by J. J. Melvin
As I laid there, still trying to control my breathing so I wouldn’t be noticed, all I could hear ringing through my head were the voices, the cries for help from the girls that had made my high school years miserable. “God! Someone! Please help us! I don’t want to die!”
Their pleas were deafening. For the first time in a long time I could no longer block the voices that I had shut out for so many years. My heart raced, my head pounded. I felt like I was being sucked into a vortex. Everything pulsated. I could feel the blood rushing through my body. I could hear each beat of my heart, each pump of my lungs. Then, all of a sudden, everything went eerily silent. Everything was frozen. Everyone was frozen. It was as if I were the only one left in the world that could move. Without thinking, I stood up. Before I knew it, I was standing where the quivering girls all stood hugging and crying. I placed myself between them and Trevor. I spread my arms out in a plea to make Trevor stop.
“Trevor. No, don’t do this. Please, you don’t want to do this.”
My words seemed to set things back in motion. I didn’t know why I thought I could convince Trevor to stop. Perhaps it was because I understood him. I understood his pain. But when I looked in his eyes I didn’t see pain, I saw rage. This was not the Trevor I knew, and I immediately realized I was in trouble.
“Erika,” Trevor screamed, “move out of the fucking way. I will shoot you!”
Just then a familiar voice came from the left of me. It was Robert.
“Trevor, please don’t hurt her.”
I was confused. Robert was standing there wearing the same black coat as Trevor, holding an arsenal of weapons.
All of a sudden, it made sense. This had been planned. That’s why Robert told me to stay away from the quad. As Trevor turned to Robert to argue, I knew this would be my only chance.
I ran towards Trevor and kicked the gun out of his hand. I don’t know how I did it, but I knocked him down. I placed one knee on his back and held both his hands tightly with mine pinning him to the ground. Mr. Lapinsky grabbed Trevor’s gun and pointed it at Trevor and Robert. He was yelling, waving the gun back and forth between the two. Trevor struggled under me, but I held him tightly to the ground. I was stronger than I thought I was.
“Robert, put down the guns,” Mr. Lapinsky’s shaky voice demanded.
But instead of putting the guns down, Robert put one to his head. Ignoring Mr. Lapinsky’s orders, he walked towards me. I watched Robert move as if in slow motion, his long black coat swishing with each step. I looked up at him as he bent down. He was inches from me as if he were kneeling forward to kiss me. I watched his full red lips coming closer, the contrast they made against his pale skin was strikingly noticeable even in the situation I was in. He stopped, looked me in my eyes, and whispered, “Remember what I told you.”
And with one slight movement Robert’s finger gently pressed the sensitive trigger that answered with a thunderous bang. A loud beeeeeeeeep filled my ears. Trevor knocked me off of him. He was free, but not for long. Mr. Lapinsky grabbed him. Mr. Lapinsky and two other male teachers struggled to gain control over Trevor. I watched in a daze as their frantic arms wrestled Trevor to the ground.
The screaming resumed. My head felt like it was going to explode. I couldn’t move. I just sat there on the cold white concrete and stared at Robert. He was laying there, on his side, the ground absorbing what it could of his blood, the rest making a puddle, a river in the cracks of cement. Robert’s green eyes were open. He was staring at me. I couldn’t help but gaze back into the same eyes that just hours before had stirred up so much excitement, so much hope for an exhilarating junior year. I looked at Robert’s slightly parted red lips and pondered the hopes I’d held for them, the anticipation of my first kiss. I watched deep burgundy liquid flow from his mouth like a fountain holding all it could before overflowing and splashing into the thick, growing pool beneath him. Fluid trickled from Robert’s temple caressing his smooth pale face slowly merging with the stream in his mouth. It was like watching rain crawl against a window, different rivulets meeting up with their counterparts, becoming one. I stayed transfixed, observing every divot, every mark on Robert’s face for what seemed like hours, until… until I felt someone shaking me. It was Mrs. Wong, our principal.
“Erika, Erika, are you okay, have you been shot, are you injured?”
I didn’t answer. I looked down at myself. I was covered in blood, but it wasn’t my blood. It was the blood of the only boy who ever thought I was pretty. The only boy who ever said anything nice to me. The only boy who showed any interest in me. The boy who I just started to like. The boy who, with his friend, had just shot students and teachers at my school.
Chapter 2
REALIZATION
I was placed on a stretcher and wheeled out through the front gates of the school. As I looked around at the path of destruction Trevor and Robert had created, I thought, What the hell is wrong with me? How could I start liking someone who would do something like this, all because he showed me a little attention, all because he said I was beautiful?
How fucked up of a person could I be?
The first time that I knew for sure that people had died at the hands of Trevor and Robert was when I got to the hospital. I was wheeled past wailing mothers crying on the floor in agony, fathers pounding their fists against hospital walls. There was so much pain, crying, and screaming everywhere. I could hear their thoughts and feel their pain. For some reason, I could no longer keep out the voices that I’d worked so many years to quiet. I put my hands over my ears; I just wanted to get away. I hummed out loud, trying to bring back the static that kept the voices out. I hummed louder. Nothing was working. I wanted to scream.
Finally, I was brought to a large white room. It looked like an operating room. The putrid scent of medicine and rubbing alcohol filled the air permeating my senses. I squinted my eyes as the bright lights that hung above my head seeped into my pupils, giving me a pounding headache. Every inch of my body was examined. My clothes were carefully removed and placed in plastic bags. I was placed in a hospital gown. I watched as the white gown turned red from the blood that covered me. Question after question was asked. One of the doctors lifted my hair.
“Erika, how did you get this bruise on your neck?” The question came from behind me. I tried to turn, but the nurses held me in place.
“I, I don’t know. What bruise?”
“It looks like a brand.” I could feel the doctor’s latex gloves gently touching me just beneath my hairline.
“Oh, that. It’s not a bruise or a brand, it’s a birthmark. I’ve had it since I was born.”
“Interesting birthmark. It’s in the shape of a diamond.” The doctor released my hair and continued to search my body.
“Erika, can you tell me where the pain is?”
“I’m not in pain, I’m not wounded.” Hearing her thoughts, I knew why I was in the operating room, they thought I had been shot.
“Then where did all this blood come from?” The doctor was now in front of me wiping the blood from my face with a sterile alcohol-smelling white mesh cloth.
“Robert. It came from Robert.” I looked down at my dangling bare feet. The doctor lifted my chin to continue her cleaning.
“Who’s Robert?”
“Robert is the boy who did all of this. He shot himself right in front of me. It’s his blood.”
“And where is Robert now, Erika?”
“He’s dead.”
For a moment the room paused, the hectic sense of urgency was briefly replaced by silence until the doctor’s gentle voice spoke again.
“Okay Erika, we are going to take you to a shower where you can get cleaned up. The school’s already notified your mom, and we are going to keep you here for observation.”
I was brought to a shower and given a clean new hospital gown and hospital socks. I closed the bathroom door. This was the first time I saw myself. I looked in the mirror. My face still had spatters of blood across it. My h
air looked wet and oily. I put my fingers through it, and realized it wasn’t oil, water, or sweat. My hands were red; my hair was covered in blood. I felt dizzy and sick to my stomach. I turned on the shower, steam filled the bathroom. I stared in the mirror until I could no longer see my reflection—until the fog took it away. I got into the steaming hot shower. It burned my skin, but I didn’t care. It hurt, but still I didn’t turn it down. I vigorously scrubbed my face and body. I watched the red water swirl around the shower floor and slowly go down the drain. Over and over I scrubbed every inch of my bare skin raw and washed my hair until the red water was gone. I heard a knock on my door.
“Yes?”
“This is Nurse Michelle, are you okay? You’ve been in there a really long time.”
“Uhmm, yeah, yeah I’m sorry, I’m coming out now,” I yelled back over the noise of the water.
I don’t know how long I was in the shower. I must have been in there for over an hour, judging by my pruned fingers and my red and purple body. I turned off the water, got out, and put on the hospital gown and socks. Nurse Michelle greeted me with a warm smile when I opened the door.
“Wow. Hot shower,” she said as all the steam came wafting towards her.
“Yeah,” I replied, doing my best to fake a smile.
“This is your bed.” She walked me over to a bed by a large window that faced the nurse’s station.
Nurse Michelle helped me get in the bed and placed me under the covers. She noticed me staring at the curtain dividing the room in two and said, “You have a roommate, but she’s sleeping. She’s also from Riverton High.”
“Is she okay?” I was nervous to hear the answer.
“Yes, she’s like you; here for shock and observation.”
That was the first time I heard my diagnosis. Shock. Shock was their diagnosis. Mine was, I was fucking stupid, lame, and certifiably crazy. Who stands in front of a lunatic with a loaded gun, and what type of person starts to like a psycho boy because he says she’s pretty?
I had just gotten comfortable in the hard hospital bed when my mom stormed into the room. “What did you do this time, Erika? What is wrong with you? Erika, you always have to be a problem! Ever since you were a baby you were causing problems, and now this. Your sister goes to the same school and she wasn’t involved, but you, you always have to cause me problems. Why, Erika, why?”
My mom’s tirade was interrupted by the clanking sound of my roommate swinging open the curtain. It was Valerie. Just my luck!
“Hey, stop yelling at her. She’s a hero. She saved a lot of people’s lives today, including mine.”
I was in shock. Was Valerie sticking up for me? My mom looked stunned.
I don’t think my mom meant to be the way she was, and I knew after her outbreaks she often felt bad at the way she’d treated me. My mom blamed me for ruining her life. She had made it a point to tell me numerous times that I was not planned, nor wanted. As if she needed to tell me. Even though she never fully believed, a part of her wondered if I really could read her thoughts. My sister and I were born eleven months apart; my mom, being young and naïve, didn’t know you could get pregnant so soon after having a baby. My arrival made things very difficult for her, and she couldn’t help but blame me. Now I’m not saying my mom didn’t love me with every fiber of her soul, I know she did. My mom would have given her life for me. She was the strongest person I knew. She just looked for someone to blame when things went wrong. For the past sixteen years I had been her target and, unfortunately for my little brother, he had shared that role since his birth seven years ago.
“Yeah right, Erika a hero?” My mom scoffed at Valerie.
“She is, Ms. Martin! She knocked down the shooter and held him to the ground.”
“I’m sure you are trying to help, Valerie,” my mom said condescendingly, “but my daughter weighs 80 pounds. She’s incapable of holding anyone down.”
“Erika, Erika,” my mom said as she turned her attention back to me, “why are you just sitting there? Don’t you have anything to say?”
At that point I lost it. I had grown a pretty thick skin. I never cried when my mom told me she should have aborted me, I didn’t cry all the times she told me I was ugly, all the times she told me I was useless and that I would never amount to anything. Nor did I cry when she told me I would never find a boyfriend or would ever get married because no one would want me. But after all the day’s events, I couldn’t take it anymore. I started to cry and couldn’t seem to stop. Valerie jumped out of bed to get the nurse. The nurse came in and tried to escort my reluctant, screaming mother out.
“I am sorry, Mrs. Martin, but visiting hours are over. Erika’s been through a lot and she needs her rest.”
“Who do you think you are? You can’t make me leave, that is my daughter!” My mom’s voice was now loud enough for everyone in the hospital to hear.
Nurse Michelle beckoned for help. A tall young male doctor calmly approached the frantic scene with a look of compassion on his face. He gently placed his hand on my mom’s back, ushering her further away until I could no longer hear her voice. I stared at them through the glass pane. I was trying so hard to make out their voices, to hear their thoughts, that I forgot I was still crying… until that was all I could hear. I could barely breathe. My head pounded from crying so hard, pounded from the fluorescent hospital lights, pounded from exhaustion. I turned, placing my back to the window, and met Valerie’s eyes. I had forgotten she was still in the room. I wiped my tears away, embarrassed to have cried, especially in front of her.
“Are you okay? Your mom’s gotten more intense, huh?”
I didn’t reply.
She asked again, “Erika, are you okay?”
Valerie really did sound concerned, and I felt bad ignoring her. It was nice to have her be friendly to me again. I was able to squeak out, “Uh huh.”
“Would you like some privacy?”
I nodded and Valerie closed the curtain.
“Erika,” the voice behind the curtain said, “thank you—not just for today, but… well, for before, when we were younger. You know, I never told you that my mom left my dad. That night I came home from your house I told my mom that you knew, knew that my dad hit us, and she left him. I think it made it more real that someone else knew. I just wanted you to know that and that I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything.”
I didn’t reply. I was glad Valerie’s father was no longer abusing her and that in some way I had helped put an end to it, but I was emotionally and physically drained. I fell asleep within seconds.
In my sleep I saw Trevor and Robert. Robert was standing there staring at me with blood trickling out of his head. We were face to face back in the hall where he first said I was pretty. Trevor stood a few feet away watching us as Robert kept asking, “Why did you go to the quad, Erika? Why, Erika, why?”
He was on his knees begging for an answer, pleading with me to tell him why I didn’t listen to him, listen to his warning. I wanted to tell him it was because of him, because of how I felt for him. Because I wanted to see him again, feel the way he made me feel, smile the way he made me smile. But when I opened my mouth to speak I felt the cold steel of Trevor’s gun against my right temple and heard a click as he pulled the trigger. I was jolted awake. I sat up startled. It was morning, and I was not alone.
Chapter 3
SUSPECT
I was surprised and annoyed to find that my room was filled with people. Sunlight shone brightly through the window. I rubbed my eyes, quickly sitting up, covering myself with my blanket. I looked over at Valerie’s side of the room. The curtain was open but she wasn’t there.
“What, what time is it?”
I looked at the walls for a clock and was just about to reach for my phone on the bedside table when someone in the room replied, “Eleven ten.”
There were five people in my room and I had no idea who answered me. I rubbed my eyes harder trying to will myself to snap out of my morning haze.
> “Hi Erika, I’m Detective Arthur Nixon,” a tall lanky man with a moustache said. “Can I ask you a few questions this morning?”
I didn’t answer, I just stared at him. He was towering over me, standing next to my bed. I felt dazed. Was yesterday just a dream? I was trying to grasp what was going on.
“Erika, I’m sorry. Let me start again. Can I get you anything? Are you hungry, thirsty?”
I shook my head to say no.
“I know you’ve been through a lot in the last 24 hours, but we need your help. Can I ask you a couple of questions?” Before I could answer he continued, “I’ve already received your mother’s permission to talk to you.”
I stared at the detective. He stood about 6’ 3”. His face was weathered and wrinkled. He was a shockingly thin man. His Adam’s apple protruded through the leathery skin on his neck. I watched it move up and down as he spoke.
“Uhmm, okay,” I replied cautiously.
At my reply the other people in the room all took out little notepads, their eyes fixed on me. I wondered how long all these people were in my room before I woke up. It made me angry. Did my privacy not mean anything to them?
Detective Nixon asked me about my friendship or association with Trevor and Robert. He asked me if I knew about their plans or why they did what they did. I told him I didn’t. I chose to leave out the fact that Robert told me to stay away from the quad. I stared at him as he questioned me. I wanted to know what he was thinking. I tried to concentrate, but I couldn’t hear his thoughts. That was the thing about my talent… sometimes I could hear everything, and sometimes I couldn’t hear anything. I didn’t know how to trigger it or how to stop it when it started. But, it didn’t take mindreading to tell that the detective didn’t believe anything I had to say. It was frustrating. I was telling him the truth, but I could tell he thought I was involved in the planning of the shooting. Right then it hit me. Was he right? Could I have stopped all this? Was Robert trying to tell me his plans? I thought back to yesterday, to my encounter with Robert in the hall. I had walked away from Robert because I was embarrassed to talk to him. He was flirting with me, and, though a part of me liked it, it also made me uncomfortable. Even after I walked away from Robert, he called out to me. I told him I would stay away from the quad but I didn’t ask why. I didn’t even finish the conversation with him. I didn’t say goodbye; I just turned and walked away. Was he trying to tell me? Did he want to confide in someone? Why was I so quick to stop the conversation?
