“But why Sarah?” I demanded. “WhyjustSarah? And what was that stuff about a necklace?”
“I … I think it’s about what happened in the bathroom, baby.”
“The bathroom?”
She chewed on her bottom lip. Another expression we had in common. “A lot of people are talking about what Sarah … what she said tohim.” My mother has never, not once, said the name of the shooter aloud. “The police found her cross necklace at the crime scene. And withhimasking her about what she believed before she died and her standing up to him …”
She trailed off, tears springing into her eyes as she looked at my face. I’m sure I looked startled. Or maybe even sick. Ifeltsick. And confused. Sarah hadn’t had a necklace on that day. She hadn’t said a word to anyone but me in that bathroom once the shooting started.
But Mom must’ve thought my expression meant something else. She tried to rush forward, to hug me, but I dodged her.
“I’m sorry,” she said, wiping the wetness from her eyes before wrapping her arms around herself. “Talking about this must be … I can’t imagine. I’m sorry. We don’t have to … Lee?”
I had already started storming off, away from the store and to the parking lot. I didn’t want her hugs or her tears or her explanations about Sarah. I didn’t want to turn everything into death in my mind. I didn’t want, didn’t want, didn’twant.
That day, I wasn’t thinking about how the story must’ve gotten started. Or where it had come from. Kellie Gaynor didn’t even cross my mind. All I could think was that I hated everything about this world I was living in. This post-shooting reality. My brain was making me miserable. My mom was driving me nuts.
And now, not even my memory of my best friend felt safe or real.
Brenna was eighteen, a senior, when she was killed. At six foot one, she was the star of the girls’ basketball team. She’d already scored an athletic scholarship. The previous fall, when VCHS had released its School Pride Calendar, a way of raising funds for the various sports teams, Brenna and her boyfriend, Aiden Stroud (the captain of the football team), were featured on the cover.
She’d been the student assistant to Coach Nolan during my first semester, when I was taking his World Civics class. Mostly that meant she sat at his desk and played games on his computer until he needed her to go make copies.
But I remember this one day, toward the end of the semester, when we were all sitting around, waiting for Coach to arrive. The bell had already rung, but he wasn’t there yet. Then Brenna came running into the classroom, a grin spread so wide that it seemed to split her face in half. She shut the door behind her and said:
“Listen up. Coach is busy with something at the front office. He’ll be here in, like, two minutes. So we don’t have much time.”
She then instructed us to turn all of the desks around. None of the freshmen hesitated. We were all on our feet, and the room began to fill with the sounds of metal scraping against tile. Brenna kept watch by the door while we worked, occasionally glancing over her shoulder and urging us to hurry as we moved on to turning the unoccupied desks.
“Keep the rows straight,” she said. “Like they’re supposed to be this way.”
Sarah was in that class with me, and she couldn’t stop giggling as we flipped around the last two desks in our row.
“Here he comes!” Brenna announced, turning away from the door. “Sit down, sit down.”
She bolted across the room, her long legs carrying her from the door to Coach Nolan’s chair in just two strides.
A split second later, the door opened, and Coach Nolan was greeted by a class full of freshmen staring him down. Our desks were no longer facing the whiteboard but, instead, the door at the back of the room. His eyes widened in surprise, and he just stood there, blinking, for a second.
“You’re late, Coach,” Richie McMullen said, his voice mock-stern.
Coach Nolan looked at him, then at Brenna. “You did this, didn’t you, Ms. DuVal?”
“No idea what you’re talking about, Coach. Isn’t this how the classroom is always arranged? Doesn’t look any different to me.”
“Funny you say that, because I didn’t say anything about how the classroom was arranged.” He shook his head, but a smile was obvious beneath his mustache. “All right. You guys want to have class facing this way? We’ll have class facing this way.”
It didn’t end up being as fun as it sounds, though. We had a pop quiz that day. And facing the back of the room instead of the front didn’t make much of a difference.
It had barely even been a prank, but it was enough to cement Brenna as being “cool” in the eyes of a classroom full of freshmen.
She would always smile and say hello to us in the hallways when none of the other seniors even bothered. She’d exchange high fives with the underclassmen jock boys while leaning against her locker in that casual-but-clearly-posed way you see in teen movies.
I was always surprised when she acknowledged me. I assumed she forgot who I was the instant she walked out of Coach Nolan’s classroom every day. I was quiet, not the girl who raised her hand and volunteered answers. My grades in that class weren’t the highest or the lowest. I was solidly average. A brunette with an unmemorable face.
But one day early in the next semester, after my World Civics class had ended, I found myself spending a lunch period in the gym. Sarah had a dentist appointment, and rather than sitting alone in the cafeteria, I had decided to take a bag lunch into the gym and sit in the bleachers while I got a head start on some of that night’s homework. Brenna was there, along with a few other girls from the basketball team.
They were taking turns shooting free throws. I’d look up between math problems and watch them for a minute before going back to my work. The other two girls, whose names I didn’t know, did pretty well, only missing a couple of shots. But Brenna didn’t miss a single one.
