by Cate Carlyle
“Kelsie, you okay?” Kayla leaned down towards the pony-tailed lump cowering under the desk. She gently grabbed Kelsie’s wrist and checked her pulse. Kelsie didn’t respond.
“Kelsie, talk to me,” Kayla implored, getting right in her face.
“I ... I ... I can’t do this, Kayla,” she finally responded. “I need to get out of here. I can’t take this. We are all going to die! I know it! I’ll never go to prom, I’ll never walk down the aisle with my dad, and I’ll never have kids or teach them to cheer!”
With each never, Kelsie got more frantic and agitated, her voice rising to a high-pitched squeal that would’ve send dogs running. She must have been holding it all in until we came along and spoke to her.
“You are going to be okay, Kelsie. Right, Ginny? We will all get out of here and back to normal really soon,” Kayla said as she turned to me. “Tell her, Ginny.”
“Um, yeah,” I whispered leaning down to Kelsie. Had Kay-la not noticed my crap bedside manner? Did my bloody arm not scream, “disturbed girl who can’t help others?!”
I don’t know what came over me or why, but I pulled my phone out of my pocket and swiped through to a dog video I had saved.
“Look, Kelsie. This is my new puppy, uh, Roger. He’s a Bernese mountain dog and six weeks old; he will be huge before you know it. We pick him up at the breeder tomorrow. There’s no way I’m not getting out of here to pick up Roger. I’ve wanted a puppy forever and my mom finally relented. Look at him with his little squeezy frog. Have you ever seen anything cuter?”
Kelsie latched onto my phone with a death grip and brought it close to her face. Her eyes lit up as she watched the video.
“OMG, he’s adorable. I have a teacup poodle. Her name’s Coco. Well it’s really Penelope Vanna Lacroix, her official registered name, but we call her Coco. She’d be devastated if I never came home.”
“Well Coco will see you again, no worries. I’m sure we will get the all clear to leave here very soon,” I lied. I reached over for my phone and tried twice to pry it out of her hands, but Kelsie would not let go. I gave up.
“You keep my cell safe for me, Kelsie? Just be careful, the battery is dying so I don’t know how long it’ll last.”
Kelsie was staring at the screen; I had been forgotten and dismissed. Classic cheerleader. If Mom texted me again, I wouldn’t be able to reply. But maybe she’d forgive me afterwards if I told her it was for a good cause. She was always lecturing me to pay it forward and give back. “Be the good in the world, Gin!” was her mantra.
“Look at you, Joan of Arcing all over the place. Kudos!” Kayla teased as we moved away from Kelsie. “Can I come meet your puppy when you get him?”
“Oh, Roger?” I chuckled, “That was actually just a dog video off YouTube that Owen sent me last week. We sometimes trade funny pet videos, farting potbelly pigs, goat yoga, cats trapped in tiny boxes, highbrow stuff like that. I’m severely allergic to dogs and cats.”
“Whoa!” Kayla was impressed. “Well played, Ginny. You totally talked her off the ledge back there. Powerful you have become, the dark side I sense in you.”
This time I tried to hide my surprise at the many sides of Kayla and took it in stride.
“Ah, I do love a good Yoda quote. Why thank you, oh wise one,” I joked.
I followed Kayla over to the third row. The first desk at the front of the row was empty. That was odd since Max Jackson usually sat there and I knew I had seen him arrive to class before the bell. But there was no one under that desk.
Max was hard to miss. I hadn’t grown up with him; he had arrived in our town for grade nine. And oh, what a splash he’d made. Max had a slow, sexy swagger, the kind that some are just born with, and it made all teen girls swoon. Max’s jet black hair was longer than most guys, always perfectly styled off his forehead and swept back at the sides. Mom saw his picture once on my Instagram feed and said he had “Dylan McKay hair” from the original 90210 series, a 90s show I hadn’t yet sampled. I Googled Dylan McKay and saw that Mom was right. Max dressed like he had just stepped out of the pages of a men’s fashion magazine, ripped jeans and tight tees, and he had the chiseled abs to boot. He usually sported a strategic five-o’clock shadow and no blemish would ever dare to appear on his ivory skin. So basically he was a perfect specimen — if you like tall, dark, and handsome. And if you’re gay.
Max was out long before he arrived at our school. His first day here he sported an “I’m gay, what’s your superpower?” tee while PeeWee trotted him around on a school tour like a prize pony. I’d had to hand it to him, his shirt was a super effective way to get it all out there and over with. But his pride in his homosexuality didn’t stop girls from fawning over him and attempting to convert him. If anything, it made Max more of a challenge. Not a challenge for me though, as I was all about curly haired brunets. One in particular.
“Wasn’t Max here earlier?” I asked Kayla.
“Yup, I saw him. I’m sure we’ll find him in one of these rows,” she whispered.
We moved past a few more classmates who were on their phones texting. Some wore earbuds in an attempt to remove themselves from what was unfolding outside the classroom and so were thankfully distracted, for the time being, from the distant pops that sounded off randomly elsewhere in the school. When we came to the last desk in the row, we found one of the Nerds, Rodney, curled up in the fetal position.
Kayla tapped him on the shoulder to ask, “You okay, Rod?”
He nodded his head but kept staring straight ahead, his face pale and his eyes glazed over behind his Coke-bottle glasses.
“You sure?” Kayla prodded. “You know we are all going to be fine, don’t you? We’ll be out and home before you know it. I saw online that the all clear should be any time now,” she lied.
Rodney suddenly lashed out with one arm and pushed Kay-la away.
“Leave me alone!” he blurted, a little too loudly. “I’m fine!”
Kayla turned to me and mouthed, “Shock.”
I lifted my hands in the air with the universal gesture for “who the hell knows” and we moved on.
We found a couples consoling each other, some groups of girls clinging together, and even one boy having a snooze under his desk. There was also a group of three on the floor beside a desk holding hands in a circle, mouths moving in silent prayer. Everyone was coping in their own way.
When our rounds brought us back to Owen’s desk, we found Max huddled underneath it with him. The two guys hadn’t seen us as we crawled over. Owen’s eyes were still closed, and Max was holding Owen’s hand and whispering something in his ear. It struck me as a little odd for a second, but I figured Max probably had a comforting bedside manner like Kayla’s. I knew he was usually a calm, cool guy.
“How’s Owen doing now?” I leaned under the desk to ask Max.
“He’s a trooper,” he said. “He’s keeping a tight grip on his wound, but he seems to drift in and out when I talk to him. Don’t ya, O?” he said a bit louder hoping Owen would respond. Nothing.
“I can take over if you like,” I offered. “Maybe you and Kayla could go check on MJ and Miss Jones, Max. We haven’t checked on them yet and MJ is probably still a mess. And check on Jace maybe. I don’t think I have it in me to care how he’s doing. We deliberately skipped his desk.”
“That’s okay,” Max replied. “I’m right where I need to be.” He looked at me pointedly.
“Oh ...” Kayla exhaled.
“No, it’s okay,” I insisted. “Owen and I are tight. I’d like to be here when he opens his eyes. He needs me.”
“Um, Ginny? Maybe we should go check on MJ. C’mon I think Owen’s in good hands with Max.” Kayla’s voice sounded weird all of a sudden, high-pitched and strained. What’s your problem, Barbie? Trying to separate Owen and me so you can have him for yourself? No frickin’ way, girl.
“No, I got this,” I told them. “Stand down, Kayla. Owen will want me here. It’s breaking my heart seeing him like this. And
when he comes around, I might finally ask him to prom. Stuff like this forces us to stop putting things off. Live in the moment, tell your people you love them, right?”
I looked up at Kayla and Max. Kayla was looking at me like I was the one who was wounded, and Max had gone back to staring at Owen’s ghostly face.
“Gin, I think Max is Owen’s people,” she whispered to me.
My head snapped back like I was back on the dodgeball court. That’s what was going on here? I was such an idiot! My Owen was gay?! And Kayla knew before me? No, not possible. Maybe he was bi and I still had a chance?
“Th ...” My voice broke as I tried to speak. “That true, Max? You two are a couple?” I asked, already knowing the answer but having a helluva time processing it. Max looked up at me with the same pitying face as Kayla and nodded his head.
“We are,” he said. “I know Owen struggled with telling you he’s gay, but he just wasn’t ready to tell anyone, Ginny. I’ve been trying to help him come out, but he’ll do it in his own time. We have been very careful about our time together. I’m sorry you found out like this.”
I never in my wildest dreams thought that Owen had friend zoned me all this time because he didn’t like girls. Maybe because he hadn’t yet realized I was the love of his life or maybe because he was hesitant to move from childhood friends to BF and GF. Or maybe he didn’t know how to make the first move. But, gay?! Never.
I was stunned. No, stunned didn’t even come close. I was blindsided. The kind of blindsided where you can’t breathe, like you’ve been sucker punched. It was a physical sickening feeling, realizing that one of the constants in my life actually wasn’t a constant at all. It struck me that maybe this was how children felt when their parents sat them down for the “Mommy and Daddy are getting a divorce because we don’t love each other anymore but we still love you” speech. The ground shifts and you start to question who you are and whether your relationships with people are even real. How could I not have known? What signs had I missed? Man, I had to hand it to him. Owen was quite the actor. Oscar-worthy performances. Or was I just a clueless idiot? Most likely, the latter. I tried to keep my embarrassment from showing on my face and started to move past Max towards Kayla.
“No worries, Max,” I lied. “I was just messing with you just now. I kinda guessed as much about Owen. The signs were all there, right? I was trying to give him space to tell me on his own. Owen and I are just good friends ... buddies. You watch your man and we’ll go check on MJ.”
Kayla looked me in the eyes, and when I tried to avoid her gaze, she grabbed my chin and brought me back.
“You couldn’t have known, Gin. I don’t think anyone knew other than Max, and now you and I.” She let go of my chin and I angrily turned my head away from her pitying gaze. She reached down to grab my hand.
“I can see you had more than friend-feelings for Owen, but it wasn’t meant to be. Don’t beat yourself up about it. Owen probably didn’t want to hurt you.”
“Don’t, Kayla!” I pushed her hand away. “I can’t even right now. I’m fine. Just drop it and let’s go check on MJ.”
The truth? My heart was shattering into a million pieces. And I suddenly didn’t really care whether or not we made it out alive. I left Owen and Max together and followed Kayla as she crawled over to check on MJ.
Just as I reached her, the stillness in the room was broken with a violent rattling of the classroom door handle. Someone was trying to get in.
The silence in the room was deafening, pierced only by the sound of the door shaking as the person on the other side tried to get it open. Once, twice, three times they pushed down forcefully on the outer handle, trying to get in. With the third jarring attempt one of my classmates called out, “We’re in here! HEL — ”
Now I know cheerleaders are athletes, and anyone could tell that Kayla was in peak physical condition, but damn that girl can move! She sprang to life and threw herself in the air and clear across a desk, landing on Gregg with two Gs and pinning him to the ground. She clamped her hand over his mouth before he could even finish his cry for help.
“SSHHH!” she whispered loudly, addressing everyone in the room. “No one make a sound! We don’t know who it is out there.”
MJ began whimpering beside me and I enveloped her in a bear hug, pressing her face against my chest to snuff out the noise of her cries.
“No, MJ. We can’t make a peep. I’ve got you.”
The entire Homeroom A froze. We all crouched lower, collective breath held, waiting to see whether the door would open and who would come through. Would it be rescuers or killers? Would shots sear through the metal door? None of us had a clue but everyone seemed to be following Kayla’s lead and preparing for the worst. After what seemed like half an hour, but was probably only a minute or two, we heard rattling farther off. Someone was at the next door down the hallway trying to get into Homeroom B. Then after another minute or two, a small eternity as we waited to learn our fate, we could hear the large double doors at the end of the hall open and then close, the hinges in need of some oil.
“Okay, guys,” Kayla announced. “I think they’re gone.”
The collective exhale was intense.
I released MJ, who had become a limp rag doll in my arms, and leaned back to look her in the eyes.
“You okay?”
MJ didn’t respond. She was looking at me, but at the same time, she wasn’t really there. I shook her by the shoulders, trying to get a response.
“MJ! MJ! Talk to me, girl”
MJ blinked and looked me in the eye; she was back.
“S ... s ... sorry, Ginny,” her voice shook. “I’m not doing so hot. I’m feeling a little bit claustrophobic in here, ya know?”
“I know,” I said. “But I’m sure it won’t go on much longer and then we’ll be out. I haven’t really been looking online to see what’s happening, but Kayla is, and she said the police and SWAT are out there doing what they can. You can see the red lights flashing through the window blinds if you stretch up a little bit.”
MJ poked her head up past the desktop, looked over at the windows, and then crouched back down.
“This kinda stuff, violence, shootings ... even just seeing it on the news ... it really stresses me out. I have anti-anxiety meds I can take that help, but they’re out in my locker. My mom is a mess worrying about me. Keeps texting constantly. I finally just had to shut off my cell. She actually makes it worse.”
“Yeah it’s tough for them outside too. They’re feeling helpless, I’m sure,” I said.
“I lied to Mom,” MJ confided,” and I never do that. Told her I’d taken my meds and that I was chill.”
I realized that lying to her mom was a big deal to MJ, something she felt very guilty about. I couldn’t really relate; since I’d started cutting, the lies rolled off my tongue very easily. I made a mental note to maybe work on that when I got out. Now that I had MJ talking, I felt like I should keep her talking and keep her lucid. Trouble was I couldn’t really think of what to talk about. I knew nothing about this girl and had no clue if we even had anything in common.
“I had a friend who took anti-anxiety meds. They really helped.” I started without thinking. Ugh! Nice one, Gin. Talk about her medications that she probably didn’t want anyone to know about. Idiot.
“They do help,” she replied, not noticing my faux pas. “I’ve been taking them for a few years now, since my dad left.”
Oh, no. I realized I had opened up a can of worms. Kayla might be an expert at comforting and consoling, but wasn’t. I was just winging it in her absence. Still, MJ did seem to be more engaged. She had stopped nervously tugging on the gold cross suspended around her neck, so that was a start.
“Oh,” I said. “My dad died a few years ago. It’s hard not to have him around. I’m sure you miss yours too.” I was doing my best at bedside manner but probably failing miserably.
“Actually, not really,” MJ explained as an embarrassed blush came over her
face. “He was not a nice man, Ginny.”
I didn’t know how to respond to MJ’s confession. So I didn’t. Awkward! I looked around to see if Kayla was on her way back and could rescue me, but she wasn’t. I was in uncharted territory with MJ, but then I remembered how my therapist, Dr. Lee, would often just go quiet when we were talking about sensitive stuff; she would let me talk and get it out. Maybe that’s what MJ needed.
MJ continued. “He did a few tours overseas, and when he came back, he was always angry, flying off the handle, hurting my mom. He drank a lot too, which didn’t help. Mom and I never knew what to expect with him.”
MJ stopped talking and seemed to be retreating into herself again and reliving old painful memories. That wasn’t good.
“I’m sorry you had to go through that, MJ,” I patted her hand.
“Yeah,” she said. “The worst was one night when he’d already given Mom a shiner and then left to go to the pub up the road. Mom decided to finally stand up to him, so when he came back, Mom made me hide in my bathroom while she confronted him. Told him the cops were on the way and to get out. That made him even madder, and he told Mom that he wasn’t leaving without me. He came into my room and started pulling on my bathroom door. I had locked it from the inside and was crouched in the tub trying not to breathe too loud.”
“Oh my God, MJ,” I whispered.
“So today is kind of bringing that all back, you know? Feeling kind of trapped and scared. Do you think the shooter will be back for us? Or do you think he’s used up all his bullets?”
