“Things have been . . . difficult.” My mother takes a deep breath, her voice wavering. “To say the least. But we’re surviving.”
I look down at my legs, play with a loose thread on one knee, wrapping it tightly around my index finger, cutting off the circulation entirely. The more I hurt, the better I feel.
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” Mr. Clarke says, the prescribed response. You can almost set a watch by it. “I’m sure it’s been an extremely difficult time for all of you.” His tone is soothing, a vat of warm water or blood. I feel the heaviness of his gaze as it falls on me, a slow burn, but I don’t, can’t look up. What was barely tolerable before is now completely unbearable, the feeling of eyes on me. Judgment. Don’t look at me, I think, the voice in my head a growl. Just. Fucking. Don’t.
“I just want to make sure,” he continues on, “that Alys is really ready to come back. Of course, we’ll do everything in our power to support her—if that’s what she wants.”
There’s more silence. I nod emphatically. I want. I cannot stand another minute in that house, waiting for Luke to appear again. Listening to my parents argue deep into the night, their eyes nailed to my face, watching me as if any moment I might disappear. And disappearing doesn’t sound so bad those nights when I’m lying sleepless in my bed, the hours stretching out interminably.
“All right, then,” he says, almost reluctantly. I feel like I’ve disappointed him in some way by coming back, that he was almost wishing I wouldn’t.
It’s easier that way, easier for everyone if you don’t exist . . .
“But I’m not going to lie to you.” Mr. Clarke looks over at my parents. “It’s not going to be easy. People are going to judge her, blame her even, and though we’ll do our best to head off any possible issues before they surface, we can’t be with her twenty-four seven.”
“Alys is not her brother,” my father interjects. “She hasn’t done anything wrong.”
(—Haven’t I? Isn’t that what you were trying to tell me, Luke?—)
“Of course not,” Mr. Clarke says quickly, in an attempt to mollify my father. “Of course she hasn’t. But I’m afraid that won’t make much difference to some people around here.”
“What do you mean by that?” my mother asks nervously.
“Well, I mean that people are angry and looking for someone to blame, and some of them won’t care that Alys had nothing to do with this . . . incident. Now, as I said, we will try to protect her as much as we can, but realistically, there’s only so much we can do.” Mr. Clarke sits back in his leather chair, one hand rubbing his left arm. I wonder if it still hurts, if the wound will ever really heal. Sure, it will scab over, the flesh knitting itself back together, but the scar will remain. Sometimes I wish that Luke had just gone ahead and pulled the trigger so my pain would be on the outside, visible, where everyone could see it. Not hidden away and imperceptible. A muted agony.
“Is Alys . . . seeing anyone? In order to help her . . . process what’s happened?” Mr. Clarke treads lightly, his words stilted.
“Seeing . . . anyone?” my father repeats slowly, methodically. “What do you mean by ‘seeing anyone’?” His voice is short, clipped, and Mr. Clarke looks immediately apologetic, his face falling.
“I just meant a counselor or a therapist. Someone to help her come to terms with . . . what’s happened recently.”
“I don’t want to see anyone,” I blurt out before my father can speak again.
The thought of having to sit in some horrible beige room trying to explain what Luke did is enough to make me shudder once, hard. How can I explain Luke’s actions to anyone else when I don’t even understand why he did it, why he
(killed)
those people. I was his sister. If I don’t know why he did it, no shrink with an annoyingly calm voice and a bunch of degrees hanging on the wall is going to be able to explain it to me.
Mr. Clarke’s eyes are full of kindness, wrinkled at the corners. “We have people here, Alys, at school, that you can talk to, if you want—but only if you want. All you have to do is ask.”
I nod briskly, my cheeks red and inflamed. It’s bad enough that everyone thinks Luke was a psychopath. Now I’m the one they’ll be watching, waiting to see if I slip over the edge.
“Now, then,” Mr. Clarke says, getting down to business. “We’ll have an assembly this morning, right when school reopens, and then classes will resume as usual, but with forty-five minute tracks instead of the usual fifty. At the assembly, I will make it clear in my remarks just where I stand on bullying and scapegoating—there will be a zero-tolerance policy in place.”
Luke is standing at the back on the room, leaning against the door, arms crossed over his chest. Mr. Clarke just keeps on talking, my parents nodding in response. “Zero tolerance.” He snorts. “He was always so full of shit.” The scorn in his voice is enough to make my mouth fall open, though no one seems to notice. Luke points at Mr. Clarke’s arm and smirks. “I should’ve aimed higher.”
The blood drains out of my face. I can feel my cheeks go numb.
When I finally tune back in, Mr. Clarke is wrapping up his speech. He shoots me a broad smile that seems a bit forced and says, “We’re so glad to have you back.” He pushes his chair away from the desk and stands up, walking over to me and holding his arms out. I know he is only trying to be kind, but I am stiff in his embrace, my limbs unyielding, afraid to exhale, my heart beating fast beneath my ribs. His shirt smells of laundry detergent, coffee, and the cigarette he snuck in preparation for this meeting. My mother is crying again, tears cracking her carefully applied mask. I close my eyes and think about graduation. If things had been different, Mr. Clarke would be standing in front of a podium, shaking my brother’s hand as Luke crossed the stage, black gown sweeping the floor, his diploma held up in triumph.
You should have aimed higher, Luke. You should have.
But not with that gun.
TWO
As the gym starts to fill for assembly, I watch the crowd stream in. Some people are wearing spirit shirts—T-shirts with our school’s name emblazoned across the front and a picture of a cougar, our mascot, stamped on the back. I sit at the top of the bleachers, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible, my heart ka-thumping every time a pair of eyes lands on me, looking me over. I crane my neck, searching for Ben, wanting to see him, my hands trembling at the thought of it, and at the same time, wishing that I didn’t have to. There is nothing I could do or say that will take away the loss, Katie snatched away to the underworld, pulled to the ocean floor, her eyes wrapped in seaweed.
The air smells of floor polish, paint, and the heat of bodies filling the space, the sweet, fruity reek of gum and mingling perfumes creating a toxic funk. I stare at the floor mostly, at the red and blue lines embossed on the shiny wooden surface, and try to pretend that none of it matters. Their glances burn, and the whispering begins, mouths hidden behind hands, voices dipping toward me then flitting away. The bleachers begin to fill up, and I’m given a wide berth. The bench I’m sitting on remains empty.
A freshman I know vaguely gives me a tentative smile, her braces shining metallic in the harsh overhead lighting, but when she moves to sit down, her friend grabs her arm, pulling her back. “Don’t sit next to her,” she says, tossing her auburn curls. “C’mon.” She grabs the girl by the hand, leading her away. The freshman looks over her shoulder, and I try to smile, but my lips are stuck in cement. I knew that if I came back to school, I wouldn’t exactly be welcomed with open arms. But now that it’s happened, I’m shaken. I wanted the everyday sameness of a daily schedule: lunch at noon, the alarm clock ringing at seven a.m. But there’s nothing normal about any of this. I don’t belong here any more than I belong in my house, in the wide world, on this strange, tilting planet.
You should’ve just killed me, Luke. Why didn’t you?
Why didn’t you j
ust finish the job?
Delilah walks in wearing jeans and a loose violet hoodie. My heart expands in a shower of sparks and silver light at the sight of her waxen face, her eyes ringed with darkness. She looks up, and I raise one hand in a wave, but she just stands there, blank-faced and silent, before turning to Alana Jenkins (blond, cheer squad, plastic), grabbing her by the hand, and sitting down in the front row as if I’m invisible, as if I don’t exist at all. My hand lowers slowly, my arm numb. I bite my bottom lip, happy for the pain, the blood that is suddenly dotting my mouth. Everything in me sinks all at once, deflating rapidly. I hate Alana Jenkins. Even though Delilah and I haven’t talked since that night she came over, I still held out hope that once we were back to school, somehow, things would be the same as they’ve always been. Arm in arm walking through the halls, the scratch of her voice in my ear each night as we went over the day’s events. What am I without her? The thought panics me, the walls closing in like a trash compactor, the room getting tighter and tighter.
You will not cry, I tell myself, turning my attention to Mr. Clarke, who has taken his place behind the podium and taps the microphone with an index finger. You will not even think about crying. There is a loud shriek that reverberates through the room—feedback from the mike, I know, but, like most people here, I recoil a bit, wincing. I wonder if Luke is smiling wherever he is, happy that even just weeks after, probably for years, his actions will have the ability to terrify us.
Maybe forever.
“Welcome back,” Mr. Clarke says. “I can’t tell you how glad I am to see all of your faces sitting here today, back home at Plainewood High. And make no mistake—Plainewood IS home. And despite the tragedy we’ve experienced, no one can take that away from us.”
The crowd begins to cheer, along with a few whoops, and I see hands raised in the air, fists clenched.
“We’ve been through a terrible, senseless tragedy,” Mr. Clarke continues, his voice low and somber, “and no one’s trying to make light of that—least of all me.” His face blanches a little, as if in sudden, sharp pain, and for the first time I think about how hard it must be for him, like all of us, to be back in this place, the center of so much suffering. “But now we need to turn our attention to the present and knit our community back together again—and the only way that’s going to happen is with love. With forgiveness.”
The word rings out, echoing through the room, and I flinch slightly, shifting on the wooden bench.
“Forgiveness is the only way we can move forward and begin to heal—as a school, as a community, as human beings.”
I can hear the soft wind of our collective breathing, the rasp of limbs rubbing against one other, the rustle of legs nervously crossed and uncrossed. The word “forgiveness,” said just like that. As if it could be that easy. As if we could all just snap our fingers and return to business as usual, turn our attention to prom, SATs, the all-important question of who to sit with in the cafeteria at lunch. “Yeah right,” I hear a girl a row in front of me whisper, the venom in her voice unmistakable. She turns around and glares at me, her dark eyes boring holes into my forehead, and I stare straight ahead, concentrating on breathing in and out, the hot air leaving my lungs before I suck it back inside me.
“This isn’t about assigning blame.” Mr. Clarke pauses, his eyes sweeping the crowd. His expression is grave, and I can see that he’s starting to sweat, beads standing out on his forehead. “In fact, such actions would only impede our progress as a school and a community, and let me be quite clear: that kind of behavior will not be tolerated.” He seems to look straight at me, and I drop my head, cheeks burning. “This is about moving on. Not forgetting what has happened, but not allowing it to define us as a school either. Because we are MORE than this senseless tragedy.”
A slow clap breaks out, hands smacking together in the sickening sound of flesh against flesh. It sounds halfhearted. What does he expect? That he would stand in front of us, say a few words, and then things would magically snap back to the way they were? But it’s too late for that—we’ve crossed some sort of line and now, no matter where we go, what we do, who we eventually become, we will take the shooting with us, dragging it behind us like an overfilled suitcase, dirty underwear and socks spilling out in a tangle of filthy colors.
Mr. Clarke says a few more words, tells us he loves us (“Bullshit,” Luke whispers, his breath tickling my ear), mentions that there will be counselors on campus until the end of the school year, and steps back from the mike with the magic words, “Assembly dismissed.” I notice that after he utters the word “counseling,” there are a few snickers, the sound of coughing, and when I find the courage to look around, I see that some people are crying, faces wet, their arms draped around one another. Some are steely-eyed, bracing themselves against pain, but in the dazed, vacant expressions I see my own. All around me there is sudden motion, people getting up, the sound of feet on the wood louder than my own thoughts, louder than the voices in my head telling me that no one wants me here. I make my way down the bleachers, keeping my eyes trained on the floor, and behind me I hear the sound of noses being blown messily into tissues. The guy was a fucking freak, one voice whispers at my back, the words branding my skin like a hot iron. Asshole murderer.
(—they don’t know how he helped me with my math homework, the funny faces he drew for me in the margins, the carved wooden box he made for my mom’s birthday last fall, the lines graceful and intricate. They see only the gun, the pull of the trigger, the newspaper, his senior yearbook picture on the news. But it’s not all black and white; it’s not, it’s not, it’s NOT—)
I keep moving, knowing that if I stop I will cry. I will not cry in front of them. I will not. I think of ice, great sheets of it, frozen in opaqueness, of large doors of iron twisted with spikes, keeping out what’s unwanted, of a blizzard that swirls around the fractured chambers of my heart.
THREE
After the assembly, we have a break before first period begins, and I wander out the front door of the school, oblivious to the buzz and chatter surrounding me. The rain has stopped its punishing assent, but the sky is streaked with charcoal-gray and violet clouds that tell me more waterworks are on the way. If I just stay locked inside myself, I’ll be all right. I say this over and over, repeating the words in my head until they blur together and become as meaningless as the cacophony of voices surrounding me.
Out in the parking lot, I notice a red car draped in flowers, stuffed toys, balloons, cards dotting the windshield, and I float toward it, as if in a trance. A makeshift shrine. I would know that car anywhere—it’s Kitty Ellison’s, the license plate spelling out KITTY E in large black letters. Kitty is
(was)
a senior. Early acceptance to Princeton, long blond hair, and a body that made boys stop speaking when she swished past. But the thing about Kitty that separated her from a life of complete and total banality was that she was nice. She wasn’t cliquey, didn’t put others down to make herself feel better. She was just . . . sweet. Tutored kids after school not just to pad her college applications, but because she thought it was the right thing to do. Didn’t suck up for college recs. She didn’t have to. Everyone—and I mean everyone—in Plainewood practically worshipped the ground she walked on. And now she’s gone.
(—will I find her under my bed tonight when I turn back the covers, her bloodless face rising out of the darkness—)
There are people milling around near the car, and I walk through them, drawn to the shiny red finish, enticing as a poison apple. I want to walk up to my pain and impale myself on it, drag a knife across my skin until it splits under a serrated blade. I imagine the relief it would bring, the blood streaming out of my body until my brain fills with whiteness.
Melissa Anderson, Kitty’s best friend, is standing next to the car, tracing designs on the hood with one finger. Her black hair hangs past her shoulders, held away from her face with a thick band
, and a gray peacoat swallows her thin frame, toned and athletic from afternoons spent in the pool with the rest of the swim team. Her face is set in concentration, tears falling from her eyes although her expression is still. If you didn’t see the water streaking her cheeks in slow, silent rivulets, you wouldn’t know she was upset at all. Watching her, I feel like I’m eavesdropping on something horribly private, and I start to move away, my feet scraping against the pavement. Melissa wipes her face with one hand and sniffs loudly, turning to face me, her green eyes oblivious at first but then widening in gradual recognition. She looks like she’s seen a ghost, and maybe that’s what I am now. A phantom. Something to be feared and avoided.
“You,” she breathes, her lips barely moving. “You’re . . .” Her lip curls in a grimace, as if saying the next word is revolting or even painful. “His sister.” The word is like a lead weight falling from a great height. “Aren’t you?”
I am caught in the headlights, unsure if I should answer at all. Is there a right answer? I don’t know anymore. Panicked. I nod once, a quick jerk, shame flooding my cheeks in a rush of blood, the capillaries beneath the skin expanding.
I drop my eyes to the ground, and she looks over at the car. Once she glances away, I feel better, the air returning to my lungs.
“She was my best friend.”
Her voice is low and raspy from tears and a lack of sleep. I can feel her voice in my own mouth, the cadence of it. She stares at the car, the raindrops glinting on the finish as if it holds all the answers, an oracle. A mirage that might fade into oblivion if she tears her gaze away, even for a second. People have gathered around and are watching us closely. I hear the hiss of whispers, judgment falling over me like a fur cloak, the rows of gleaming black pelts knitted together, weighing me down.
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