“Have I already managed to get in trouble?”
“No. Not at all.” She sat down next to me, on the opposite side as Jared. “Do you think you’ll be spending a lot of time in here?”
“I don’t really know,” I said. “It’ll depend when I take my first class in here. They won’t have software until—”
“Let me rephrase,” she said. “Do you want to spend time in here?”
“Of course he does,” Jared said. “Denny loves computers.”
“That’d be correct.”
“Good,” she said, and I could hear the smile. “Then I need you to do me a favor and tell me exactly what you need installed. Not what they usually install for you—there’s no point if you don’t find it helpful. So tell me what will work best to make these computers accessible, and I’ll make sure it gets done.”
That’s when she became my favorite teacher.
Maybe it’s a small gesture, but I’m so used to people assuming they know what I need better than I do. One of the hazards of being disabled, I guess. So to have a teacher actually ask—and listen—was exciting. And she made good on her word. She got one of the computers set up with a decent screen reader and even had me help show her how it worked. None of my other teachers had cared to learn anything about my assistive tech.
And then, of course, I had her as a teacher for a while that next semester. By then I already had my extremely inappropriate schoolboy crush on her. Even though she did tell really, really awful dad jokes sometimes.
Oh God. Okay, so this was her favorite joke to tell:
“Why didn’t they let the teenage pirate see the movie? Because it was rated arrrrgh!”
I swear she told the class this joke a dozen times, and every time she’d make herself laugh so hard she’d start to snort.
We can’t all be perfect.
Anyway, I don’t know if that’s the kind of story you were looking for. I only really knew her as a teacher, so I don’t know much about her life outside of school. I think her family was from northern Indiana, and she told me once she’d grown up on a farm.
But I know she was the best teacher a fourteen-year-old nerd could have asked for, and that’s how I choose to remember her.
Hope this helped, Lee.
—Denny
There was one other time, before my failed attempt to confess to Sarah’s parents, that I could’ve set the record straight.
It was toward the end of the summer. All the witnesses had been asked to come back to the high school to do a walk-through, helping the detectives working on the case to piece together exactly what happened in which order. They’d questioned us in the days that followed the shooting, but since we’d all been spread out—from the computer lab to the hallway to the girls’ bathroom—it was hard to fit the puzzle together without getting a better sense of the events in real time.
It wasn’t required or anything, more of a request. Mom kept reminding me of that as she drove me to the high school. If I wanted to go home, I could. “The boy’s dead, anyway,” Mom said, referring to the shooter, as she pulled into the parking lot behind the school. “I don’t know what else there is to investigate.”
But I saw this as an opportunity. By then the rumors had spread far and wide, the story of Sarah’s supposed final moments eclipsing the shooting itself. But Kellie would be at the walk-through. It would be the perfect time for the two of us, together, to set the official record straight on what happened in the girls’ bathroom that morning. Then people would stop talking about Sarah like she was an angel instead of my human best friend. People would leave Kellie and her family alone. And I could stop feeling guilty.
That was my plan, anyway.
Detective Jenner met us at the rear exit of the school. We’d been asked to park around back and come in through the door closest to the shop building. Probably because too many cars out front of the high school, which hadn’t been reopened yet, would draw attention from the local media. Back here, though, no one from the main road would see our cars or notice us entering the building.
“Good afternoon, Ms. Bauer, Leanne,” Detective Jenner said, holding open the door for us. “Follow me. We’re still waiting to see if a few of the others are going to show up. Eden Martinez and Denny Lucas are already here. They’re talking with Detective Weinberg about what happened in the computer lab. Once they’re done, we’ll be speaking with you and the others about the hallway and the bathroom. Ashley Chambers and her parents are on the way. Not sure about the others yet.”
“Miles isn’t coming,” I told Detective Jenner. He was a young guy, maybe in his thirties, with a face that seemed even younger, though the dark circles beneath his eyes made it clear he was exhausted. “Miles lives next door to us. I asked him and he said he won’t be here today.”
Detective Jenner nodded and sighed. “That’s disappointing, but I understand. Shame, though. I was looking forward to talking to him and Ashley at the same time about what happened in the hallway. He sounds like a real hero. But oh well. I …” He trailed off, his eyes flicking over my face. “You all right, Leanne?”
We’d been walking through the halls, headed toward the old computer lab. It was the first time I’d been here since the shooting, and I was trying to pretend this wasn’t VCHS at all. That was easy at first. The place was empty, nearly silent aside from our voices and echoing footsteps. VCHS was never this desolate or this quiet. And I was there with my mom and a police officer, two people you almost never found yourself with in a high school.
I kept thinking this, trying to convince myself I was somewhere else, as I scanned for Kellie or one of her parents. But I didn’t see anyone. I only heard other voices when we were just a few yards from the computer lab. Voices echoed through the hallway toward us—Eden was explaining something, though she spoke so quietly and quickly that I couldn’t make out what she was telling Detective Weinberg.
I’m pretty sure that’s when I started feeling sick. Because I could see the open door to the girls’ bathroom. And I couldn’t pretend we weren’t here anymore.
