15

Frankie and I were sitting at the kitchen table, just like always, him eating his cereal, me eating a banana, when I noticed the newspaper folded up on the table at his elbow. Only when I saw it did it occur to me that it was the first time I’d seen a newspaper since I came home.

“Let me see that,” I said, pointing.

Frankie glanced at the paper, blanched, and shook his head. “Mom says you’re not supposed to read the newspaper.”

“What?”

He swallowed his cereal. “Mom says we’re supposed to keep you from seeing the newspaper and, you know, TV and stuff. And we’re supposed to hang up if a reporter calls. But they don’t call now as much as they did when you were in the hospital.”

“Mom doesn’t want me to see a newspaper?”

“She thinks it’ll make you sad again if you see stuff.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“She must’ve forgotten and left this one out. I’ll throw it away.”

He grabbed the paper and started to get up. I lurched to standing and grabbed for it. “No you don’t,” I said. “Give me that paper, Frankie. I’m serious. Mom doesn’t know what she’s talking about. I was watching TV in the hospital when Mom wasn’t around. I saw it all. Not to mention, I was there at the shooting, remember?”

He started to head for the trash again, but hesitated. I held his gaze.

“I’m fine, Frankie, really,” I said softly. “I won’t get sad, I promise.”

Slowly he held it out to me. “Okay, but if Mom asks…”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll tell her you were a Boy Scout. Whatever.”

He picked up his cereal bowl and took it to the sink. I sank back down at the table and read the front page article:

SCHOOL OFFICIALS SEE SOLIDARITY
IN AFTERMATH OF TRAGIC SHOOTING

ANGELA DASH

The students of Garvin High, who returned to classes last week, report a significant change in the way they see life and relate to one another, according to Principal Jack Angerson.

“If anything that came out of this tragedy could be considered remotely good,” he said, “it’s that the students seem to have come to an understanding of one another and of the old saying ‘Live and let live.’”

According to Angerson, it’s not unusual to see former enemies sit together at lunch, see old feuds end as students pair up on a more conscious level.

“Things are very much more peaceful,” he says. “We don’t have nearly the number of complaints coming through the counselor’s office about petty things that we used to.”

Behavior difficulties in the classroom are a thing of the past, as well, according to Angerson, who predicts that the school can expect to see a decline in the number of behavior problems in the years to come.

“I think students are beginning to understand that we’re all friends here. That the criticism, harsh opinions, and quick dislike that are so common in children of this age just aren’t worth it in the end. Unfortunately they had to find that out the hard way. But they learned and they changed. Which is why I think this generation will make the world a better place.”

The students were allowed back into the building to complete the school year, although Angerson admits that curriculum has taken a back seat to what he’s calling “damage control.” The district has hired a team of trained counselors to work with the students on coming to terms with what happened on May 2nd.

Angerson also reports that students were not required to come back. No final exams will be administered, and teachers are working closely with the students on an individual basis to ensure every student has the opportunity to earn the grades they need.

“We have some teachers who are heading up study groups in their houses at night. Some at the library. Others are doing it online. But a lot of kids came back,” Angerson says. “Some of them feel really strongly about their school spirit and wanted to show support for Garvin High. They wanted to show that they won’t be scared away. Honestly, the main reason we resumed classes was as an answer to students’ outcry.”

Angerson reports that he is proud of Garvin High students for maintaining their loyalty to their school and feels that, in the years to come, the students of Garvin High will emerge as strong leaders in society. “I’m so proud of them for being the first wave of what I believe will be the agents of change in this world someday,” Angerson adds. “If there’s ever to be world peace, it will come through these guys.”

I smuggled the article into Dr. Hieler’s office later that day. No sooner had he shut the door than I dropped it on the coffee table between us.

“Does it make him a hero, Dr. Hieler?” I asked.

Dr. Hieler scanned the paper with his eyes as he eased into his chair. “Who?”

“Nick. If the people who survived are stronger and all about peace like the news says, does that make him a hero? Is he like the millennium’s version of John Lennon? Peace-spreader with a gun?”

“I understand that it would be easier for you to think of him as a hero. But, Valerie, he did kill a lot of kids. Probably not a lot of people are going to think of him as a hero.”

“But it seems so unfair that the school is just moving on and that finally they’re accepting everyone and nobody’s mean anymore and Nick is gone. I mean, I know it’s his own fault that he’s gone, but still. Why couldn’t they have just seen it before? Why did it take this? It’s just not fair.”

“Life isn’t fair. A fair’s a place where you eat corn dogs and ride the Ferris wheel.”

“I hate it when you say that.”

“So do my kids.”

I sulked, staring down at the article until the words blurred together. “You’re probably thinking I’m an idiot for being kind of proud of him.”

“No, but I don’t think you’re really proud. I think you’re pissed. I think you wish this change of attitude at Garvin had happened sooner and then maybe none of this would’ve happened. And I also think you don’t really believe that it’s true.”

And for the first time—but certainly not the last—I purged everything to Dr. Hieler. Everything. From talking about Hamlet on Nick’s unmade bed to wishing Christy Bruter would pay big-time for what she did to my MP3 player to the guilt I was feeling. Everything I couldn’t say to the cop in my hospital bed. That I couldn’t say to Stacey. To Mom.

Maybe it was the way Dr. Hieler looked at me, like he was the one person in the world who could understand how everything got so out of control. Maybe it was just that I was ready. Maybe it was the newspaper article. Maybe it was my body’s way of exploding—letting off the pressure before I destroyed myself.

I was a volcano of questions and remorse and anger and Dr. Hieler stood strong under the hail of all of it. He watched me intently, spoke softly, evenly. Nodded somberly.

“Do you think I would’ve done it?” I cried at one point. “If I had a gun, would I have shot Christy? Because when Nick said, ‘Let’s go get this finished,’ and I thought he was going to, I don’t know, embarrass her or maybe beat the crap out of her or something, I felt so good. So, like, relieved. I wanted him to take care of her.”

“That’s natural, don’t you think? Just because you were happy that Nick was going to stick up for you doesn’t mean you would’ve picked up a gun and shot her.”

“I was pissed. God, I was really, really pissed. She broke my MP3 player and I was so pissed.”

“Again, natural. I would’ve been pissed, too. Pissed doesn’t equal guilty.”

“It felt good to have him on my side, you know?”

He nodded.

“I thought he was going to break up with me, so having him stick up for me was really good. It reassured me. I thought we were going to be okay. I wasn’t even thinking about the Hate List.”

Again, he nodded, his eyes narrowing as I became more agitated.

His words floated softly in the air, wrapping around me. “Valerie, you didn’t get her shot. Nick shot her. Not you.”

I leaned back into the couch cushions and took a drink of my Coke. There was a perfunctory knock on the door and Dr. Hieler’s secretary poked her head inside.

“Your three o’clock is here,” she said.

Dr. Hieler’s eyes never left me. “Tell him I’m running a little behind today,” he said. His secretary nodded and disappeared. After she left, I was hyper-aware of the silence that stretched across the room between us. I could hear a door shut in the vestibule, someone talking in the hallway. I felt embarrassed, exposed, a little disbelieving that I’d spilled everything like that. I wanted to slink out of there, never face Dr. Hieler again, hide in my room and will the wallpaper horses to whisk me away to somewhere where I wasn’t so vulnerable.

But, I realized with some amount of horror, even calm and wrought and small, I wasn’t done yet. There was more. Darker, uglier things I had to know. Things that haunted me at night and wouldn’t leave me, like a tickle behind my ear, an itchy spot that couldn’t be identified and scratched.

“What if I wasn’t serious about it then but maybe I am now?” I asked.

“Serious about what?”

“The Hate List. Maybe I thought I didn’t mean for those people to die, but somewhere, I don’t know, subconsciously, I really meant it. And maybe Nick saw it. Maybe he knew something about me I didn’t even know. Maybe everybody saw it and that’s why they all hate me so much—because I’m a poser. I set it all into motion with that stupid list and then let Nick do my dirty work. So, I don’t know, maybe I should be serious about it now. Maybe that would make everyone feel better.”

“I doubt more killing would make anyone feel better—least of all, you.”

“They expect it of me.”

“So what? Who cares what they expect? What do you expect of you? That’s what matters.”

“That’s just it, I don’t know what to expect of me! Because everything I expected about everything has all gone to shit. And I think people are disappointed that I didn’t die. Christy Bruter’s parents definitely think I should have killed myself afterward, just like Nick. They wish Nick had aimed better when he shot me.”

“They’re parents and they’re hurting, too. Even so, I doubt they wish you were dead.”

“But maybe I wish she was dead. Maybe a part of me always did want her dead.”

“Val…” Dr. Hieler said, and his hesitation told all: If you don’t stop talking like this, I’ll have no choice but to lock you back in the psych ward with Dr. Dentley. I chewed my lip. A tear slipped down my cheek and, not for the first time, I ached for Nick to hold me.

“It’s just that I feel like such a bad person because even now sometimes I find myself still wishing he was just in jail so I’d get to see him again,” I said. Suddenly I was struck with that memory again, Nick holding me down by my wrists on his bedroom floor, telling me we could be winners. Of him leaning in to kiss me. I sat on the couch, feeling more alone than ever before. Feeling colder than I’d ever imagined possible. Feeling like, of all the horror of what happened, this was the worst of it. This was the worst because, even after everything that had been done, I still missed Nick. Sometimes we get to win, too, he’d told me and, hearing those words in my head again, I began to cry, miserably, achingly, Dr. Hieler moving to the couch next to me, his hand on my back. “I’m so sad without him,” I sobbed, taking a tissue out of Dr. Hieler’s hand. “I’m just so sad.”