by Elise Juska
Instead of Meredith, though, within minutes, other comments began appearing. Matt, and Aunt Millie, but random people too. Marissa Calabasas from high school, who now lived in Boston: OMG! Must be so upsetting it’s someone you actually knew Luke! Someone named Liz, a friend of Marissa’s: Sounds like he was a budding psychopath even then…Heather Doyle, who he’d worked with at Dunkin’ Donuts that morning:
Within fifteen minutes, his post had 17 likes, 8 comments, and 6 shares. For a while he just sat there, hitting refresh every few minutes and watching the numbers tick upward. 25 likes, 13 comments, 12 shares. 52, 28, 25. The attention was nerve-racking, but kind of exhilarating. Around five thirty, he left his room, retrieved the dogs from the backyard, and topped off their water bowls. Then he made himself a ham sandwich, ate half and gave the dogs the rest, and returned to his desk. 98 shares. 111. 131. 153.
At six thirty, when his father’s truck came rumbling down the driveway, Luke went downstairs. His brother, Brent, was there too, kind of hovering near the couch. When their dad walked in, he dumped his stuff on the kitchen counter and came into the living room and looked surprised to see them both standing there. For a long minute he looked at them, and Luke just watched him, wondering what he’d say about the shooting. He remembered the way he’d gazed up at his father the day of his mother’s accident, and over and over in the weeks and months after, just waiting for him to say something that would help. He felt that way now, like he was ten again, waiting, but what his father said was: “You two are on your own for dinner.” Then he walked out to the porch and Luke heard the wheezy couch springs as his father sat down, the twin thumps of his work boots hitting the floor. Luke looked at his brother, and for a minute their eyes locked. His brother already had his car keys in his fist. He was probably going to meet up with his dumb friends, Mike and Layton, and though usually Luke hoped they hung out somewhere else, tonight he wished for a minute that Brent would stay. Then his brother breathed, “Have fun,” and headed for the door and was gone. Luke listened as his father turned on the TV, the muffled sound of the news through the living room wall. His brother’s truck went tearing down the driveway, timing belt squealing. A woman was saying: All of a sudden I heard this sound like balloons popping— Luke went back to his room and closed his door and sifted through the new comments.
Hang in there Luke <3
You’re expressing EXACTLY how I feel about people like this—how do you know when to do something? Who’s dangerous and who isn’t? How can you know for sure??
Just glad your safe!!!
As the night grew darker, the comments appeared more quickly, and more of them were from strangers. Luke pictured people in rooms all over the state reading what he’d written on their computers and their phones. It was kind of thrilling, to be this point of connection, but sometimes unsettling. Stop giving this fucking loser the fame he was looking for! Someone should have paid attention to him sooner! A few people had posted links to Nathan’s YouTube video, which gave Luke a twang of panic—but to his relief, when he clicked, it was gone. This video has been removed. Soon, he reminded himself, the numbers would stop climbing, the focus shift to something else. But for now they just kept growing. 212 shares. 259. 326. It felt like one of those elementary school science experiments, the crystals that form overnight in jelly jars, a living thing.
By midnight, his post had been shared 1000 times. Luke stared at the number, overwhelmed. When it ticked to 1001, he stood up and walked downstairs. His brother wasn’t home yet. His father had turned on an old movie, a western. Luke held the back door so it didn’t slam, and as he stepped outside, the temperature dropped at least ten degrees. He paced the perimeter of the yard, taking in the familiar night sounds: the hoot of an owl, the river lapping through the trees. He thought about the people who must know by now their family members were among the victims, had gone to the mall that morning and happened to be standing in the wrong place. He remembered, the day of his mother’s accident, the oddness of seeing the police climbing his porch steps—their saddened faces, hats in hands—and how, as they began speaking, he’d closed his eyes and tried to force time backward, rewind to that morning, himself in bed and his mother calling from down the hall. She was going grocery shopping, she said, and did he want to come? No, he didn’t. He was sleepy. It’s after ten, lazybones, she said. She had paused in his bedroom doorway, wearing her blue button-down, sleeves rolled to her elbows. She’d smiled tiredly. She’d said, Okay, honey. It had all just happened; she had just been there. Luke would have given anything to get a do-over, to alter the space-time continuum. But he couldn’t, of course. His mother, the drive home from Hannaford, the drunk driver in the oncoming lane at eleven fifteen in the morning—it wouldn’t be undone.
He stopped walking and stood still, listening to the sound of his own breathing. He stared at the stars until they dissolved. When he went back inside, the house was silent. The dogs were in their spot by the stove, the day’s dishes still piled in the sink. As Luke climbed the stairs and returned to his computer, he wondered if it had all vanished in his absence, but there it was—1128. 1175. 1201.
There was another reason, one he didn’t admit on Facebook, why four years later Nathan Dugan was so stuck in Luke’s brain. It was a thing that happened in English class that year, just after spring break. He remembered the timing of it because he’d been unhappy to be back at school again—he didn’t much like his roommate, a hockey player, and hadn’t made any real friends yet—and it had been nice (or if not nice, at least relatively easy) to spend the last two weeks back home. By senior year, he would have found his niche—a major in Environmental Studies, a brief, not-too-serious relationship with April, who subsequently and kindly broke up with him because she was going home to New Jersey, but not before he spent senior week basically living in her apartment and feeling okay, even almost confident, about his standing in the world—but on that day in late March, as he gathered his stuff at the end of class, he’d felt his usual unease. The sensation was a contradiction: the feeling that he was both completely invisible and acutely, terribly seen. He grew overly conscious of the space his body occupied, of how his face looked and what his arms were doing, how he stuffed one hand in his pocket in a way that was meant to look casual but felt obvious and strange. The pocket too small, or his hand too big. As he walked toward the door, backpack on shoulder and hand in pocket, Nathan Dugan had been standing there, his dog beside him, a friendly Lab with one chewed-up ear that Luke often had the urge to pet but never did. “Hey,” Nathan said, too loudly, as Luke approached.
Luke realized that Nathan had been waiting for him. He glanced around, uncomfortably aware of the other kids leaving the room. He drew his hand out of his pocket. “Hey,” he replied.
Nathan was wearing his winter coat, even though the weather was springlike. His headphones were dangling around his neck, arms stiff at his sides. He was a pretty unusual kid, although Luke didn’t mind him as much as his classmates, who exchanged loaded looks anytime he spoke. He had a habit of interrupting people, what Luke’s mother might have called unable to read the room. When Luke was little, babbling to her about his ant farm or his bike tricks while she was trying to pay bills or make dinner, she had said this about him sometimes too.
Now, though, Nathan was focused on him, and in his abrupt way he said, “We should hunt sometime.”
Luke saw a few other kids look over, and hoped they hadn’t heard him. He had no clue why Nathan would single him out for this dubious honor. Because he wrote that essay that mentioned trout fishing with his grandfather? Because he and Nathan both lived in Maine (but lots of kids did)? Maybe it was just that Luke seemed like someone who wouldn’t say no. In fact, Luke did consider it for a second—he didn’t have many friends, and though he didn’t want to be friends with Nathan, he felt kind of bad for him. He missed his own dogs and wouldn’t have minded hanging out with this one. But as Luke stood there, his sympathy quickly soured. The expression on Nathan’
s face, it bugged him. The way he was just looking at him, silently, waiting for an answer. His skin looked kind of sticky. Kind of desperate. Loneliness rose off him like bad breath. Luke had the feeling that if he said yes, he might never shake him, and he didn’t want to be associated with him. Didn’t want to catch it. And suddenly, there was Meredith Kenney, smiling at Luke as she squeezed out the door behind Nathan’s back. Luke returned the smile, and she widened her eyes and grimaced: Yikes, she meant.
“Yeah, I don’t think so,” Luke said.
It came out meaner than he’d intended, dismissive. Luke watched as Meredith was swallowed up by the crowd in the hallway, and when he looked back at Nathan, his face had closed over—not even angry, or hurt. Just gone. Nathan put his headphones on and shuffled his big hood up and walked away without another word. Luke stood there for a minute, pretending to fish for something in his pockets, to put a little distance between them. He felt mostly relieved, but also guilty. He hadn’t meant to be a jerk to Nathan. He understood it had been a big deal for him to ask.
A few weeks later, when he’d been stuck in a group with Nathan and read his creepy essay about hunting with his father, Luke’s relief came back. He let himself off the hook for being rude, even complimented himself on his instincts. He was glad he hadn’t been alone in the woods with this guy. Now, though, hearing about the shooting, it was the feeling of guilt that returned. He kept thinking about Nathan’s expression in class that day—it was needy, insecure. It wasn’t the face of a killer. Somehow, though, four years later, he was so angry or lonely or just messed up that he was bragging about shooting people on YouTube, that getting fired from his stupid part-time job had pushed him over the edge. Luke couldn’t shake the feeling that it didn’t have to happen. Not that he really thought he could have changed anything. He knew that. But he wondered if in some small way his rejection had affected Nathan, made something tighten at his core. One more tiny moment, added to an accumulation of tiny moments. Like the volcano he’d made in seventh-grade science, how each ounce of vinegar you dripped through the hole in the top brought the whole thing a notch closer to blowing up.
It had been too much to hope that Meredith Kenney would appear among the responses, and she didn’t. But the numbers were going through the roof. By Sunday morning, there were almost 300 comments, and the post had been shared more than 4000 times. The numbers freaked him out a little, but it was too late now to take it back. To Luke, the Internet had always felt like a relatively safe place: real but not real, like a padded room. Now, in random moments, sitting in front of his computer, eating a microwave pizza or picking at his chin, he felt suddenly exposed, convinced he could be seen through the screen.
Still, for the next week, if he wasn’t at Dunkin’ Donuts, Luke was parked in front of the computer, refreshing the page and watching the comments snake and sprawl. He read every one. At this point, most of them were people he didn’t know. Some were reacting to his original post but others were just sounding off in all directions, the page a dumping ground of angry opinions—about the GOP, NRA, Walmart. What do we expect in a country where buying a machine gun is easier than buying a pack of cigarettes??? There were countless theories about Nathan and what was wrong with him. It turned out he’d been posting on crazy gun websites, pretending to be in the military or something. Losers like him will do anything to feel powerful because they’ve been ignored all their lives. There was a flood of outrage about all the guns in Nathan’s bedroom, about the stupidity of Nathan’s mother. Sympathy for the victims, for their families. Sad-face emojis. A few times, somebody legitimately connected to one of the victims appeared, and it was startling, like bumping into a famous person. A student of the math teacher, the fiancé of the teenage girl. Arlen Mackey. He was a student at Central Maine too, a senior, although he sounded much older, posting: Thank you all for the prayers and support. Then there were the sick conspiracy theorists who thought the shooting hadn’t happened and was part of a government hoax perpetrated by anti-gun groups. And there were what Luke’s mother would have called Jesus freaks, quoting the Bible and inspirational sayings like God has a plan and it may not be clear now but everything happens for a reason (Luke had heard that one when his mom died; he hated it then and hated it now).
But the ones that made Luke really uneasy were the people who felt sorry for him.
You’re a nice person Luke Finch! Don’t feel guilty!
People are just wired that way.
Lots of people knew him not just you…
Do NOT beat yourself up about this my friend! <3 <3 <3
This worried him most: that people would think he’d written the post because he was just fishing for consolation, or praise. That some inaccurate, alternative version of him, someone he couldn’t control, was coming to life on the screen. So when among all the strangers and the wackos, his old classmates appeared, Luke was relieved to see them there. Kevin McAllister. Katie Sutton. Hannah Chaffee. Ashley Shay. Surprisingly, Luke remembered every single one of them, and in most cases pretty personal details about them, things he must have learned in that Freshman Comp class. That Kevin had had some kind of heart problem as a little kid and wasn’t allowed to run in gym. That Hannah had had an abortion in high school that her parents didn’t know about (and yet Luke did—it occurred to him how odd this was). The significant personal experience essay—this was pretty much all he remembered ever writing in that class, and some kids had really put themselves out there (in hindsight, they’d probably all gotten better grades than Luke did; his most significant personal experience he’d kept to himself).
Now here was Hannah Chaffee, four years later. As a freshman, she’d had long dark hair that always smelled like burnt coffee. In her profile picture, her hair was white-blond, chopped at the ears.
Hannah Chaffee: omg I’ve been thinking about that class a lot luke…so disturbing
Kevin McA: dude was a FREAK
Luke smiled. It was nice, to hear their voices. To not be alone with it. Although he hadn’t replied to any of the other 312 comments (to do so hadn’t even occurred to him), to his classmates he typed back.
Luke Finch: I guess so yeah
Luke Finch: good to see you guys
Hannah Chaffee: you too!
Then Katie (now Kaitlyn) Sutton chimed in: hi luke (and everyone)!
Luke didn’t remember anything Katie had written about as a freshman (though he’d heard later, through April, that she had an Adderall addiction senior year). He remembered her as kind of annoying, a kiss-ass to the teacher. It was possible she hadn’t spoken to Luke once that entire semester, but now she wrote: Don’t feel bad about not talking to him Luke. Everyone was afraid of him. You weren’t the only one.
Luke Finch: hi katie, thanks yeah
Kaitlyn Sutton: I remember that crazy coat—good memory
Kaitlyn Sutton: and the dog…
Ashley Shay: omg so weird
Hannah Chaffee: awww I thought the dog was cute!
Kaitlyn Sutton: you’re right about that paper too! it was insane!
Hannah Chaffee: which paper??
Kaitlyn Sutton: not 100% sure what it was about but think it was really gory…
Kaitlyn Sutton: right luke???
Luke Finch: yeah maybe
Kevin McA: wasn’t it about a zombie apocalypse or something?
Hannah Chaffee: I don’t think I read it…?
Kevin McA: ZOMBIES ATTACK
Ashley Shay: lololol
Kaitlyn Sutton: all I know is it freaked me out!!
“Would you mind telling me what’s going on?” his father said. It was Saturday, late morning, and the three of them were in the kitchen. His father was standing by the sink, draining a third cup of coffee before he left for work. Brent was slumped at the table, playing Fruit Ninja on his phone. Luke sat across from him, the dogs flopped by his feet. “Ray told me his kids read some thing you put on Facebook,” his father said. “About that shooting.”
Luke reache
d for a day-old doughnut from the box in the middle of the table. “Probably,” he said, pulling it in half.
His father stared at him over the rim of his coffee cup. “What did you do that for?”
“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “I didn’t think anyone would really read it.”
“Then why’d you write it?”
“I don’t know,” he repeated. He fed a few bites of doughnut to the dogs. His father had some older-generation idea that whatever happened on a computer behind a closed door was something unsavory or worse.
“Well, Ray told me all about it, and then other people at work said they knew about it too. Customers,” he added, pointedly.
“You’re famous,” Brent said, smiling into his phone.
It was a joke, or an insult masquerading as a joke, but Luke wanted to fire back that he was a little bit famous, in a way. That his Facebook post had been shared more than ten thousand times since last Friday. If you Googled Nathan Dugan, it was the eleventh hit.
“Just stay out of it,” his father said to Luke.
“I’m not doing anything. People are just finding it. What am I supposed to do?”
“Take it down, dumb-ass,” his brother said.
But he didn’t want to take it down, although once or twice he almost had. Occasionally there was a comment that sounded so enraged, and so enraged at Luke specifically—Why are you sympathizing with this monster, you fucking moron? You’re part of the problem!!—that the force of the emotion jolted him through the screen. His stomach started hurting, and he’d have to lean over his knees and close his eyes and focus on something immediate and real: the texture of the scratchy carpet between his toes, the whistle of a cardinal in the trees. In those moments he’d think about just deleting the post, and it was tempting—that return to silence, to being no one. But he didn’t. For one thing, it would look conspicuous, like he couldn’t handle the attention. For another, after all this, he couldn’t resist letting it stay up long enough to find its way to Meredith.
