We Can Be Heroes

by Kyrie McCauley

  To Cassie.

  Cassie met his gaze, for a moment, then reached down to the bricks circling a tree on the sidewalk. Cassie’s fingers sunk into the dirt, and Beck watched as she wrapped her hand around the brick, watched her lift the heaviness of it as she stood, arching her arm back over her head.

  Cassie threw it at Bell.

  The brick hit the storefront window right in front of him, shattering it. A million little shards came down, looking like stars glimmering in the night sky as they fell down in the dark.

  Mr. Bell threw his arms up to shield his face.

  While he was too distracted to notice them, Beck herded her friends into the van. She had to save them now, the ones she loved most: a broken girl, an earnest boy, and a rightfully vengeful ghost.

  Cassie

  Bell is on fire.

  I recognize my neighbors

  clashing in the town square.

  I see Principal Ewing,

  who once told me I’d be a star,

  now standing with a sign

  demanding Bell Firearms

  take responsibility

  for my death.

  There’s the Warren family,

  whose sunflowers shape

  the festival each year,

  calling for the sheriff’s

  removal.

  On their sign

  is the image of Cassandra

  from Beck’s first mural.

  For Cassie,

  it says along

  the bottom.

  They’ve brought

  their children,

  who I used to babysit.

  Protect Our Girls

  from Their Abusers,

  reads another sign.

  The mother holding it

  has a baby strapped

  to her chest.

  Imagine feeling

  the urgency,

  the fear,

  to start protesting for

  your baby girl

  before she’s old enough

  to walk.

  Children Not Guns,

  says another sign.

  Gun Control Now.

  Fuck Bell Guns.

  That sign is held by Lola.

  Lola, my friend.

  Lola, who saw me die.

  But that is only one side

  of the gathered crowd

  on this warm August

  evening.

  The other side looks different.

  They don’t look angrier, exactly.

  Meaner, perhaps.

  And they are armed

  to the teeth.

  I’m out of the van

  but can’t go farther.

  When I try to take a step

  toward the courthouse,

  toward Beck, Vivian, Matteo,

  it’s like pins and needles, and

  then nothingness.

  Like I’m slipping away

  from them a little more

  with each step I take

  to get closer.

  So I wait by the van,

  furious and terrified,

  because I don’t see

  how the mothers cradling

  their babies

  and teenagers barely

  out of high school

  can stand up to

  all these angry men

  and all their guns.

  Movement catches my eye

  from the sidewalk

  and I turn.

  Steven Bell is standing

  right behind me,

  looking through me,

  at the crowd.

  There is a faint smile

  on his lips.

  Like he knows

  which side has the power.

  The last time I saw Mr. Bell

  was two days before I died.

  Instead of jumping in

  the lake, I went to the hospital

  for the bruising

  on my neck,

  my strained voice,

  my scratchy vocal cords.

  When the hospital reported

  my injuries to the police,

  they sent the sheriff.

  And the sheriff

  brought Mr. Bell.

  I remember feeling

  like nothing at all.

  Like gum on the bottom

  of his shoe

  when he walked

  right into my hospital room

  like he owned everything—

  because he did.

  He owned the town

  and still does now.

  He told me Nico

  would stay away from me

  this time.

  He would take care of it.

  But would I consider,

  in exchange,

  not filing a police report.

  Think of his future,

  Mr. Bell said to me,

  and the sheriff let him say it.

  He said Nico would stay home,

  finish high school online,

  so he wasn’t kicked out.

  That way he could still swim.

  He said it like it was

  the swimming

  that mattered most

  more than the bruises

  in the shape of Nico’s hand

  on my neck.

  It hurt to talk.

  It hurt to tell him:

  No

  but I said no

  to Mr. Bell that day.

  I’m filing a report,

  I told them,

  looking right at the sheriff.

  And I want a protection order.

  And I want Nico

  out of school, completely.

  Or I want him arrested.

  Mr. Bell looked like maybe

  he’d like to try

  to strangle me, too.

  Instead he stormed out.

  The sheriff had to

  let me file, but

  when it came to the part

  about removing guns from

  the abuser’s house,

  he scoffed, and said,

  We can’t do that to the Bells.

  It’s their legacy. Besides,

  they probably

  outgun the department.

  But Nico didn’t care

  about his family’s legacy

  or about swim team.

  Nico cared only

  about possession.

  He had always been

  a spoiled child

  and he became

  a jealous man.

  An angry man

  with access to an

  arsenal in his house.

  So the only decision

  Nico had to make

  was which gun to use

  to make sure I never sang

  for anyone but him again.

  I turn and

  face the glass storefront,

  and Mr. Bell

  turns as well.

  Betty the van was parked,

  ironically,

  outside of the Bell gun shop

  on Main Street.

  Mr. Bell straightens his tie

  in his reflection

  but then he looks up

  and his eyes find mine

  in the window

  and I think, He sees me.

  He sees me.

  Bell looks like he’s seen a ghost—

  probably because he has.

  His face goes pale,

  and his hand lowers slowly to his side.

  When I reach for the brick

  half-buried in the flower bed

  at my feet

  I don’t actually know

  if I can lift it.

  This is harder than pressing

  a button on a phone,

  or honking a horn,

  but I wrap my hand around it.

  I am stronger now.

  When I grasp it,

  I don’t hesitate.

  I rise, and I hurl it

 
; as hard as I can

  at the glass.

  I have watched

  my friends rage for weeks now,

  their anger behind everything they do

  and it’s my anger, too.

  It’s my life that the Bells stole.

  And it’ll happen again

  today or tomorrow

  in this town,

  or the next.

  Another girl.

  And then her friends

  will be left to wonder

  what the currency of vengeance is

  in a world that tells girls

  we shouldn’t be angry,

  even as our lives

  are ripped

  from our grasps.

  When I throw the brick,

  I picture myself

  as a small child,

  throwing pennies in a pond

  making wishes.

  So tonight I wish, too,

  and the wish begins

  If only—

  If only this world loved living girls

  as much as it loves dead ones.

  Vivian

  THEY PARKED BETTY BY THE SUNFLOWER field.

  Vivian was breathing normally again, following Matteo’s directions. It wasn’t the first panic attack, and she doubted it would be the last.

  “How long have you been getting them?” Matteo asked gently.

  “I don’t know,” Vivian said.

  “Yes, you do,” Matteo insisted.

  Vivian was watching Beck. Her grip on the steering wheel was so tight her knuckles were white.

  “Beck?” she asked.

  “Are you . . . are you guys okay? If I go? There’s something I need to do.” Beck’s voice was thick with the weight of unshed tears.

  “I got her from here,” Matteo said. “I’ll drive her home.”

  “Okay,” Beck said. “Bye, V. Bye, Ca—” Beck stopped short, and her eyes found Vivian’s in the rearview mirror.

  Vivian was sitting right next to Cassie, but Matteo didn’t see her.

  “Bye, Matteo,” Beck finished, and climbed out of the van.

  Vivian and Matteo climbed out next, and Vivian gave Cassie a warm smile, and a shrug, before shutting the van door. She couldn’t exactly talk to her in front of Matteo. A conversation about Bell and the brick and the town square would have to wait.

  They walked to Vivian’s car and Matteo held out his hands for her keys.

  “So are you in trouble?” Vivian asked.

  “Nah, don’t worry about it,” Matteo said. He dismissed it too easily.

  “Matteo,” Vivian said, collapsing into the passenger seat. “Tell me.”

  “Someone saw me posting on the library computer. Called the cops. I think he thought he’d get Bell’s fancy reward or something. But all I was doing was exercising my rights to free speech, so they can’t do anything unless they can link me to the murals themselves. And they can’t. Merit helped. She’s cool.”

  “Yeah, she is.”

  “I thought we hated Bell, but wow.”

  “Right?” Vivian said. “She’s out for blood.”

  “Good,” Matteo said.

  Matteo opened his mouth several times as he drove, and then closed it again.

  Vivian stopped waiting for it—she knew what he wanted to say. He was going to tell them to stop what they were doing. But they couldn’t stop, not yet. Cassie was still here. She still needed them to fight for her.

  “Son of a bitch,” Vivian said when she saw the water tower. “Matteo, pull over.”

  Matteo stopped the car along the side of the road and leaned over to Vivian’s side.

  Vivian pointed.

  The water tower mural was gone.

  In its place was a sunflower, and the words ANNUAL BELL SUNFLOWER FESTIVAL with the dates for next week.

  They had literally covered up Cassie with the festival.

  It was starting to feel a little desperate to Vivian. They were aggressively trying to gloss over the hurt in town, trying to make it look peaceful and inviting to the outside world. And the reality couldn’t be further from the truth, with everyone clashing in the town square, armed with guns, armed with nothing but their signs and a plea for safety.

  “Can we . . . can we please check the others?” Vivian asked.

  She was feeling defeated. All that work was gone.

  “Sure thing,” Matteo said. He drove them around town, to the billboard on Route 90, now covered with more flowers, and a little map showing how to get to the fields by the Warrens’ farm, where the festival would take place.

  They checked the high school next—no advertisement there, and no red paint, either, but the mural was painted over with the school’s mascot.

  Last they drove to the Old Mill. They hadn’t even gotten a picture of it—had they really just finished painting it the night before? It felt like so long ago.

  Vivian let out a huge sigh of relief to see it was still there. They probably hadn’t found it yet.

  “Just a sec,” she told Matteo, climbing out of the car. Matteo had parked with the headlights illuminating Circe and her island. It wouldn’t be a great photo, taken in the dark like this, but Vivian couldn’t wait. They might paint over it by tomorrow.

  They for sure wouldn’t leave it up until the festival.

  Wouldn’t want to mar Bell’s image.

  She took a few photos while she still could.

  As soon as she was back in the car, Matteo drove them both home. He parked outside their shared row of houses.

  Vivian knew he had something to say. She’d spent enough time with him to know. Matteo had always been the quiet type, but when he did speak up, she listened. So she waited.

  She opened the account she’d made for Cassie, the one Matteo had taken over for the last two murals. She scrolled up to the original post. Cassandra was going viral this week—there were millions of likes. The others had gained traction, too, but not as much as the original one. The one that shared Cassie’s name.

  Vivian followed the links, reading the comments. It was a lot of teens, angry about the active-shooter drills in school. Angry that their little sister or cousin or best friend hadn’t been able to enforce a protection order because it would have forced their abuser out of school.

  Furious that they couldn’t keep themselves safe. Each other safe.

  #FuckBellGuns was trending. When Vivian clicked on the tag, the top image was from the town square tonight. Lola was standing there with her sign, and in the background of the image, only slightly hazy, you could make out the armed men behind her.

  Vivian squeezed Matteo’s hand.

  Their friends were so brave. Matteo got pulled in by the cops. Lola didn’t back down from those men. And Merit Logan seemed hell-bent on exposing the truth.

  All wasn’t lost just because they’d destroyed the murals.

  “Vivian . . . I think it’s time to stop,” Matteo finally said. “I know that you and Beck are trying to keep Cassie’s memory alive—trying to fight for some real change, in her memory, and I think that’s really amazing, but this? This is getting dangerous. You could get hurt. You’re definitely gonna get caught eventually. And then you lose college, and—”

  “I already told you I’m not going,” she said.

  “Dammit, Vivian. Listen to yourself. You can’t give up everything you worked so hard for just because—”

  “Just because what, Matteo? Cassie was murdered. I think the adults who were supposed to protect her should face some responsibility.”

  “I was going to say, just because of one asshole. Screw Nico Bell. He already stole Cassie’s future. Why should he get yours, too?”

  Vivian sat with his words for a long moment, turning them over in her mind. The logical part of Vivian—the part that used to rule every choice she made—knew he was right. The thing was, even now, it was worth the risk for Cassie. She had to think of Cassie.

  “We aren’t done yet,” Vivian said quietly, and Matteo sw
ore under his breath and turned away from her.

  “Well, I’m out,” Matteo said. “My name’s all over this now. My mom’s probably going to get fired because of it—and I know”—he raised his hands—“that’s on me, not you, V. I took that risk. But I thought it’d be enough now. I thought if I helped you and Beck, it would be enough.”

  “Well, it’s not.”

  “Vivian, you did it. Everyone is talking about Cass. The gun lobby is losing their minds, let alone Bell himself, setting up a reward to catch you. Let Merit take over from here. Stop breaking the law before you get caught. And call your fancy college and tell them you are coming. You can do it. You just need to ask for a little help, V. You know this gets better. You know it does.”

  “Thank you, Matteo. For helping with the posts,” Vivian said. “I know getting pulled in by the police must have been kind of scary.”

  “Vivian—”

  “We can’t stop yet, Matteo. We aren’t finished.”

  “Vivian, the lawsuit will take years,” Matteo said. “Let justice find a way in the courts. You and Beck are playing with fire here.”

  “You don’t understand. We cannot stop, because we have to help her.”

  “Help who?” Matteo asked.

  “Cassie,” Vivian said. There was only one way to make Matteo understand why they couldn’t stop yet. She had to tell him the truth. “Matteo, we can’t stop. Because Cassie’s still here.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Cassie has been haunting the hell out of us.”

  Beck

  BECK KNEW WHERE HE KEPT THEM.

  She pushed open the heavy door to Grandpa’s workshop and tugged on the string for the swinging light bulb over his bench. It was eerie in the workshop at night, full of shadows and the scurrying sounds of mice in the rafters.

  But Beck knew she wouldn’t be able to rest until she did this.

  She knew where he kept them, and she knew where the combination lock was written down. Four numbers written on the corner of his desk. Her mother’s birthday. That’s what the numbers were. Grandpa used it for every password, even though she’d told him countless times that wasn’t safe.

  She went for the cabinet next, punched in the numbers and let the door swing wide. Beck vaguely wondered if it had been this easy for Nico that day. Maybe even easier.

  Grandpa owned five guns. Two rifles that he used to hunt with, back when he still hunted. And three handguns that Beck imagined had been locked away in this safe for a decade or more. But their lack of use didn’t change what they were capable of.

  She started with a rifle and a hammer.