I’m sure God would want me to forgive her. I’m sure that’s what I’m supposed to do. But it’s not something I’ve been able to just yet.
I stayed in the hospital for several weeks. I finished my classes there while doing physical therapy and trying to get used to my new life on wheels. Honestly, I think that transition was harder on my parents than it was on me. I’m not going to say it was easy or that I didn’t get frustrated quite a bit, especially in those first months, but I was alive. God had watched out for me, and I knew I shouldn’t take that for granted. I finally understood that He had a plan, and this was part of it.
And alongside all of the struggle, there were also good things that happened to me after the shooting. First, Logan and I got back together. He visited me in the hospital every night, driving an hour each way just to see me after work. By the end of the summer, we were engaged. On Valentine’s Day of the next year, a month before the one-year anniversary of the shooting, we got married. And six months ago, I gave birth to a beautiful little girl, Miriam.
The other thing that happened was that I finally figured out what I wanted out of my life. And two years ago, I started applying to nursing school. The nurses I knew when I was in the hospital kept me comfortable and sane and held my hand when things got really tough. I want to be that person. In a strange way, getting shot was the light I needed toward my path.
I don’t want to romanticize what happened to me or the other victims that day. I feel like I need to emphasize again that it wasn’t easy. Sometimes it’s still not. Some days I still get upset, thinking about the things I used to be able to do. Some days, especially in the spring, memories of the shooting keep me awake at night. I’ve had to forbid my dad and sister from ever talking about hunting in my presence, because it instantly makes me think of the sound of those gunshots.
But, at the same time, I have a good life. I hear so often from people that if they went through what I have, if they were disabled or in a wheelchair, they don’t think they could go on. But if I let myself feel that way, I would have missed so much good. My family and my future and my friends—Lee and Eden and Miles and Denny, the other survivors who have come to mean so much to me—there are so many wonderful things in my life that I am eternally grateful for.
There were a lot of tragedies the day of the shooting, but I am not one of them. I have found peace and beauty and a renewed sense of faith. I am not someone to be pitied or mourned, because I survived, and I found my place in the world. I am able to wake up every morning, smile at my husband, hold our little girl, and feel certain that I am on the path God intended for me.
Miles Mason and a group of surgeons may have been the ones to save my life, but forgiveness—that’s what kept it worth living.
With love,
Ashley Chambers-Osborne
Ashley was the one who started the story about Sarah. How had I not known that?
I’d never been sure exactly how the myth began. I’d just assumed that it started and ended with that cross necklace the police had found in the bathroom. That they assumed it was Sarah’s, given her family and church connections, but I’d thought the rest of the story had just been spun out of a real-life game of telephone, passed around town, getting bigger and bigger until Sarah became a saintlike figure.
But Ashley had started it all. She’d overheard something and, in all of the chaos, thought it was Sarah. But I knew it hadn’t been. Because I’d been with Sarah, squeezed into a stall, looking her right in the eye. I’d been so focused on her, on the sound of my heartbeat, that I hadn’t remembered hearing anything else around us.
Now I knew that, for Kellie, it hadn’t just been about some necklace. It had been about her words.Herwords given to someone else. She’d been branded a liar not just about that piece of jewelry but about the way she’d used her voice. She’d been made an outcast and her words had been used to make Sarah a hero.
Don’t judge me for saying this, but while Ashley’s letter made me feel worse for Kellie, it also made me feel a little relieved. Because it meant this whole thing wasn’t entirely my fault for not speaking up. I still felt guilty, of course. I’ll probably always feel guilty. But Ashley’s assumptions about what she’d overheard were to blame, too.
But the main thing Ashley’s letter did was reaffirm my decision to try and get the truth out there.
Not everyone was on board for that, though.
Miles spotted the note tucked beneath my windshield wiper before I did. We were leaving school on a Tuesday afternoon in early April. I’d stayed after class to get help from my English teacher. We were readingOthello, and despite my love of theater, Shakespeare was still kind of out of my depth. I was hoping to get some clarity on a few passages I’d highlighted.
Miles had waited for me in the cafeteria, and once I was done, we headed out to the student parking lot together. It was nearly empty.
“You’ve got a note,” Miles said, pointing to the folded piece of paper on my windshield.
“Weird.” I unfolded it. The handwriting was large and the letters were round. Miles shifted next to me, coming to read over my shoulder.
Leanne,
I’m sorry I missed you. I was hoping we could have a chat. Come by the church sometime or give me a call.
Brother Lloyd
“Why was he at the school?” Miles asked.
I folded up the note and shoved it into my pocket. “No idea. Maybe he’s doing something with the Fellowship of Christian Students.”
“Don’t they meet in the mornings?”
I shrugged.
“It sounds like he was waiting for you,” Miles said. “That’s creepy.”
“I’m sure it’s fine,” I said. Honestly, I was far less freaked out about the idea of Brother Lloyd waiting in the school parking lot than I was aboutwhyhe was waiting. If he wanted to talk to me, that meant Sarah’s parents had probably told him what had happened at their house a couple weeks earlier.
