I’m not the best with words. People have always called me shy, but that’s not really it. I just never really know what to say. I spend so long searching for the right word that by the time I have what I want to say worked out in my head, the conversation has moved on. Pictures have always made more sense to me.
Maybe that’s why I’ve written seven drafts of this letter. That, or maybe it’s because Lee asked me to write the truth. I’ve been giving people the truth they want to hear, showing them the pictures they want to see, for so long that I don’t know which way is up anymore.
All I know is I tryso hard. And everyone thinks I’m doing so well, but I’m scared and I’m angry and I’m tired all the time, and I can’t tell anyone that because they don’t want to hear it and because I don’t know how to say it.
And also because of Rosi.
I didn’t really like my cousin. I’m not supposed to say that, but if I’m telling the truth, there it is. We didn’t get along at all. I’m sure she was nice to other people, but not to me. She was my younger cousin. She set the bar, though. And I could never reach it.
Rosi was the better Martinez. She never missed a single Mass. Her Spanish was perfect. At school she was popular and had good grades. And I was the quiet, geeky lesbian who spent all her time reading manga and drawing instead of studying. I barely managed a C in my high school Spanish class. Rosi was better than me at almost everything, and she loved to remind me of that.
Every time we were at Abuela’s house, Rosi would wait until I walked into the room to start asking our grandmother questions about growing up in Mexico or about Abuelo, who had passed away before we were born. Within seconds, they’d both fall into rapid Spanish that I couldn’t follow, full of laughter and smiles. If our parents were around, they’d join in, too. And I’d be stuck sitting there, left out. Abuela was always the first to notice me, but whenever she’d try to pull me into the chatter, even switching back to English, I just didn’t have words. Not in any language. So I’d shrug and Abuela’s face would fall, and over her shoulder Rosi would give me this look of pity, like she hadn’t done it on purpose.
She mostly ignored me at school. We were a year apart, so it wasn’t that hard. She had a big group of friends, who all seemed to really like her. I mostly just had my sketchbook. We only had one class together, and we sat on opposite sides of the room. Outside of school we may have been cousins in a close-knit family, but within those four walls, we might as well have lived in different universes.
But as much as I resented Rosi—hated her, sometimes—the moment I realized she was dead was the worst of my life.
I’m not going to go into too many details about the shooting. Whoever’s reading this has heard it all. I can’t really add anything.
But Lee asked me to write about the “truth.” About things people don’t know. And for me what people don’t know is after. It’s when I opened my eyes, curled up in a ball under a table in the computer lab, and realized that no one in my class was moving. When I crawled over to Denny and realized that only some of the blood on the carpet was coming from his arm. When I realized that Rosi, my baby cousin, wasn’t breathing.
Rosi was a brat, but she was my family. And I never imagined I’d have to see her with a bullet hole in her … No. Sorry. I can’t even write it. That’s not the point, anyway. The point is that seeing her like that, it screwed me up. Bad.
But I didn’t want to be screwed up. My family needed me. Before, I was allowed to stay in the shadows. I was allowed to be quiet while Rosi was the star. I didn’t realize what a gift that was when Rosi was around. I was jealous of her. But once she was gone, I had to be the one to shine.
I couldn’t be Rosi. I figured that out quick. I couldn’t make Abuela laugh so hard she got the hiccups. I couldn’t bring home the kind of grades that made my family brag about me to anyone who would listen. I couldn’t make them happy the way she did.
I tried. All through my junior and senior year I tried. But I couldn’t be her.
I had to find a way to besomething, though. A new way to make them proud. Because I didn’t want them to think that it should’ve been me who died that day.
They’ve never said that. No one in my family wouldeversay that. Not even Rosi’s parents. And if they thought it, I know they’d feel awful. They’d be running to confession right away. But I didn’t want them to have to feel the guilt of thinking it. And I didn’t want to think it about myself.
I started college about two years after the shooting. One night, my roommate, Misty, asked if I wanted to go to a protest with her. Like I said, I’m a quiet person. And since the shooting, loud noises and sudden movements stress me out, so a protest is probably the last place I should’ve been. But the only other option was to stay in my dorm room, alone, on a Saturday, and as much as the other things freak me out, being alone is worse. When I’m alone, every little sound makes me panic. I start imagining all the horrible things that could happen.
I don’t even think I registered that the protest was about gun control, though I’m sure that’s why Misty invited me. She had made us signs and stuff—she went to a lot of protests and knew the drill—and I just sort of expected to stand there, holding one of her cardboard signs, moving my lips to the chants other people came up with. It’s embarrassing to admit, but back then, I actually didn’t care that much.
But then a local reporter took our picture. He asked for mine and Misty’s names and where we were from, and when the paper came out the next day, there I was, holding up my sign, Eden Martinez, VCHS survivor, fighting for gun control. I hadn’t told the reporter I was a survivor, but it wouldn’t have been hard to put together.
I don’t know how the paper got to Abuela. My college is a few hours away from Virgil County, but somehow, she saw it. She called me, crying, and told me how proud she was. Told me the family was so proud. Because I was making a difference. I was fighting for Rosi. My parents shared the article on Facebook, and my aunt and uncle wrote me kind emails. For the first time, I was the star. I was the Martinez they wanted me to be.
That’s how I got into activism.
It’s also how I started drinking.
It wasn’t a lot at first. One of the other protesters had offered me a shot, said it would help dull my anxiety. And it had. I’d never had a drink before that day, but I liked it. Liked how it lowered the volume on that panicked voice always screeching in my head. So when Misty took me to another protest the next weekend, I made a point to get my hands on another shot.
But I wanted the feeling more often than just at protests. So I started drinking regularly. Just a little on weeknights, just enough to slow my rapid thoughts so I could sleep easily. On weekends, though, I let myself drink more. Enough to not just dull the edge but to break off the knife at the hilt. Enough so I couldn’t feel any of it.
I kept going to protests. Misty was so excited to have a buddy that she offered to get involved with other organizations. She helped me write editorials about campus safety for the college newspaper. She educated me with statistics and facts, and I told her as much as I could about what it was like to be in a real active shooter situation. And when I got invited to give my first presentation, in an auditorium full of people, and I started freaking out, Misty decided to combine her statistics and my experience. While I panicked, she and my girlfriend, Jenny, wrote a script I could follow.
Because of their help, the first presentation went well, and I got asked to do it again. And again. And again. At high schools and colleges all over Indiana. Over the past few months, I’ve been on TV and in a couple of national publications. I even had the chance to sit down with some state lawmakers. And it’s not just my family watching me now. I get messages from strangers on social media. From teenagers and adults and other activists.
“You’re a warrior,” one girl wrote to me on Twitter. “Keep up the fight.”
Warrior.That’s the version of me everyone wants to see. I’m a fighter. A girl who’s willing to shout to be heard. A girl who’s willing to relive the worst day of her life in presentations to get her point across. They see me as powerful and determined and someone to admire and—
And I’m so scared of letting them know I’m not that.
