Based before the episode The Tell Tale Tot explaining Zay's bit in the episode

Chapter 2- I know things.

"Mr. Babineaux?" Their teacher had asked as Zay was gathering up his things to leave. It always felt like Mr. Matthews' class was the longest and that Mr. Matthews' was probably the most important guy at their school because he seemed to have so much control. Lucas had told of how Mr. Matthews' had made them do a project where they had to give their phones up and communicate, and he let students leave without any of the other faculty getting on him for it. How did he do that?

"I'm not in trouble." He said instantly, a self defense mechanism that came without thought.

"I've been noticing you've been turning in your homework on time."

"You can't get me in trouble for that!" Zay said quickly.

"No no I'm glad. You seem to want to be learning which isn't what I saw the first few days you were here." Zay sighed in relief. It wasn't so much that he wanted to be learning but there was this strange irrepressible desire to be better than Farkle Minkus. Could anyone blame him? The little twerp had taken his place as Lucas' best friend. Zay had convinced himself if he was a little smarter maybe Lucas would want to be his best friend again.

"I've noticed other things too. You seem a bit competitive."

"I'm not competitive. I'm not good enough at anything to be competitive."

"You seem to want to compete with Farkle, that true?"

"No." He lied.

"In a few days we're going to be talking about the book The tell-tale heart. Its by Edgar Allen Poe. You could read ahead if you want."

"I don't really like reading."

"Its short. Think about it."

He found himself faking another sick day. It was getting downright boring. He would have much rather been in school. Except he didn't want to face Lucas and Lucas' best friends. He was just tired of seeing how close Lucas had become with other people. It was selfish of him but he really felt like things would never be the same and that bothered him a lot.

He'd run out of things to do around the house, and he had done everything, from making a super complicated recipe on the stove to washing all the dishes from that failed mishap to even digging up some of his old childhood cartoon dvds and watching those. With nothing else to do he found himself on google boredly messing around. Without even realizing it he googled The Tell-tale heart. He stared at it for awhile, savoring the idea of being prepared for a class lesson Farkle wouldn't even know about. It would be so easy so great...

He read the story. It was short and enthralling. Maybe some other time he'd read other Edgar Allen Poe stories, but for now this was good enough. He couldn't wait to surprise people with his knowledge of the story. He couldn't wait to show up Farkle.

I would prob be a bit bitter if I felt I was replaced by my bff.