42

I wasn’t sure if it was too late to get back on the StuCo project or not, but I wanted to give it a try anyway. There were only a couple weeks of school left and I wanted to share with Jessica my plans for the memorial.

I walked hesitantly into the room, bracing myself to face the entire Student Council, but the only one in the room was Jessica, bent over a pile of papers.

“Hey,” I said from the doorway. She looked up. “Where is everyone? I thought there was a meeting.”

“Oh, hey,” she said. “Canceled. Stone has the flu. I’m just studying for my Calc final.” She rubbed her elbows and squinted at me. “You wanting to come to a meeting? I thought you quit.”

“I have an idea for presenting the memorial,” I said. I moved across the room and sat in the desk next to her. I pulled out the piece of paper I’d been working on all night long—an outline of my plan—and handed it to her. She took it and started reading.

“Yeah,” she said, a smile growing slowly across her face. “Yeah. This is good. This is great, Val.” She glanced up at me sideways. “Need a ride?”

I grinned at her. “Okay.”

Our first stop was Mr. Kline’s house. It was a small, cozy brown house with untended flower gardens in the front and a skinny orange cat sitting on the porch steps.

Jessica pulled into the driveway and shut off the motor.

“You ready for this?” she asked. I nodded. Truth was, I’d probably never be ready for this, but it was something I had to do.

See things for what they really are, I reminded myself. See what’s really there.

We got out of the car and climbed the steps to the front door. The cat meowed at us plaintively and scurried under a bush. I rang the bell.

I could hear a small dog yapping ferociously just inside the door and some shushing noises that were doing nothing to quell the noise. Finally the door was pulled open and a mousy woman with mussed hair and giant glasses peered out at us. She was flanked by a squinty-eyed kid sucking on a popsicle.

She pushed open the storm door a crack.

“Can I help you?” she asked.

“Hi,” I said nervously. “Um, Mrs. Kline? I’m Val—”

“I know who you are,” she said flatly. “What do you want?”

Her voice was like shards of ice and I felt my bravado melting off of me. Jessica glanced at me and must’ve seen me looking scared because she piped up.

“We’re sorry to bother you,” she said. “But we were wondering if we could talk to you for a few minutes. It’s for a project that will involve your husband.”

“A memorial,” I added without thinking. My face immediately burned afterward. I felt embarrassed for mentioning her husband’s death in front of her. As if mentioning it would somehow make it more real to this sturdy little woman having to mother her children alone.

She looked at us silently for a long time. She seemed to be considering things very carefully. Maybe worried that I was carrying a gun and might blow her away and make her children orphans.

“Okay,” she said, pushing the door open a little further. At the same time she backed to the side, giving Jessica and me enough room to squeeze into the cluttered living room behind her. “But I’ve only got a few minutes.”

“Thanks,” Jessica breathed and we went in.

Forty minutes later we were at Abby Dempsey’s house—an emotional journey for Jessica, who was Abby’s friend and who hadn’t seen Abby’s parents since the funeral—and an hour after that we were talking to Max Hill’s older sister, Hannah, on lawn chairs in their garage.

As evening pressed in on us we sat in Ginny Baker’s hospital room, watching her cry into a mountain of crumpled used tissues. Ginny was having a bad day. She wanted to go home. But the night before she’d broken a compact mirror and used a shard to try to slit her wrists. She’d be there for a while, and she wasn’t happy about it. We talked to her mom in the hospital waiting room.

By eight o’clock, we were starving and we had one stop left to make. Jessica pulled into a gas station and we filled up on Slim Jims and bags of chips. I called my mom and told her I’d be home a little late and almost cried with happiness when she told me it was no problem, to just check in and be careful. Something she’d have said before the shooting. We sat in the gas station parking lot, stalling.

“Maybe this isn’t such a good idea,” I said, feeling nauseated after all that grease.

“Are you kidding me?” Jessica said, popping a Cheez Doodle into her mouth. “It’s a great idea! And we’re almost done! Don’t doubt yourself now.”

“I’m just thinking maybe it will be more hurtful than helpful. I’m just thinking—”

“You’re just thinking you’re scared of going to Christy Bruter’s house. I don’t blame you, Val, but we’re going.”

“But she’s the reason it all happened. My MP3 player…”

“She is not the reason it all happened. Nick was the reason it all happened. Or fate. Or whatever. It doesn’t matter. We’re going.”

“I’m not sure.”

She crumpled up her empty Cheez Doodle bag into a ball and tossed it into the back seat. She turned the key in the ignition and the car fired into life. “I’m sure. We’re going,” she said. She pulled out of the parking lot. I had no choice. We were going.

“It only hurts sometimes,” Christy said, sitting between her mom and dad on the couch. She would only look at Jessica when she talked. I didn’t blame her. I had a hard time looking at her, too. “And I wouldn’t really even say ‘hurts’ anymore. Just feels weird. Like my body’s weird.

“The worst part, honestly, is not getting to play softball anymore. I had already been offered a scholarship. Plus, my dad used to coach me and now…”

Her dad interrupted, clamping down on her knee with his palm. “Now he’s glad he got to coach for all those years,” he said. “Now he’s glad to have a daughter who’s alive to go to college.”

Christy’s mom made a small noise that sounded like “Amen” and dabbed at the corner of her eye with her fingertip. Mrs. Bruter hadn’t said much since Jessica and I got there. She sat by Christy’s side, alternately patting Christy’s knee and nodding her head in agreement to things Christy said, a trembling and not very convincing smile holding up her mouth the whole time. She nodded again when Christy’s dad mentioned that he had only prayed for a daughter who would be happy and have a long life, not one who could play softball.

“Do you…” I blurted, but faltered, unsure of what I wanted to ask her. Do you blame me? I wanted to ask. Do you hate me even more now? Do you wish Nick had killed me? Do you have nightmares with me in them? My mouth opened and closed. I swallowed.

Mr. Bruter must have sensed my discomfort because he leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and looked me straight in the eye. His hands dangled between his legs.

“We’ve learned a lot about forgiveness since this happened,” he said. “We have no interest in seeing anyone else suffer over this tragedy. Not anyone.”

Christy stared at her hands in her lap. Jessica shifted toward me slightly.

“There are heroes who died for their school,” Mr. Bruter said softly. “And there are heroes who almost died for their school. And there are heroes who stopped the shooting. Who called nine-one-one when Christy went down. Who held her stomach to stop the bleeding. Heroes who… who lost people they loved. We appreciate all of the heroes of Garvin High.”

Jessica reached over and touched the back of my arm. I felt surrounded. I—God, how did this happen?—felt proud.

When I got home, totally exhausted, Mom and Mel were sitting on the couch watching TV.

“It’s getting late,” Mom said, wrapped in her cocoon of Mel. Her feet were pulled up to the side. She looked comfy in a way I’d never seen before, not even when Dad was her cocoon. “I was getting worried about you.”

“Sorry,” I said. “This project has to be done before graduation.”

“Did you get it finished?” Mel asked and I found, to my surprise, that I didn’t mind him asking. All in all, Mel was a pretty good guy. And he made Mom smile more, which, in my opinion, made him a pretty great guy.

“Well, I got the research finished,” I said. “I got all the interviews done, anyway.”

He nodded in approval.

“I saved dinner,” Mom said. “It’s in the oven.”

“No thanks,” I said. “Jess and I ate something already.” I walked over and stood behind the couch. “I think I’m just going to go to bed.” I gave Mom a kiss on the cheek—a gesture I hadn’t given her in years. She looked surprised. “’Night, Mom,” I said, walking toward the stairs. “’Night, Mel.”

“’Night,” Mel called back loudly, drowning out Mom’s voice.