Anyway, I did get another take on Kevin Brantley. This time it was from Eden, who responded via email.
Kevin was my lab partner in chemistry. I did most of the work. But he wasn’t so bad. He saw me drawing in class once and asked if I’d teach him. He said he wanted to design his own T-shirts one day. I said no because … well, you know how I am with people. But he offered to pay for some lessons, and I needed the money for art supplies.
We met once a week during lunch for about two months. He was kind of loud and a little lazy, but he was nice to me. Actually, he’s the only guy who has ever asked me out. I don’t think he really liked me. He just wanted a girlfriend. It was the last day of our drawing lessons, and I told him I was gay. Which wasn’t something I told a lot of people at the time.
I kind of assumed he’d be gross about it. Make some jokes or say something homophobic. But instead he just said, “That’s cool. So is my brother,” and dropped it.
He sat next to me in Ms. Taylor’s class. We didn’t talk a lot, but sometimes he’d slide over a notebook with one of his drawings and ask what I thought. Rosi was the one who was good at things, not me, so having someone want my opinion because they thought I was good at something? It meant a lot.
I don’t know if you’d call Kevin and me friends. But yeah. I definitely remember him. I wonder if he ever would have made those T-shirts he talked about.
I sent out a group text message the day after my talk with Miles, and to my surprise, Ashley and Eden responded almost immediately. They had a few questions, but they both agreed to write letters for my project. I didn’t tell them what I’d told Denny and Miles. It wasn’t the kind of thing I wanted to deliver over text. I just explained that, with the boys and me graduating, it felt like this was our last chance to really tell our stories.
Denny responded, too, and told me I could use his scholarship letter for whatever I decided on doing. And Miles, of course, didn’t answer my text at all. I’d known he wouldn’t. He was taking time to think about what he wanted to do, and I wasn’t going to push him. Not just yet, at least.
Now the only thing remaining was to find Kellie Gaynor.
I’d spent hours searching for her online. She didn’t seem to have any social media presence—at least not under the name Kellie Gaynor—and no phone listings anywhere. I did find her mom on Facebook, but the friend request I’d sent had been ignored. Not that I blamed her. I tried sending a message anyway, explaining that I was one of the other survivors and I wanted to get in touch with Kellie, but as far as I could tell, it hadn’t even been read.
Most of the things that came up when I searched Kellie’s name online were old Tumblr and forum posts from the usual VCHS true crime spots. A lot of the time, she was just listed among those who had been injured, along with Ashley and Denny, but there was some more disturbing stuff out there, too. Including an old piece of “fan fiction” in which Kellie is the girlfriend of the shooter and helped him plan the whole thing. Only then she betrays him by calling the cops from the bathroom and shooting herself in the shoulder to make herself look like a victim.
Of course, like in a lot of the weird fandom around the shooting, the mass murderer is glorified, portrayed as misunderstood and sympathetic, and the rest of us were just bullies.
The story was disturbing, but not even close to the worst I’ve read.
And diving that deep into the mass shooter fandom side of the internet had brought me no closer to getting in touch with Kellie Gaynor.
“Why bother looking for her, anyway?” Ashley asked.
I was at her house about a week after I’d asked her to write the letter. She’d just put her daughter down for a nap, and we were sitting at her kitchen table dyeing Easter eggs. As always, being in her house felt like being wrapped in a favorite quilt, warm and familiar. Before the shooting, I honestly hadn’t liked Ashley very much. She had always come across as self-righteous and judgmental. But now it was hard to imagine a life where I didn’t have her texting me almost daily, either with a cute picture of Miriam or just checking in to make sure I was doing all right.
When I mentioned Kellie Gaynor, however, her normally sweet expression instantly turned sour.
I shrugged, then dipped one of my eggs into the pink dye. “She’s one of us, too. I’m sure she has a story to tell.”
Ashley scoffed. “I’m sure she does. One full of lies.”
I started to tell her the truth right then. I swear I did. Ashley, if you’re reading this, I’m sorry I didn’t go ahead and just say it. But my eyes flitted to a photo stuck on the refrigerator door. In the picture, Ashley is wearing her wedding dress, her veil pushed back as she smiles at the camera. Her wheelchair is positioned in front of a church and Logan, wearing his tux, is kneeling beside her. A group of smiling people stand around them, looking proud. Among the crowd are Ruth and Chad McHale. And the church in the background is Virgil County Baptist.
Ashley has gone to church with Sarah’s family since she was little. She’d known Sarah for most of her life. As much as I’d wanted to just tell her the truth right then, I was scared I’d have a repeat of my night with the McHales. I didn’t want to be kicked out of Ashley’s house. I didn’t want to lose that warm-blanket feeling I had when I was with her.
Yes, I was being selfish. But I resolved that I’d tell her once all the letters were written. I could use them to explain everything. Until then, though, I’d stay silent. And safe.
“I’m sorry,” Ashley said as she lifted an egg from the blue dye. “I know I’m being harsh. I just really hate her. I try not to say thehword often, but with Kellie Gaynor … who makes up the kind of lies she did? Who does that?”
“We don’t have to talk about her,” I said. “In fact, let’s just change the subject.”
“Fair enough,” she said. “Oh, but I did write that letter for you.”
“Already?” I asked, surprised.
“I felt inspired,” she said. “I was going to email it to you, but our internet’s been acting up. So I put it on a USB drive. Will that work?”
“That’d be great. Thank you.”
“Hold on. I’ll go grab it.” She wiped her dye-smudged fingers on a clean paper towel, then wheeled back from the table, carefully maneuvering her chair through the kitchen doorway. She returned a minute later and handed me a small blue thumb drive. “I hope I did it right,” she said.
“I don’t really think there’s a wrong way to tell your own story.”
