That's Not What Happened

by Kody Keplinger

  Maybe that’s why I’ve written seven drafts of this letter. That, or maybe it’s because Lee asked me to write the truth. I’ve been giving people the truth they want to hear, showing them the pictures they want to see, for so long that I don’t know which way is up anymore.

  All I know is I try so hard. And everyone thinks I’m doing so well, but I’m scared and I’m angry and I’m tired all the time, and I can’t tell anyone that because they don’t want to hear it and because I don’t know how to say it.

  And also because of Rosi.

  I didn’t really like my cousin. I’m not supposed to say that, but if I’m telling the truth, there it is. We didn’t get along at all. I’m sure she was nice to other people, but not to me. She was my younger cousin. She set the bar, though. And I could never reach it.

  Rosi was the better Martinez. She never missed a single Mass. Her Spanish was perfect. At school she was popular and had good grades. And I was the quiet, geeky lesbian who spent all her time reading manga and drawing instead of studying. I barely managed a C in my high school Spanish class. Rosi was better than me at almost everything, and she loved to remind me of that.

  Every time we were at Abuela’s house, Rosi would wait until I walked into the room to start asking our grandmother questions about growing up in Mexico or about Abuelo, who had passed away before we were born. Within seconds, they’d both fall into rapid Spanish that I couldn’t follow, full of laughter and smiles. If our parents were around, they’d join in, too. And I’d be stuck sitting there, left out. Abuela was always the first to notice me, but whenever she’d try to pull me into the chatter, even switching back to English, I just didn’t have words. Not in any language. So I’d shrug and Abuela’s face would fall, and over her shoulder Rosi would give me this look of pity, like she hadn’t done it on purpose.

  She mostly ignored me at school. We were a year apart, so it wasn’t that hard. She had a big group of friends, who all seemed to really like her. I mostly just had my sketchbook. We only had one class together, and we sat on opposite sides of the room. Outside of school we may have been cousins in a close-knit family, but within those four walls, we might as well have lived in different universes.

  But as much as I resented Rosi—hated her, sometimes—the moment I realized she was dead was the worst of my life.

  I’m not going to go into too many details about the shooting. Whoever’s reading this has heard it all. I can’t really add anything.

  But Lee asked me to write about the “truth.” About things people don’t know. And for me what people don’t know is after. It’s when I opened my eyes, curled up in a ball under a table in the computer lab, and realized that no one in my class was moving. When I crawled over to Denny and realized that only some of the blood on the carpet was coming from his arm. When I realized that Rosi, my baby cousin, wasn’t breathing.

  Rosi was a brat, but she was my family. And I never imagined I’d have to see her with a bullet hole in her … No. Sorry. I can’t even write it. That’s not the point, anyway. The point is that seeing her like that, it screwed me up. Bad.

  But I didn’t want to be screwed up. My family needed me. Before, I was allowed to stay in the shadows. I was allowed to be quiet while Rosi was the star. I didn’t realize what a gift that was when Rosi was around. I was jealous of her. But once she was gone, I had to be the one to shine.

  I couldn’t be Rosi. I figured that out quick. I couldn’t make Abuela laugh so hard she got the hiccups. I couldn’t bring home the kind of grades that made my family brag about me to anyone who would listen. I couldn’t make them happy the way she did.

  I tried. All through my junior and senior year I tried. But I couldn’t be her.

  I had to find a way to be something, though. A new way to make them proud. Because I didn’t want them to think that it should’ve been me who died that day.

  They’ve never said that. No one in my family would ever say that. Not even Rosi’s parents. And if they thought it, I know they’d feel awful. They’d be running to confession right away. But I didn’t want them to have to feel the guilt of thinking it. And I didn’t want to think it about myself.

  I started college about two years after the shooting. One night, my roommate, Misty, asked if I wanted to go to a protest with her. Like I said, I’m a quiet person. And since the shooting, loud noises and sudden movements stress me out, so a protest is probably the last place I should’ve been. But the only other option was to stay in my dorm room, alone, on a Saturday, and as much as the other things freak me out, being alone is worse. When I’m alone, every little sound makes me panic. I start imagining all the horrible things that could happen.

  I don’t even think I registered that the protest was about gun control, though I’m sure that’s why Misty invited me. She had made us signs and stuff—she went to a lot of protests and knew the drill—and I just sort of expected to stand there, holding one of her cardboard signs, moving my lips to the chants other people came up with. It’s embarrassing to admit, but back then, I actually didn’t care that much.

  But then a local reporter took our picture. He asked for mine and Misty’s names and where we were from, and when the paper came out the next day, there I was, holding up my sign, Eden Martinez, VCHS survivor, fighting for gun control. I hadn’t told the reporter I was a survivor, but it wouldn’t have been hard to put together.

  I don’t know how the paper got to Abuela. My college is a few hours away from Virgil County, but somehow, she saw it. She called me, crying, and told me how proud she was. Told me the family was so proud. Because I was making a difference. I was fighting for Rosi. My parents shared the article on Facebook, and my aunt and uncle wrote me kind emails. For the first time, I was the star. I was the Martinez they wanted me to be.

  That’s how I got into activism.

  It’s also how I started drinking.

  It wasn’t a lot at first. One of the other protesters had offered me a shot, said it would help dull my anxiety. And it had. I’d never had a drink before that day, but I liked it. Liked how it lowered the volume on that panicked voice always screeching in my head. So when Misty took me to another protest the next weekend, I made a point to get my hands on another shot.

  But I wanted the feeling more often than just at protests. So I started drinking regularly. Just a little on weeknights, just enough to slow my rapid thoughts so I could sleep easily. On weekends, though, I let myself drink more. Enough to not just dull the edge but to break off the knife at the hilt. Enough so I couldn’t feel any of it.

  I kept going to protests. Misty was so excited to have a buddy that she offered to get involved with other organizations. She helped me write editorials about campus safety for the college newspaper. She educated me with statistics and facts, and I told her as much as I could about what it was like to be in a real active shooter situation. And when I got invited to give my first presentation, in an auditorium full of people, and I started freaking out, Misty decided to combine her statistics and my experience. While I panicked, she and my girlfriend, Jenny, wrote a script I could follow.

  Because of their help, the first presentation went well, and I got asked to do it again. And again. And again. At high schools and colleges all over Indiana. Over the past few months, I’ve been on TV and in a couple of national publications. I even had the chance to sit down with some state lawmakers. And it’s not just my family watching me now. I get messages from strangers on social media. From teenagers and adults and other activists.

  “You’re a warrior,” one girl wrote to me on Twitter. “Keep up the fight.”

  Warrior. That’s the version of me everyone wants to see. I’m a fighter. A girl who’s willing to shout to be heard. A girl who’s willing to relive the worst day of her life in presentations to get her point across. They see me as powerful and determined and someone to admire and—

  And I’m so scared of letting them know I’m not that.

  I don’t want it to sound like I don’t ca
re about the things I fight for. I do. Now more than ever. I do want to fight. I want to keep people safe. I want to make sure no one ever sees what I saw and is haunted by it the way I am. I want to be the activist who makes my family proud, not just for them but because that’s the version of Eden I want to be.

  But behind my sword and my shield, I am crumbling. As I write this, there is a bottle of vodka sitting on my desk, next to me. Drinking was the only way I could bring myself to write this. Drinking is the only way I can bring myself to do a lot of things. I drink almost every night just so I can make everything in my head fuzzy. Because when it’s sharp, it hurts too much. And I keep telling myself that I’m fine and that I have it under control. That I’m a college student and college students drink sometimes and it’s not impacting my grades or anything so I’m fine.

  But if I’m fine, then why am I hiding a bottle of vodka in my desk drawer, only to take it out and drink when nobody’s around?

  Jenny and Misty only know about the drinking at parties, which is when I tend to drink so much it makes me sick. I know they’re tired of it. I know they’re getting angry with me. And they’d be furious—and worried—if they knew I was drinking on weeknights, too. Not enough to be hungover the next day. Just enough to get by.

  I don’t think I’m fine.

  And I’m scared.

  Misty’s mom is having health problems, so she’s transferring to a school closer to home, back in Tennessee. I’m going to have to live with someone new. As frustrated as I know Misty must be with me lately, she’s been the best friend I could imagine. She’s helped me through panic attacks, rewritten speeches and sent emails when I couldn’t handle it, and made me laugh when I needed it most.

  And Jenny is graduating this year. God, just the thought of that makes me feel sick. If Misty leaving scares me, Jenny leaving has me terrified.

  Jenny Stewart-Goo is my first girlfriend. We met a few weeks into my first semester, at an Anime Club meeting, of all things. The club was actually terrible. It was mostly just a bunch of white guys who tossed out random Japanese words for no reason other than to impress each other. They insisted on watching illegally downloaded anime with subtitles, because it was “just better that way,” even though one of the other girls who had shown up was legally blind and couldn’t see the screen well enough to read subtitles. She didn’t come back after the first meeting. I almost didn’t, either. The only reason I did was because Misty was on a date that night and I didn’t want to be alone in my dorm.

  So while the boys in the club tried to out-Japanophile each other, I sat in a corner and sketched. I didn’t think anyone even noticed I was there until a voice next to me said, “You’re really good.”

  I jumped and let out a little yelp. Jenny was nice enough to act like this wasn’t weird, though.

  “Sorry,” she said. “But your drawings are really good. Can I see more?”

  I showed her the rest of the stuff in my sketchbook. Turns out, she was into comics and had always wished she could draw, but she was more of a writer. She loved fantasy, especially stories with witches and magical creatures. By the end of the movie we were supposed to be watching, we’d already brainstormed out an idea for our first webcomic. That’s where Calliope was born.

  We stopped going to Anime Club gatherings and started meeting in the library instead. She’d write and I’d draw, and by midterms, I had both a beautiful, talented girlfriend and my first webcomic.

  Calliope isn’t very well known, and when we published it, I chose to alter my name a little—to E. B. Martinez—so that I had one thing in my life that wasn’t connected to activism or the shooting. Working with Jenny means getting to escape into this fantasy world where guns aren’t even a thing, where we can just play and explore. It’s the only thing fun in my life. And I don’t know what’s going to happen with Calliope or with my relationship when Jenny leaves.

  “We’ll make it work,” she told me a few days ago when I brought up her moving back to California. “We can take turns visiting each other over the summer. I’ll come back to see you in the autumn or maybe over your winter break. And you can come visit me during spring break.”

  “What about between visits, though?” I asked. We were sitting on the quad with our textbooks in our laps. “You’ll be in Los Angeles. I feel like everyone there is so … pretty.”

  “You’re pretty,” she said.

  I shrugged. “Maybe. But I’m pretty and here. And they’ll be pretty and there. With you.”

  “Do you really think pretty is enough to make me cheat on you?”

  “No,” I said. “I know you wouldn’t do that. But …”

  “But nothing.” She raised to her knees, knocking the books off her lap, and reached across the space between us to put a hand on either side of my face. “I love you, you stupid freshman. That’s not changing, even if my time zone does.”

  She kissed me then, and I wanted to believe her.

  But I remember the look on her face the other night, while she and Lee dragged me, drunk and stumbling, back to my room. She looked worried, but also exhausted. Like taking care of her mess of a girlfriend is weighing on her.

  And if I’m a mess now, where will I be in a year? When she and Misty are gone and there’s no one to bother hiding the vodka bottle from?

  I know I need to ask for help, but I don’t feel like I’m allowed to. I feel like I’ll be letting everyone down. I don’t want to be weak. I want to spite all of those jerks who send me death threats on social media because they think I’m here to take their guns away. I want to show those arrogant white guys on my campus who try to argue Second Amendment rights with me that I am just as smart and powerful and loud as they are. I want to keep making my family proud so that they never have to think that the wrong girl died.

  I want to be a warrior.

  But that version of me is a lie. I can get on a stage and deliver a presentation I’ve rehearsed a dozen times. But the minute someone gets in my face and asks me to go off book, I crumble. That’s my truth.

  I’m not a warrior. I’m a fraud. And trying to keep up the charade is killing me.

  I’m going to regret sending this email to Lee tomorrow. I know it. I’m going to wish I hadn’t shared all of this, but if I don’t, I might never say it. I might never get help. So here it is. The truth. The real Eden Martinez.

  I’m sorry.

  —E

  I called Eden as soon as I finished reading her letter. She was sniffling when she answered, and I could tell she’d been crying.

  “I just got off the phone with my parents,” she told me. “I … told them how I’ve been feeling. And that something has to change.”

  “How did they react?”

  “Confused. Which is fair, I guess. And now they’re really worried.”

  “So what are you going to do?” I asked.

  “I’m thinking of taking a semester off,” she said. “Maybe more. I don’t know. But I’m taking a break from school, from public speaking. I think I need to spend some time with my family to figure things out. Maybe Alcoholics Anonymous. Probably therapy.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. Because what else was there to say?

  “Don’t be. If I hadn’t made myself write the letter, I … I don’t know.” She took a deep breath. “I’m going to call Jenny. I’ll talk to you soon, Lee.”

  I hung up the phone and started composing a new email. I now had three letters, and I only needed two more. And, thanks to Eden, I knew how to get in touch with Kellie.

  I decided to start with an email. I sent along links about the McHales’ book and explained that I knew the truth, and that I wanted to create some sort of counternarrative.

  It was a short, to-the-point message, but I ended it with this:

  I’m sorry I didn’t say anything sooner. I was scared. But now is our chance to set the record straight.

  I hit the “send” button before I could second-guess myself. For some reason, I was sure she’d want to
help with this project. She must’ve wanted the truth out there more than any of us. In my head, it wasn’t complicated at all.

  Though I was aware that not everyone thought my efforts to bring out the truth were a good idea. It became pretty clear within a couple days of returning home that Brother Lloyd and Sarah’s parents hadn’t kept quiet about the “lies” I’d been telling.

  At first it was just a few dirty looks in the hallway and a quiet mutter of the word bitch under someone’s breath as I walked by. But no one actually approached me or said anything about Sarah, so while I suspected the hostility toward me was related, I couldn’t be sure. Not until lunch on Wednesday, at least.

  I was sitting with Denny and Miles at our usual table when Amber Hieber, Denny’s soon-to-be prom date, came over to join us.

  “Mind if I sit?” she asked, putting down her tray and smiling at us with full, painted pink lips.

  Miles lifted his gaze from the book he was reading, something about the Cuban missile crisis, and we exchanged a wary look. It’s not that we’re unfriendly. We smiled and casually chatted with our classmates like anyone else. (Well, I did. Miles, maybe not so much.) But at lunch, we tended to keep to ourselves. There was an invisible barrier around our table that no one had tried to cross in years. And while Amber seemed nice enough, I don’t think either Miles or I knew what to do with a new person in this space.

  The same could not be said for Denny.

  “Of course we don’t mind,” he said. “Glitter might, though. She’s used to being the prettiest girl at the table.”

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Are you going to argue that you’re prettier than Glitter?” he asked.

  “I might be,” I said. “How would you know?”

  “Touché.”

  Amber’s eyes darted back and forth between us, clearly not sure if I was making fun of Denny’s disability or if this was just friendly banter. After a minute, she tossed her white-blond hair over her shoulder and said, “So, Denny, I was thinking we could make prom plans? I’ve been talking to some of my friends, and Jordan Mabry’s dad works for a car company and says we could get a pretty good discount on a limo.”