Mae has been delayed again, and tonight, I really am okay with that.
I’ve rewatched the video clip. The whole clip. I had to, in case there’s a message I need to see, a threat or a hint about who sent it. That’s my rationalization. The truth is that I watch because I feel, in some perverse way, that I owe it to the victims of the tragedy.
In the days after the shooting, I read the early news articles to understand what had happened, but the only thing they gave me was nightmares. I know the basics. The police received an anonymous report of a gun at North Hampton. They arrived just as Luka walked out of the boys’ bathroom… holding a gun. They told him to drop it. He didn’t. They shot him.
With that the police thought they’d averted the threat. That’s when Isaac and Harley opened fire elsewhere in the school. When it was over, four kids were dead, ten injured. Harley was arrested. Isaac had fled. He was found two days later – dead, having saved the last bullet for himself.
This is what I know. Any later details, though, I consciously avoided, after those nightmares. It doesn’t matter exactly what happened, only that four kids died, ten were hurt and hundreds more have to live with the memory of that day. A day my brother started. That is what counts.
Yet with each therapist, I asked whether I should know more. Whether I need those details, so I can truly understand what my brother did. They said no. To seek out more is self-torture.
I know they’re right, and it’s not as if those details are right there in front of me and I’m covering my eyes. Refusing to dig isn’t actual avoidance. Or that’s what I can tell myself… until someone sends me a video clip of the shooting.
This is the truth of what my brother was involved in. Not cold facts on a page. A girl lying dead under her desk.
I huddle on Mae’s icy leather sofa, and I watch that video until tears soak my shirt. I think of Leanna with Luka, and then I imagine her sending that text, convinced she was safe.
Did her mother get the text before she knew Leanna was dead?
Or after?
Which is worse?
There isn’t much more to the video, but what there is…
I wish I hadn’t finished watching it.
And then I feel like a coward for thinking that, this voice in the back of my head saying I need to see what my brother started.
The still shot of Leanna’s body stays on the screen for at least five long seconds. Then it disappears. The video flickers, and a room appears. An ordinary living room. The camera pans up to a bouquet of helium balloons and there’s a squeal, and I tense at that, ready for more screams. Instead, a chubby toddler runs into the room, and someone says “Over here!” and she turns and looks right at the screen, her face in a wide grin as a chorus of voices shout “Happy birthday, Leanna!”
I watch it. Over and over, I watch it as I cry.
“Skye?” The clicks of Mae’s heels cross the hardwood floor. They stop in the kitchen. The suction pop of the fridge door opening. More footsteps, her voice alarmed now, “Skye?”
“In here,” I say.
Her heels click along the hall. “Why are you sitting in the dark?”
“Just doing homework.” I grab my laptop as she appears in the doorway.
“Did you get my note about ordering takeout?”
“I, uh, didn’t see it. Sorry.” I head from the room, keeping my head ducked so she won’t spot the tear tracks. “I’m not actually hungry. I’m just going to bed.”
“It’s barely eight.”
“I’m leaving early tomorrow. I’m… I’m joining the school newspaper.”
Her eyes light. “You are?”
Why did I say that? Backpedal, Skye.
I shrug. “I figured I should. Maybe start writing again.”
That is not backpedaling. Damn it.
“I’ll get up and make you breakfast,” she says. “Do you like yogurt and granola?”
I mumble, “Sure,” and hurry past her as fast as I can.
I dream of Leanna Tsosie. I dream of her under that desk, hitting Send on the text to her mother, then hearing a noise, and turning to see Luka in the classroom doorway. I dream that she’s begging for her life, and he just keeps bearing down on her. I dream that he shoots her in the head. And then I dream that it isn’t Luka holding the gun.
It’s me.
I wake, as I lie there, shaking, I want to go home. I just want to go home.
Except I don’t know where that is anymore.
Riverside was the only place I ever really considered home, and now it’s not. It can never be again.
This is where I grew up. Where I had a family and friends and a future. Now it’s a place where people hate me enough to send me videos of dead girls.
Go away, Skye Gilchrist.
Go, and don’t ever come back.
There is, of course, no newspaper meeting before school. But since I told Mae there was, I have to go in early, so I hang out in my office – the girls’ bathroom – waiting for the bell. Maybe I’ll talk to Tiffany later and join the paper. I can edit or something. I still know the difference between there, their and they’re, and that sadly gives me an advantage over most high school kids.
Speaking of English, I see Chris Landry in class. There’s an empty seat beside him, and I wouldn’t have taken it – I don’t want to give the wrong impression – but he waves me to it, so I kinda have to. He’s being nice; therefore, I cannot be rude. He talks to me before class and again after, and he walks out with me, and then we go our separate ways. All cool.
Gran has texted. I missed my morning call. Missed last night’s too. I just couldn’t manage it. I send back a Sorry! School stuff. Call tonight? and she replies with a thumbs-up emoji, one that makes me smile and makes me hurt, too, wishing I could be there, with her and Mom.
I eat lunch in the girls’ bathroom. I plan to talk to Tiffany in physics but don’t get the chance. Jesse doesn’t show up for math. I’m making my beeline for the side exit when I hear “Skye Gilchrist to the office. Skye Gilchrist to the office.”
I slow as every eye in the hall turns my way. Then I pick up speed, as if I misheard, until someone says, “The office is that way, Gilchrist.”
I arrive to find Mr. Vaughn waiting. He waves me into his office and closes the door behind me. Then he takes a piece of paper from his desk and holds it against his chest, like it’s the answer to a scholarship-winning quiz.
“I understand it isn’t easy being here, Skye. It’s high school. Hormones and stress lead to harassment and bullying.”
“Uh, okay.”
“The problem is that, when kids have gone through years of bullying and harassing, they can develop a sensitivity to it. They see insult where none is intended. They can get a little…” His lips purse.
“Paranoid?”
He makes a face. “I was looking for another word.”
“Okay.” Is there a point here?
“I’ve seen your record from other schools. You’ve had a difficult time. Coming here, you expect things to be even worse. How will you be treated by kids who knew your brother? Who were affected by his actions? How many kids at this school have some connection to that day?”
Yeah, thanks for pointing that out. Because, you know, I hadn’t considered it until now.
“The point, Skye, is that I understand your sensitivity. But this doesn’t help matters.” He sets the paper on his desk. It’s an email. An anonymous one reporting Lana Brighton for circulating a petition to get me kicked out of RivCol.
He continues, “The person who sent this was careful to use a dummy email account and a school computer. But to access those computers, you need to log in. This email was sent from a terminal logged into your account.”
“My account?”
He looks at me like I’ve donated brain cells recently. “Your school account. Used to access the school computers.”
I wave my backpack. “I have a laptop. I didn’t even know I had an account here, so I’ve never logged into it.”
He eyes me, saddened by my pathetic attempts to defend myself.
“I’m sure I can prove I didn’t use that terminal,” I say. “When was it accessed? And where? I —”
He drops the page into a file folder. “It’s fine, Skye.”
“No, it’s not. I want to straighten this out. Either it’s a mistake or someone intentionally sent it from my account.”
“Yes, maybe you’re right,” he says, in a tone that makes it clear he doesn’t want to continue this conversation. “There is no petition, by the way. I questioned Lana yesterday.”
“Uh, yeah, there is. I overheard kids talking about signing it.”
“We also searched her locker today. Normally, I wouldn’t have gone that far, but I understand how difficult this must be, and I wanted to be thorough. There is no petition.”
“Are you accusing me of lying?”
“Lana may have made an angry offhand comment, saying someone should start a petition. Others may have taken that to mean she was. But there is no petition. Lana knows that would be pointless. You have as much right to be here as anyone.”
He says it as if I need to be reassured that I’m welcome. As if I’d been charged in the shooting and found not guilty.
“Have you considered getting more involved in school life?” Mr. Vaughn asks.
“What?”
“Once you’re settled. Join a club or two. That will help.”
Because, really, if I feel tormented, it’s my own fault for not trying harder to fit in. I remember in grade school, sitting in detention hall and overhearing a teacher tell a boy that when he complained of being bullied. Not saying it was his fault, per se, but like Mr. Vaughn, suggesting he put himself out there more, let kids get to know the real him.
I flash back to seeing the boy leave that room, head bowed with shame, cheeks flaring as he realized it’d been overheard. I remember mouthing “She’s an idiot,” with appropriate gestures, and he smiled. That boy? Chris Landry.
I was never bullied as a kid. I would like to think I never bullied anyone, either, but having now been in these shoes, I’m not always so sure. I tried to be kind. But were there other kids, less likable than Chris, who may have been a target of my clever jabs? I hope not. I really do.
“Skye?”
I nod for Mr. Vaughn. It’s that or tell him where to shove his patronizing suggestion, and I’m really not keen on another detention. Even thinking about it makes my stomach twist.
I was locked in here on Monday. I know that. Just like I know I didn’t send this email. Like I know I heard those girls say they signed that petition.
But I also heard them again… when there’d been no one around.
“Your middle school record says you were on the softball team, volleyball and the debating club. It’s volleyball season, and I know our girls’ team could use extra players. Why don’t I tell Coach Greene to expect you for tryouts —”
“I’m joining the school paper.”
“Oh?” He smiles. “That is an excellent idea. I saw that you won a city writing competition in Riverside. The paper would be thrilled to have you. In fact, I think this is their meeting day. Do you know where their office is?”
“No, but —”
“Go down this hall and make a left. Then a right. It’s a tiny room – blink and you’ll miss it. A former janitorial closet, actually.” He chuckles. “But most schools don’t even get a dedicated newspaper office, so the club’s quite pleased with it. I’ll talk to you tomorrow and see how it went.”