“Britton. Ready to go? We have a meeting scheduled with the woman over at Students Speak—”
“Mom, I told you I’m not going,” I snap, feeling petulant.
“Ummmm, another client is waiting on me, Britt.” Nina turns to my mom. “Nice to see you, Mrs. Shelton-Reeves.” I might love Nina, but right now I hate her. Nina knows my mom well enough to vacate the area when she goes on one of her rants, leaving me to deal with her alone.
“You too, Nina. Thank you.” My mom’s voice is tight and clipped. Once Nina is gone, Mom scowls. “I will not argue with you about this, Britton. Especially not in front of other people.” Her voice is quiet, but laced with irritation.
I press my lips together, knowing if I say anything else right now, she’ll push even harder. Mom wheels me out to the car, trying to coddle me into the front seat.
“I can do it!” I shake off her hand and ignore the hurt look on her face.
After “the incident,” as it’s called in my house, my mom went into full-blown overprotective mode. Helicopter parents have nothing on Rose Shelton-Reeves. Since I woke up from a coma six months ago, she has one goal and one goal only—to fix me up so she can turn me into a walking, talking billboard for school-related shootings.
Mom starts going on her usual diatribe as she pulls out of the lot at the Blake Atkins Center, the premiere brain injury and spinal cord rehab center in the Southeast. I spent four months here as an inpatient after having two surgeries, and now come three times a week for outpatient rehab.
I only catch bits and pieces of her monologue listing all of the good things I can do for students everywhere if I just act reasonably and do what she says.
“So, Britt, then we would go to schools and…”
I let her go on, pretending to listen. Whatever. She’s on my left side, so I can’t hear ninety percent of what she says. According to her it’s so important for me to speak out about the shooting, even though I can’t recall a single thing from that day or the weeks leading up to it. How ironic that my mom can’t be bothered to remember a tiny little thing like the fact I lost all hearing in my left ear when a bullet tore through my skull.
“…and then we would travel… many states…”
I gaze out the window, rolling my eyes. All I want to do is move on, something my parents—my mother in particular—can’t seem to do. I mean, yeah I feel bad for what my parents went through—a daughter shot at school, brain surgeries, rehab, homeschool—but I didn’t ask Mom to quit her job to do all those things. She’s the one who said I couldn’t go back to regular school with all those “dangerous killers” out there.
More important, I don’t want to remember the shooting. I’m glad I can’t. I don’t think I could live with the memories of that day. Mom either refuses to acknowledge my wishes or isn’t listening, because the last thing I want to do is discuss the worst day of my life in front of students across the country over and over and over. I just want to be Britt again, not Britton Reeves, school shooting victim and activist.
Mom’s hand touches my knee and I flinch. “Sorry honey, I was calling your name and you didn’t hear me. We’re here.”
In front of us is the tall, gleaming glass high-rise where the offices of Students Against School Shootings are located. What a dumb name. Are any students for school shootings? A laugh escapes before I can squelch it.
I feel the heat of my mom’s glare as she exits the car.
“Great,” I murmur while Mom gets my chair out of the back of the SUV. Just how I wanted to spend my day.
Killer
“Maybe you’ve had enough, Kell.”
I glare at Logan and hold up my hand to signal for another round of drinks.
“Maybe it’s none of your fucking business,” I snarl.
“Fuck, Kell. I never should have got you that fake ID. last year.” Logan slouches back in the booth, crossing his arms over his chest. “In the eight months since the shooting, you’ve turned into a fucking drunk. Dropped out of school to do what? Feel sorry for yourself all day?”
The waitress places another whiskey in front of me. “Shut up, Sanders. You’re not my goddamn mother.” I cringe, realizing what I just said. Then a weird sort of hysteria takes over and I begin to laugh maniacally. “Fuck,” I snort, “I don’t even have a mother anymore!” Slamming back half the whiskey, I laugh louder. “Hell, I hardly have a father. My mom got fucked up on pills and booze and fell into the pool, or maybe she just fucking threw herself in!” I wheeze, tears of laughter streaming down my cheeks.
As if a switch flips, the laughter stops and an icy calm slithers down my spine, oozing like a living thing slipping into every crack and crevice of my body. “No mother, no father, no sister…” My voice hitches. “Fuck.” I down the rest of the drink, praying for the blessed numbness to take over.