Dear Lee,
I didn’t think I’d do this letter thing. I still don’t want to. But … I don’t know. I think I should. Not for the reasons you think it’s important. You think it’s better if the truth is out there, but for me, it’d be worse.
I don’t want people to know the truth. Not my version of it.
No. I guess that’s not right. I don’t care that much about other people. I don’t want you to know my story. The rest of the world can think whatever the hell they want about me, but you’re different. I can’t deal with the idea of you hating me. Which is why I never talk about what happened that day. But I can’t keep dodging this. I can’t handle lying to you anymore, so … I guess I’m writing a letter after all.
God, I hope you don’t hate me after you read this.
So, you know how everyone thinks I’m some kind of hero? Because I supposedly tried to protect Ashley or something? Well, all of that is bullshit. I’m not a hero. Not even close. In fact, someone is dead because of me.
March 15 was my first day back from two weeks of suspension. I already knew I’d be repeating my sophomore year. I’d missed too much class, been in too many fights. Everyone was fed up with me by then. My grandmother, the principal, pretty much all of the teachers. The only person who wasn’t was Coach Nolan. He was my US History teacher, and he’d been trying to get me to join the football team all semester.
“Might help you channel some of that aggression,” he’d said. “You could even get a scholarship if you get your act together.”
I just shook my head every time he brought it up. Sports, especially team sports, have never worked for me.
“Just think about it,” he said. “It’s not too late to turn things around.”
For some reason, Coach Nolan believed I was more than just some punk-ass kid who couldn’t stay out of fights. He really wanted to see me do well, even when no one else thought I could.
And I repaid him by getting him shot.
I was pissed that morning—the morning of the shooting. I don’t remember why. I was always pissed about something. Coach Nolan had just given us a reading assignment, and everyone was opening their books, trying to get a jump start on their homework. Then some asshole senior behind me grabbed my beanie off my head.
I turned around in my seat to face him. I’d been in detention with him before. He was just some jerk, a slacker who’d failed US History enough times to be taking it again his senior year. The kind of kid who shoved underclassmen against lockers for no reason. The kid who cursed at teachers and threw punches over nothing.
I can’t remember that kid’s name now, but I remember that I hated him. Probably because I knew that, in two years, that’d be me.
I tried to grab my hat back from him, but he held it over his head.
“Hats are against the dress code, freak,” he said.
“Give Mr. Mason his hat back,” Coach Nolan said, barely even looking at us.
The kid rolled his eyes, but he did give it back. Because even if you didn’t like Coach Nolan, you respected him.
I took my beanie and pulled it onto my head.
“That is actually against dress code, though,” Coach Nolan said. But he gave me a quick smile, and I knew he wasn’t going to ask me to take it off. No one cared if I broke dress code just as long as I kept my fists to myself.
“I was doing you a favor, freak,” the kid behind me said. “Trying to keep you from looking like the white trash you are.”
I wanted to ignore him, but he kept going, whispering low enough that Coach Nolan couldn’t hear.
“I know you live with your grandma,” he said. “Is that because your parents are in jail? Junkies? My guess is meth.”
I know he was just trying to provoke me. He wanted a fight. He didn’t know me. Had no reason to hate me. And he was just taking a wild guess about my parents. Because he knew if anyone would rise to the bait and give him the fight he wanted, it’d be me. And he was right.
I jumped out of my seat and threw a punch right at his face.
He ducked and I missed, but I tried again. He was starting to stand up when Coach Nolan came behind me and grabbed my arm. “Enough,” he said before this asshole could get his swing in.
I shook Coach Nolan off and folded my arms.
He looked at me then. Completely disappointed. He didn’t say anything, but I knew what he was thinking. I’d been back a day, and I was already in trouble again. He was wondering if he should even bother with me anymore. That look hurt worse coming from him than it had from anyone else.
“Come on, Mr. Mason,” he said. “We’re going to the office. The rest of you, keep reading until the bell rings. I’ll be back shortly.”
We never made it to the office.
I followed him out of the classroom. He glanced at me once as he walked, then turned to face forward again. “You have to cut this crap out, Miles,” he said. “You’re a smart kid. You’ve got potential. I keep trying to show you that and you just keep messing it up.”
“Maybe quit trying, then,” I said.
He sighed. “Maybe I should.”
I shoved my hands into my pockets and stared down at my feet as we turned the corner.
We heard the gunshots a second later. They were coming from down the hallway, near the old computer lab. Coach Nolan saw before I did. For a second, we both froze. Then Coach Nolan started to run. Not away from the kid with the gun but toward him. He knew that kid had a gun. He knew he could get killed. But he ran forward anyway. To help.
Me? I just stood there.
Ashley was running at us. I still have nightmares about that moment. About the look of terror on her face. And how she fell, tumbling forward onto the floor. And the blood.
“Put down the gun!” Coach Nolan yelled. “Put it down! It’s not too—”
It’s not too late. I know that was what he was gonna say. It’s what he always said to me. It’s not too late to do better. To stop. To turn things around.
But it was, Lee. It was too late. Because before Coach Nolan could even finish that sentence, there were two bullet holes in his chest. I saw him freeze. Heard him gasp. I don’t know if it was from shock or pain. And then I watched him fall.
And you know what I did?
I ran.
I was gonna run into the bathroom. I couldn’t think of anywhere else to go. I thought maybe I could hide in a stall or something. But I’d only taken two steps when I tripped over Ashley and landed on top of her. He was still shooting, and I whispered to Ashley to shut up. I knew if I stood up, he’d probably shoot me, too. So I played dead on top of her.
I played dead while Coach Nolan bled out a few feet away.
I played dead while walked into the bathroom and started shooting.
While he shot at you, Lee.
Ashley told everyone I’d been trying to protect her. That’s not true, though. I was just trying to run. The whole time I was lying there, my heart was pounding so hard I thought my ribs would break. I kept thinking about how I’d get away, even if it meant leaving Ashley, how I could move without him seeing me. I didn’t hear what was going on in the bathroom. I didn’t hear anything but the voice in my head screaming at me that I needed to get out.
I wasn’t a hero. I was a coward.
And the worst part is, Coach Nolan would still be alive if I hadn’t been such a screwup. If I’d just listened to him. If I’d just ignored that kid behind me and not thrown a punch. If I’d tried a little harder to stay out of trouble, he’d be alive.
He wanted to help me when no one else thought I was worth saving. And if I’d just let him, he would never have been in that hallway.
I got him killed.
But no one knew that. All they knew was what Ashley said. She thought I was a hero. And for the first time, no one was pissed at me. No one was disappointed. My grandmother told me how proud she was of me. She’d never said that before. She’d never had a good reason to. People started looking at me like I was worth a damn.
You looked at me like I was worth a damn.
I didn’t want to be seen as a hero, but it was nice to not be seen as a lost cause for once.
I know I haven’t really told you much about my parents or why I moved in with my grandmother. But there’s a reason that kid in US History pissed me off so bad. When I was five, my mom overdosed. Heroin, not meth. She died and left me with my dad. You’d think after what happened to my mom, he’d want to stay away from drugs. And he did for about a year. Then we moved to Tennessee for a while and meth happened.
Dad was a dick whether he was sober or not. I got left alone a lot while he went out to get high or drunk or find some other way to spend the money we didn’t have. The therapist I saw after the shooting thinks that’s why I started fighting with other kids. Because I wanted him to pay attention, and getting in trouble was the way to get him to notice or something. I think I was just angry. At him. At Mom for dying. At all the other kids at school for being happier than I was.
Then Dad got arrested. He beat the hell out of some guy at a bar, and when the cops came, Dad had drugs on him. So he got jail time and I got shipped off to live with a grandmother I hadn’t seen in years. And the first time I got in trouble at school, I remember her looking at me and saying, “You look just like your father.” And the way she said it, I knew that wasn’t a good thing. He’d disappointed her, and now I had, too.
It didn’t take long for everyone in Virgil County to know I was bad news. Sometimes just by looking at me. I know you thought so, too.
Don’t be creeped out, but I remember the first time I saw you. I’d been living next door for a couple of weeks, but we’d never really crossed paths, I guess. Anyway, I was walking home. I’d been kicked off the school bus for cussing at the driver. You were sitting on your front porch with Sarah. Your hair was long back then, almost to your waist, and the wind kept blowing it in your face. You were spitting it out of your mouth while Sarah laughed. She reached up and tried to help you tie it back, and that’s when I saw your face.
I don’t think I thought anything that interesting. I don’t remember thinking that you were beautiful. You are, but I don’t think I saw it then. Pretty sure I just thought you were a girl. And you looked like a nice girl. The kind of girl who’d never look my way.
But then you did. You looked at me while I was walking up my driveway. And I stopped to look back at you. I was about to say something. Hi, probably. But then Sarah looked over your shoulder to see what you were staring at. And then she grimaced and whispered something in your ear as she finished tying the ponytail into your hair.
And then you frowned and shook your head and turned away.
I’m not saying I blame you. Either of you. I’m just saying that there was a time when you saw me differently. When you thought I was someone to avoid.
But that’s not how you looked at me after the shooting. The first night I asked to come up on the roof, I thought you’d say no. I thought you’d want to stay away from me. But you didn’t. Because you’d changed your mind about me. Just like everyone in Virgil County. Because you thought I was a hero. And I let you think that, because I like the way you look at me.
God, Lee, I’ve almost told you the truth so many times. Because I feel so guilty all the time. I’m a fraud. I’m the reason a good man is dead, and everyone thinks I’m a hero and I don’t want them to think that, but I also don’t want them to go back to being disappointed in me. I don’t want to be my dad. I’ve tried to do better since the shooting. I’ve stayed out of trouble. I’ve tried to keep my anger in check. Mostly because I can’t stop thinking about Coach Nolan. If I become a dirtbag like my dad, his death will be pointless.
It already is pointless.
But it feels like I owe it to him to do better. So a few weeks after the shooting, I got online and watched a documentary about the American Civil War, and a few days after that, I picked up a biography of Abraham Lincoln, because … I don’t know. Because it was the kind of thing that would have made Coach Nolan proud when he was alive. The kind of thing he never would have expected from me.
Turns out, I really like history. There’s something about putting the puzzle together, figuring out how we got here, who and what led us to this point in time—maybe that sounds stupid. But you know how acting is an escape for you? I think history is that for me. I can get lost in the research for hours on end. Hours where I’m not thinking about the shooting at all.
Maybe if I was interested in other school stuff, college wouldn’t seem like such a fantasy.
Maybe Grandma’s right and I should go to vocational school. That’s probably the most realistic option for me. But sometimes I think about what would happen if I could get into college, if I studied history. Maybe—and yeah, I know this sounds crazy—but maybe I could become a teacher.
Maybe I could do for other kids what Coach Nolan tried to do for me.
I don’t know. All of that seems like such a long shot, and I’m just rambling. I hate writing.
But you keep asking for the truth, Lee, and the truth is that I’m scared you’ll read this and hate me. That knowing I’m not a hero will change how you look at me. Because I’m pretty sure I can deal with the rest of this town hating me. Maybe I even deserve it because of Coach Nolan. But I can’t deal with you hating me. I just can’t.
Last night after prom, I called Ashley. I had her pick me up and we drove around town in her van for a while. She’s the first person I’ve ever told any of this to. I didn’t know what to do about you—about us—and I figured if anyone had a right to know the truth, it was Ashley. She’s spent years thinking I tried to save her life when, really, I was just trying to hide. I thought she’d be pissed at me, but I knew she’d be the best person to ask for advice. She’s always been good with advice.
Well, except when it comes to Kellie, I guess.
“You should tell her,” Ashley said. She’d been surprised but not mad. If anything, she just seemed tired. “Look, I’m not too happy with Lee right now. With this whole letter thing. But … you love her.”
I turned my head to look out the window. We were on our way back to my grandma’s house. “I … uh …”
“That wasn’t a question,” Ashley said. “It’s obvious. It’s been obvious for a while. And if you’re telling me this, it’s because you want to tell her. You’re just scared. You don’t have to write one of her stupid letters if you don’t want to. But tell her. I think you’ll feel better once you do.”
“She’ll hate me.”
“She won’t. She’ll be surprised, but she won’t hate you.” She paused. “Look, you don’t have to tell her if you don’t want to. It’s no one’s business but yours. Maybe a little bit mine. I mean, it’s just one more thing I got wrong.” She sighed and shook her head. “If anything, it’s my fault you’ve felt like you had to lie about this. But I think you’ll feel relieved once she knows.”
“It’s not just about you,” I said. “Coach Nolan …”
“You can’t blame yourself for that,” she said. “You weren’t the one with the gun.”
“Yeah. But I …”
“Was a stupid kid,” Ashley said. “We were all stupid kids. None of us handled that situation perfectly. Don’t know if anyone could, really. But … we were kids who ended up in an awful situation. None of us asked for this.” She glanced over at me before looking to the road again. “For what it’s worth, I knew Coach Nolan. He wouldn’t blame you. He’d just be happy you survived.”
We pulled into my driveway a few minutes later, and I started to unbuckle my seat belt.
“Tell her,” Ashley said. “Not because you think you have to. You don’t. But … because it’ll be a relief not to carry this around on your own.”
I leaned across the seat and hugged her before climbing out of the car.
Then I stayed up all night trying to write this. Because I’m being a coward, again, and I can’t tell you the truth to your face. I don’t want to watch you turn away from me the way you did that first time I saw you.
Because Ashley’s right. I love you, Lee.
I know that things are complicated with that. With romantic stuff. I know you’re asexual, and I’m still trying to figure out what that means. I don’t know what’s going to happen when you move to California. I don’t know what a future for us would look like. But I know that I love you. That I will do anything to keep you in my life. I’ll respect whatever boundaries you set. Even if that’s just us staying friends. I’d follow you wherever you’d let me, as corny as that sounds. I just want to be with you.
And I don’t want you to be disappointed in me.
So there you go. That’s the truth you’ve been asking for. I really hope writing this wasn’t a huge mistake.
Love,
Miles