the cup and there were no EpiPen's in the clinic, so Simon went into anaphylactic shock and died.

Effect of Simon's Death:

When Simon died Bronwyn, Nate, Cooper, and Addy were immediately suspected as murderers and were heavliy investigated. Each of them had a secret revealed about them that made their lives temporarily miserable.

Solution:

After several Tumblr posts with details from the incident surrounding Simon's death and an intense investigation, it is revealed that the accident that happened in the parking lot during detention was just a distraction for Simon to put the peanut oil in his own cup and kill himself.

Cause

After Simon died, there was an investigation done on his webpage that revealed secrets about everyone in detention the day of his death. His posts were never wrong and when the cops went through the site, they discovered that Addy cheated on Jake. When confronted by the cops, she was consumed with guilt and confessed to Jake.

Effect

After they broke up, Addy lost all of her friends except Cooper. She began hanging out with the others that had been in detention with her. She cut her hair and tried to distance herself from her past.

Solution

Addy begins to suspect Jake had something to do with Simon's death, so she tries to record him when he is talking to someone else about his death. Jake figures out what she is doing and chases her into the woods. He tries to kill her, but Cooper saves her before anything too severe happens. Their break up helped Addy realize that she could exist without someone controlling her. Her strength that came from this helps her prove that Jake was involved in Simon's death and gets him sent to prison.

Cause

Nate could not afford a good lawyer, and the ones assigned to him were not very useful, so he decided he didn't need one. He had appeared the most guilty throughout the entire investigation, but after he had evidence planted in his locker, he was convicted.

Effect

The investigation and media coverage began to slow for Bronwyn, Addy, and Cooper, but they knew that Nate was not guilty. They began their own investigation and Bronwyn asks a good lawyer to take Nate's case without the fees.

Solution

Bronwyn and the others begin their own investigation and discover that Jake was involved in Simon's death, but Nate's lawyer isn't allowed to converse with Bronwyn. When they take matters into their own hands, Addy gets injured, but Jake is convicted, and Nate is set free.

Why

The problem should have been resolved this way because Nate began to shut down after he was released. He wouldn't talk to anyone for weeks and the people that he had talked to prior to being imprisoned were struggling emotionally because he had been a support system.

Effect

If Nate had not been imprisoned, it may have taken longer to figure out that Simon committed suicide and that Jake helped cover it up. Nate's family would have functioned normally quicker. His father would have gotten into recovery sooner than he did, and Bronwyn wouldn't have had to struggle with their separation.