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 —”