My mind was playing back what happened. Memories of that night were starting to kick in. I could see it. I could hear it. Feel it. Even smell it.
Cologne and sweat and gunpowder.
And blood.
I couldn’t make it stop. No matter how hard I tried.
And I tried. Believe me, I tried. Fortunately, the painkillers I was getting helped a bit.
But just a bit.
I could still see it. I could still hear it. Smell it. And I could still see Nate there, and the knowledge that he was gone and I’d never ever see him again was becoming real.
And shutting my eyes could not make that go away.
The next day, the visitors started arriving. All of them wanted me to talk about what happened.
I couldn’t.
And wouldn’t.
Nurses came in and out, but my doctor showed up first thing in the morning. They always do, apparently.
“How’re you doing, son?” he said, using that fake bullshit cheer that totally creeps me out. Especially, as it turns out, when I’d been shot three times three days earlier, and you’d think it would be pretty clear to someone who claimed to be a doctor that I wasn’t doing all that well at all.
“How do you think I’m doing?” I said. I could see my parents (Mom had arrived earlier) were not amused at my smartass answer.
“You’re doing well, all things considered,” he said.
It turns out he was right, that I was, apparently, one of the lucky ones, all things considered. My shoulder wound was just that—a wound. The bullet that hit me on the side came out cleanly on the other side, “just” fracturing a rib. It hurt like a bitch every time I took a breath, but that too was kind of minor, again, all things considered.
What happened to my leg, though, wasn’t all that minor. According to Dr. Kiley I’d been hit at close range (no shit, I thought) by a 9mm FMJ (full metal jacket—the things you learn when you’ve been shot) bullet that pretty neatly snapped my fibula (aka calf bone) in two on its way out.
So during those three days I thought I was sleeping, I’d had surgery on my leg, and now had a steel rod running from my knee down into the fucking marrow canal of the bone to help keep everything in place.
That would take the longest to heal. I’d be on crutches and then a cane for close to a year. With physical therapy during and after. No more soccer.
Not that I cared all that much about that. But still.
Hopefully there’d be some good meds if nothing else.
As the doctor left, he looked at me like he wanted to say something. Something mean, I was sure. Something about how I shouldn’t have been there anyway, and so I glared at him until he retreated out the door.
Two policemen arrived less than an hour later. All nice and sympathetic at first, asking me if I was okay, saying they understood how difficult this must be for me… blah, blah, blah, who do you think you’re fooling… before starting in to question me.
What do you remember?
Did you see the guy come in?
Did he give any warning?
Did he say anything?
Where were you when he started shooting?
What did you do?
Why didn’t you run?
What happened when you got hit?
Who was Nate?
What was your relationship?
Was he your boyfriend?
To which I answered:
Not much, it happened so fast.
No.
No.
Um, I don’t think so.
On the dance floor.
I didn’t know what to do, and before I could decide, it was too late.
I froze.
I fell and tried to crawl away before I could get shot again. And that’s all I remember.
He was my best friend.
He was my best friend.
No.
And then they asked:
What were you guys doing there in the first place? You’re both gay? Did your parents know you were there? And where did you get those fake IDs?
Shit. I’d forgotten all about those.
I tried looking over to Dad for help, but the cops were standing in between me and him. Probably intentionally.
I didn’t want to talk about any of that, but I had an overwhelming feeling they were going to make me do so whether I wanted to or not.
I started to say something but Mom jumped up and stopped me.
“I think he’s had enough for now,” she told the cops. “Can we continue with this some other time? He’s been through a lot, and he’s pretty well drugged up at the moment.” I saw them look at each other, but—unwilling to take my mom on, since she’s clearly fierce when in protective-mom mode—they nodded and said yes, ma’am and left, leaving a card on my bedside table for me to call them anytime should I remember anything.
“But don’t think I’m going to let you off that easy,” Mom said after they’d gone. “We will continue this discussion later.”
Dad said, “Come on, Mother… he’ll talk when he’s ready.” But even though my eyes were closed, I could feel the glare she sent his way.
It was the first time since it happened that I’d thought about how we’d gotten into the bar. And then the club. And about what Kristen and Ziggy and Nate’s parents must be going through. One thing I knew for sure was that I had to keep Kristen out of it, if nothing else. That I couldn’t let the blame for Nate’s… for what happened to Nate fall on her. It would wreck her. And her family.
And me.
So I’d say it was me if I had to. It was me who said we should go out. It was me who got the IDs.
It was my fault Nate was dead.
It had to be.
It has to be.
It must be.
Nate, who was good and kind and could make me laugh anytime he wanted to and knew me better than anyone and never did anything to hurt anyone ever, was dead.
And for some reason I wasn’t.
Why?
Why didn’t I get him out?
Why couldn’t I get him out?
And with that, I discovered one more thing to keep me awake at night.
Chapter Seven
I LEFT the hospital four days later, one day later than expected. Even so, reporters from a local television station were waiting outside.
Someone at the hospital must have informed them that one of the “survivors” was being released. They didn’t know it was me. And they sure as hell didn’t know until I was wheeled out the door that I was a minor.
They wouldn’t have been there otherwise.
The nurse tried to keep them away, but that was no longer possible.
Not only had I survived, but I was underage on top of it.
Jackpot.
At that stage, I guessed I was going to be a human-interest story of the day, filling the need for the public to hear from a survivor how it felt. How it felt. How it feels. To feed the public’s morbid sick fuck curiosity on what it’s like to survive a mass shooting at a gay club.
Especially from the perspective of an underage survivor.
Granted, if the story hadn’t involved me, I would have been one of those with a morbid sick fuck curiosity, so I did understand it.
How do you think it felt? I wanted to ask back. How do you think it feels, asshole?
I avoided looking at the cameras as they yelled their questions to me. At me, actually. Dad stepped up and asked that I be left alone at this time, thanking the doctors and nurses and everyone for saving my life, and expressed our sorrow for the families of those who didn’t survive and our prayers for those who did.
Less than an hour later, I was home. For the first time since I’d raced out the door to go—get Nate. And been so happy. I had been so happy.
If only I hadn’t gone.
I briefly wondered where my truck was.
I wondered what happened to the sexy jock I’d worn that night, and prayed to all available gods that it hadn’t been return
ed to my parents.
And except for doctor’s appointments and physical therapy, I didn’t leave home again for more than a month.
I couldn’t. I just couldn’t.
I wouldn’t. I just wouldn’t.
I was still in pain, and I couldn’t convince the doctors to give me anything really good to help with it. Or to help me sleep.
Or at least to stop the bad dreams I was having every single night.
I didn’t want to see anyone I knew. I didn’t want to talk to anyone I knew.
I didn’t want to see people I didn’t know but who I knew would know what had happened and would want to know more.
And I really didn’t want to see Nate’s family. Them maybe most of all.
What could I say to them? How could I answer their questions when I didn’t have any answers myself?
I couldn’t.
Kristen had texted me while I was in the hospital, but I couldn’t bring myself to reply.
I couldn’t talk about it.
Local newspapers and TV stations kept calling me, asking if I’d be willing to be interviewed.
I wasn’t willing. Not in the least.
I didn’t want to talk to anyone.
I did talk to the cops when they came by. I felt like I kind of had to, me being a hate crime victim and witness to a massacre and all.
Q: You and your friend… Nate. Was he your boyfriend?
A: No, we were just friends. Best friends.
Q: You and your… friend were both underage. How did you get into Pacific Coast?
A: Um… I knew someone who knew someone who could hook us up with IDs.
Q: And their names?
A: Honestly… I don’t really know any of them. It was that kind of thing. You know, a friend of a friend of a friend.
Q: When you got to Pacific Coast, did you notice anything unusual?
A: I don’t know what would be usual or unusual… it was our first time at a club.
Q: Can you tell us what was going on when you arrived?
A: It was really… crowded. And loud. The bar was really busy and crowded. People were drinking and dancing. It was almost too loud to talk to anyone.
Q: Were you drinking?
A: Well… yes. We bought our first drinks, and when we finished… two guys bought us our next round.
Q: Had you ever met them before?
A: No, they were just being nice because they could tell it was our first time there.
Q: Did you see the shooter arrive?
A: No.
Q: What can you tell us about the shooting?
A: There’s not that much to say. I heard noises… popping sounds. Everybody did. People started dropping, people started running… screaming… I got shot. Next thing I remember I was in an ambulance.
Q: And Nate?
A: (long pause)… I don’t know; I didn’t see. It all happened so fast.
They were my only visitors the first few weeks after I got home.
I did eventually text Kristen, promising her that I’d never tell anyone how we got the fake IDs. That if I had to, I’d take the blame myself.
It was the least I could do.
She didn’t respond right away. When she did, she sent this:
It’s all too damn much. Every day and every hour since that night has been a blur. Dad has shut down. Mom is a total mess. I couldn’t face Ziggy, he’s out of the picture. Everything has changed (as I’m sure you know all too well). I don’t think any of us will ever be the same. I can’t stop crying and I just can’t deal with any of it.
I could relate.
So for more than a month, I hid myself away in my room, coming downstairs for meals and that’s about it.
The rest of the time I slept. And tried to read. And tried to binge-watch anything I could find that would keep me from thinking about what had happened.
But as hard as I tried, I couldn’t read. Or watch TV. Or Netflix and chill. Chilling, it seemed, was no longer a possibility.
Instead I spent most of my time online.
Watching news reports about that night. About all the nights after. National news coverage. Local news coverage. Interviews with those who were there. Interviews with friends and family of those who were there.
Everything I could find.
I watched a guy tell a reporter that his boyfriend had been texting his mom that someone was shooting and that he loved her, when he got hit twice.
He died in his boyfriend’s arms.
I saw an interview with the owner of a lesbian bar just down the street from Pacific Coast:
“It was awful. Blood everywhere and all those beautiful boys dead and wounded for no good reason. Just awful. What struck me was how quiet it was. Nobody was saying a word; nobody was screaming; everyone seemed to be in total shock. The only sound I heard was the music that was still playing and all those cell phones ringing and receiving texts. And the music didn’t stop. All I could think about was all those people trying to make sure that their son or brother or sister or friend was okay. And so many of them weren’t.
“I was with this young guy, this kid; he’d been shot in the stomach and was bleeding a lot. I’ve never seen so much blood. I did what I could to try to make it stop, but there was so much of it. I kept telling him that he was going to be okay, that help was on its way and that I wasn’t going anywhere, I was staying with him. But he kept whispering to me, telling me he knew he wasn’t going to make it, that he was going to die, and asking me over and over again to tell his parents he loved them and that he was sorry about everything, so very sorry. I’m pretty sure he hadn’t told his parents that he was gay yet and didn’t want to cause them any more hurt by learning about it on TV or online or something. I was trying not to cry while he was telling me all this, but afterwards, after I’d gone with him to the ambulance and they took him away… I couldn’t stop. I still haven’t been able to stop.”
So many of them. So many stories.
There was even an interview with Mike, that guy we’d met in the first bar we’d gone to. He was with a crowd across the street from Pacific Coast, watching as the bodies of the dead and wounded, meaning Nate and me, were being removed from the building.
He told the reporter that he had still been in the bar when he heard the news:
“All I could think about was those two guys I’d met. I sent them there, those two kids. Had they been there when it happened? Please, I thought, please let them be safe. Please let them be okay.
“I ran over here and joined all these people. I’ve never felt so completely hopeless. And while I’m not a praying guy, I started in the moment I arrived, and then it suddenly hit me that I didn’t even know their names. We’d talked, but….
“I was here when they started bringing out the wounded. One stretcher after another after another with body after body. With some it was obvious that they’d be okay. There were others where the bodies were so covered in blood, I couldn’t be sure.
“Finally they brought out one of the two. His skin was so pale, so white… and there was so much blood. His hair, that hair I had brushed back from his face at the bar, was caked with it.
“The wounded kept being taken out, but I still didn’t see the other guy.
“And when they began bringing out the dead, I knew that he hadn’t made it.”
At this point, Mike broke down in sobs.
Oh, Nate.
It was an out-of-body experience to watch and listen to Mike, who I… who we had met less than an hour before it happened, talking about me and Nate. It was real and unreal at the same time. Like he was talking about us and talking about someone else at the same time.
I watched that interview over and over.
I listened to the reports of the crowds outside the club, watching as the ambulance sped away. Trying to see if I could see myself getting taken away. Or Nate. Or either of the guys we were dancing with.
Shit. Them.
I can’t remember their names. They’r
e a total blank.
Or Kristen and Ziggy, who raced to the club the moment the first reports hit social media.
I watched everything I could find. Every report. Every interview. Everything.
I was binge-watching my own story.
I knew I shouldn’t be doing it. I knew I needed to stop.
But I couldn’t stop.
I had to keep seeing it. I had to keep hearing about it.
What I thought I’d learn or get out of it, I had no idea.
I still don’t.
I even watched a news report on Nate’s funeral, the one I couldn’t go to because I was still in the hospital.
I saw the deep pain on his parents’ faces, how lost and bewildered they looked. I saw Kristen clinging to Ziggy. I saw the demonstrators from that goddamn church in Kansas who had driven ten hours just to shove their signs saying that Nate was a fag who deserved to die right in the faces of his parents and Kristen.
How dare they. How fucking dare they do that to Nate.
It was awful. I could only watch that once.
But here’s the thing. No matter how much I watched, I didn’t cry.
I never cried.
It never felt real.
Mom and Dad tried to help. Mom made all my favorite stuff to eat, even the brownies she refused to keep around the house because she knew she’d end up eating half of them. Dad would come up to my room to “visit” and tell me that if I wanted to talk to him or Mom, or if I wanted to go see a therapist or something, that I could and should.
I couldn’t imagine anything I wanted to do less than tell a stranger all my deepest feelings and stuff.
It was weird, but even though Mom had said in the hospital we’d “continue this discussion later,” my parents never really asked me about it. Or yelled at me about going there. Or asked where we got our IDs. Nothing.
It was as if they didn’t want to know themselves. Or they figured I’d been punished enough without them piling on me on top of it.
Or they were probably following some guideline on how to be good parents and waiting for me to come to them. I’m going with that one.
But here’s the thing—I knew I wasn’t doing well. Deep down I knew that I was totally stressed-out and scared and angry and all that. But I held on to it.
What Happens After Page 3
