Aftermath(16)

But still… He remembers what those seniors said yesterday. Skye is new here, and she’s vulnerable, and therefore Jesse must keep an eye on her.

To do what? Defend her against guys who think she’s hot? If they try that crap, she’ll tell them where to go. That’s the Skye he knows. One who doesn’t need his help.

Following Skye like this is dangerously close to stalking.

He should speak to her.

Today, in math, she took the empty seat he refused yesterday. When he noticed the vacant desk in front of her, he sat there. As if the last three years hadn’t happened, and he was walking into middle school math class and sitting in front of Skye, as he always did. And then he wrote notes to her.

Sorry about yesterday.

How’re you holding up?

Can we talk?

That seemed to be the way to do it. A note. A little bit nostalgic. A little bit lighthearted.

Hey, remember when we used to do this? See, nothing’s changed.

Except it has.

Everything has.

He still has those notes, balled in his pocket, heavy as rocks.

The bus rolls to the curb, and Jesse’s leg muscles tense, ready to kick it up to a run. Run and swing on the bus and sit beside her and say, “Hey.”

Just that.

Hey.

The bus stops. Skye gets on. The doors close, and the bus rolls away.

Skye

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.