That's Not What Happened

by Kody Keplinger

  What it won’t tell you is that Richie didn’t own a scrap of clothing that wasn’t camo. Camo pants, camo jacket, camo everything. Sarah used to tease him mercilessly about it. “You know this is a school, not the woods, right?” she’d say. “You really think you’re gonna kill any turkeys in the cafeteria?”

  “No,” Richie replied. “Because it’s deer season.”

  In his class photos, he had almost-white hair. But you won’t find any pictures online of the time in seventh grade when he dyed it bright orange with Kool-Aid for a Halloween costume. It looked ridiculous, and it took weeks for it to completely wash out. By Thanksgiving, even the teachers were calling him “Carrot” half the time. That nickname stuck around. Sarah never called him that, but a lot of his friends did. He even signed my eighth-grade yearbook as “Carrot McMullen.”

  Richie and I weren’t very close. He was dating Sarah, so our paths crossed constantly, but we never really went beyond friendly acquaintances. Most of the time, I was sure I got on his nerves, because I was always around, always the third wheel. Sarah never wanted to leave me behind, which meant Richie didn’t get to, either.

  Once, I’d even overheard him complaining to her that he wished I had more friends so that they could spend lunch alone together, seeing as how they didn’t get to spend much time together outside of school. “Don’t you ever want her to just like … go away sometimes?”

  Sarah primly told him, “No,” and refused to speak to him for a week.

  Even so, when Valentine’s Day came around, just a month before the shooting, Richie showed up at school with a teddy bear for Sarah (one she’d have to lie to her parents about) and a bag of Skittles for me.

  “What’s this for?” I’d asked.

  He shrugged. “I didn’t want you to feel left out.”

  Richie hated that first period computer science class with Ms. Taylor. He complained about it to Sarah constantly. He’d wanted to be in one of the elective Ag classes, but there’d been some sort of schedule issue, so he was stuck. Denny says he was always getting reprimanded by Ms. Taylor for playing games instead of working.

  Chances are, that’s what he was doing when the shooter walked into that classroom.

  There was so much more to Richie McMullen. Plenty of stories I don’t even know. But I hope this is enough so that, if anyone ever reads this, they won’t remember him as just one of the faceless, nameless victims—one of the nine—of the VCHS massacre.

  Instead, maybe you’ll remember him as Carrot.

  I think he’d have liked that.

  I could’ve listened to Detective Jenner. Could’ve dropped Denny off at his house, gone back home, and never mentioned any of the Sarah issue ever again. For a second, I considered it. It would’ve been so easy.

  But there was another article about the McHales’ book when I got home that evening. I didn’t even have to go looking on any of the VCHS message boards to find it this time, either. It was a top story on my browser’s home page as soon as I logged in: “Three Years On, Parents Remember Their Daughter’s Brave Sacrifice.”

  The headline made me squirm. Brave? Sacrifice? I hated when these kinds of words got tossed around about Sarah. It always made what had happened in that bathroom sound like something glorious, like the climax of an Oscar-winning movie rather than the blur of terror and confusion that it really was. Which I guess was deliberate, since this article mentioned that a famous actress’s production company was, “according to a reliable source,” seriously considering optioning the not-yet-published biography.

  I logged out without reading any further. The buzz around this book was getting bigger already, and I knew what that meant. Soon there would be reporters in Virgil County again, digging up the old stories about Sarah. About all of us. And they were going to get everything wrong.

  I wanted the book canceled. Wanted to stamp out the flame before it turned into a wildfire. For a fleeting moment, I contemplated what would happen if I called one of the major news outlets. If I told them what really happened with Sarah McHale—that I was holding her hand when she died. That everything they’d ever reported about her was a lie. That would get attention. That would make the publisher reconsider that book deal.

  It would be so easy.

  But it would also be cruel. I couldn’t do that to Sarah’s parents. I couldn’t let them find out the truth from a newspaper article. If they had to know the truth, they deserved to hear it from me. I’d avoided telling them for three years, thinking it was better to just let them believe whatever gave them comfort. But if this was the only way to stop the book, then it had to be done.

  Before I could talk myself out of it, I grabbed my keys and hurried back out to my truck.

  Mom had just pulled in when I stepped out onto the porch. She waved as she got out of her car. “I bought pizza,” she said.

  “Save me a slice,” I said as I hoisted myself into my truck. “I’ll be back later.”

  “Where are you going?”

  But I’d already started the engine and was backing out of the driveway.

  The McHales live about ten minutes away from me, just past Wargin Park and down a gravel road. My hands trembled on the steering wheel, shaking harder the closer I got.

  It was unsettlingly familiar, pulling into their driveway and walking up the front steps. I’d seen them around town dozens of times over the years, but this was my first visit to their home since that awkward dinner where I’d first tried to tell Ruth what had happened to Sarah.

  And now I was here again. Uninvited. About to tell them something I knew they didn’t want to hear.

  I took a deep breath and knocked on the front door. Ruth was there within a minute, and she was, unsurprisingly, completely baffled by my presence.

  “Leanne,” she said, immediately replacing her confused expression with a kind smile. “What a surprise! Come in, come in.” She stepped aside and gestured me into the living room.

  “Who is it, honey?” I heard Chad call from down the hall.

  “Leanne Bauer,” Ruth said, her voice raised just enough to be heard across the house, but sounding nothing like a yell. Ruth McHale never yelled. She turned back to me then. “I just realized I left my cell phone at work. Did you call? I’m so sorry.”

  “Oh, no,” I said. “I didn’t. I just … I’m sorry to barge in.”

  “Don’t apologize, sweetheart. It’s always so nice to see you.”

  I swallowed, knowing she might not feel that way for long.

  “We were just getting cleaned up for dinner,” she said. “Do you want to join us? We’re having tuna noodle casserole.”

  “Oh, thank you, but I didn’t mean to intrude.”

  “Nonsense.” Chad rounded the corner into the living room. His hair and beard were thick and almost completely gray now. He gave me a warm, genuine smile, and my chest filled with dread. “Ruth always makes too much when she cooks. We’ll be eating leftover casserole for days if you don’t help us out.”

  I glanced back at the door, wishing I’d come an hour later. Maybe two. I couldn’t eat dinner with them. I couldn’t sit down at their table, eat their food, then tell them everything they believed about their daughter’s final moments was a lie.

  But Ruth had already looped an arm around my shoulders and was steering me into the dining room while Chad went to grab the casserole. “How have you been, Leanne?” she asked as she pushed me gently into a seat—my usual seat, the seat I’d sat in a million times over the years. “How’s your mom?”

  “She’s fine,” I said. “She’s one of the managers at the Dollar Market now. It keeps her pretty busy.”

  “Oh, that’s great,” Ruth said. “And what about you? Prom’s around the corner, isn’t it? Going with anyone?”

  “Um, I’m not sure. Probably not.”

  “Well, that’s okay. Boys are overrated, anyway.”

  “I heard that!” Chad called from the kitchen.

  Ruth smiled. “Are you still doing theate
r? Chad and I were so sad we missed you in that play last year. What was it? Arsenic and Old Lace? It sounded like you were a real star. We read all about it in the local paper. Are you going to be in any more plays this semester?”

  I chewed my lip. “No. I’ve been too busy.”

  That was a lie. The real reason I’d decided not to do any more theater in Virgil County was that newspaper article Ruth was talking about. This had just been a small drama club production. We didn’t have any funding, so there weren’t even real sets. Still, a reporter from the local paper showed up at the performance. Instead of writing about the show, though, the whole article became about me.

  Specifically, about how wonderful it was to see one of the shooting survivors onstage, even if it was in a play about old ladies committing murder. The other cast members weren’t even mentioned. Heck, the play was barely mentioned. The whole article was essentially a retrospective on the shooting.

  I fell in love with acting because it gives me the chance to be someone else. To sink into a new persona and let Lee Bauer disappear for a while. But that was never going to happen on any stage in Virgil County.

  Hopefully things will be different outside of this town. Hopefully when I’m across the country, somewhere where my name isn’t so recognizable, I’ll be able to do what I want: be another person for eight performances a week without people focusing on what happened to me when I was fourteen.

  “Oh, I’m sure. I know how busy senior year can be. Do you have big college plans?”

  I nodded. “I’m heading to California,” I said. “I’m going to study acting, actually.”

  “So you mean we’ll know a movie star?” Chad asked as he stepped into the room with the casserole dish. “Promise you’ll remember us little people when you’re all famous, okay?”

  I forced a smile. “I’m really more of a stage person,” I said. “I don’t really want to be famous. Just … to act.”

  “Oh, the theater!” Ruth said teasingly as she squeezed my arm across the table. “That’ll be wonderful. But why California? Isn’t New York the place to be for stage?”

  “I mean, yeah. But there’s theater in LA, too. And I got into an acting program out there, so …” I shrugged.

  It was the truth, but only half of it. I had gotten into a good acting program out west, and there were teachers there I was excited to study with. But that wasn’t my only reason. New York City had been Sarah’s dream. She wanted to walk the runway at Fashion Week, even though she was five foot three, and only if you rounded up. I knew it was irrational, but going to Manhattan without her would have felt like a betrayal.

  “Well, movies or not, we’ll still be demanding your autograph,” Chad assured me. “Leanne Bauer will always be an A-list celebrity in our eyes.”

  Ten minutes later, I was picking at my casserole without having taken a bite. Ruth and Chad didn’t seem to notice, or if they had, they weren’t going to draw attention to it. Instead, they were talking to each other, mostly about their friends and upcoming church events. And they didn’t ask me any questions that required more than a yes or no. Which was good. Because I was still trying to figure out how to broach the subject of the book.

  But then, they did it for me.

  “Oh, before I forget,” Ruth said, “I’m sure you heard our good news, right? That we’re writing a book about Sarah?”

  “I did,” I said. My hands were shaking. I dropped my fork on the table and folded them in my lap. “About that—”

  “Don’t worry,” Chad said. “We were going to reach out to you.”

  “You were?”

  “Of course,” he said. “You were Sarah’s best friend. This book wouldn’t be complete without you. We’d love to interview you for it.”

  “Or if you’d rather write a piece, like an essay about her,” Ruth suggested. “It could be a whole chapter. We know she’d want you involved.”

  I cleared my throat. This was my moment. And now my legs were trembling, too. “About that,” I said. “I … I don’t think I can be a part of the book.”

  “Why not?” Ruth asked. “Is something wrong, Leanne?”

  “There’s … there’s something you should know about what happened,” I said. “During the shooting.”

  Chad’s face went pale. Ruth reached across the table and squeezed his hand, her eyes never leaving my face.

  I took a deep breath. “The thing that you think happened, with Sarah and the necklace and him … It’s not exactly … It didn’t happen.”

  “Excuse me?” Chad said.

  “I don’t know how this whole thing got started, and I should have told you years ago. It didn’t happen like that. At all. She wasn’t even wearing a necklace that day, and he didn’t talk to her. Not a word.”

  “Stop.” Ruth’s voice was so quiet, I almost didn’t hear.

  But I couldn’t stop. The words came out like a waterfall pouring over a cliff. “We were in the stall and she was holding my hand and he just … he shot her. He didn’t talk to her. He didn’t ask her anything.”

  “Stop.” She was louder now, but her voice cracked. “Stop, Leanne.”

  “But you need to know. You can’t write this book.”

  “Why would you say this?” Ruth asked. “Why would you lie about Sarah?”

  “I’m not lying,” I said. “I know this is hard to hear but—”

  Chad was standing now, his hands clenched at his sides. He looked so much larger all of a sudden. I’d never considered Sarah’s father to be an intimidating man, but now he seemed to tower over me. “You need to go, Leanne.”

  “Please. I’m just trying to—”

  “You need to go,” he repeated. “I won’t have you lying about our daughter, trying to tarnish her memory. Not in my house. Get out.”

  I looked imploringly at Ruth, but she was looking at me like I was a complete stranger. Like I’d just peeled off a mask and revealed that, no, I wasn’t the little girl they’d welcomed into their house for years. Instead, I was some hideous, venom-spitting beast. And, worse, there were tears in her eyes. I’d made a woman who’d never been anything but kind and loving to me cry.

  It was clear they weren’t going to believe me.

  Maybe, I realize now, they couldn’t.

  “Leanne,” Chad said, his voice deeper, angrier. “Leave. Now.”

  I stood up. “Thank you for dinner,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

  I walked to my truck in a daze. I knew they might not take it well, but I hadn’t expected to be kicked out of a house that, at one time, had been like a second home to me. To be called a liar by people who once called me family.

  I thought I had been doing the right thing. But … I don’t know. Maybe there was another way. Maybe I could have told them differently. Maybe I should’ve just told them three years ago.

  I guess it doesn’t matter now.

  But, Chad, Ruth, if somehow, at some point, you end up reading this, I really am sorry. And I hope you know that nothing I’ve done diminishes how much I cared about Sarah. I know you think I’ve tarnished her memory, but her memory can never really be tarnished. Not for me. I’ll always remember her as the girl who could make me laugh so hard that I couldn’t breathe, who stood up for me even when it wasn’t the “cool” thing to do, who loved me even when she didn’t understand me.

  She didn’t have to die a martyr to be my hero.

  Still, I wish things had gone differently. And I hope, one day, you will forgive me.

  It took months before I was able to sleep at night.

  In the first couple of weeks after the shooting, I’d just lie in my bed, listening to every tiny creak, noticing every little shadow, and running through a thousand possibilities of what they could be, each worse than the one before. I spent hours in the darkness, convinced I wouldn’t be alive by morning. Wondering how I’d die. Terrified of the prospect of existence just ending.

  When the sun came up, I’d finally manage to doze off, still only sleeping in b
ursts, woken up by nightmares or Mom, poking her head in to check on me.

  I don’t know what gave me the idea to climb onto the roof. It seemed logical at the time, though. From there, I could see anything coming. I would know before the danger could reach me. The roof just felt like the safest place I could be in the middle of the night.

  So I grabbed a steak knife from the kitchen and headed outside. A wooden fence ran down the middle of the narrow swath of land that separated our yard from Mrs. Mason’s, and once I hoisted myself onto the fence, I was able to jump onto the roof. I found a spot and sat there, cross-legged for hours, turning the knife over and over in my hands, my wide eyes watching for any signs of trouble in my dark little corner of Virgil County.

  I stayed there until the sky shifted from black to an almost royal blue, with the sunlight just beginning to peer over the horizon. As the streetlights flickered out, I hopped off the roof and snuck back inside, burying myself beneath the covers on my bed before Mom could wake up.

  I’d been doing this every night for a week when Miles noticed me. Or, maybe he’d noticed me before. I’m not sure. But this was the first time he’d come outside while I was up there.

  Miles’s grandmother, Mrs. Mason, has lived next door to Mom and me since I can remember. She’s a little old lady with wispy white hair and a habit of calling everyone “sweetie.” When I was eleven and my own grandmother died, she brought Mom and me dinner every night for a week, because she didn’t want Mom to have to worry about cooking on top of everything else.

  So when Miles came to live with her a year later, right after I started seventh grade, he took me by surprise. He wasn’t at all how I’d imagined Mrs. Mason’s grandson to be. I’d imagined him in khakis and a collared shirt, not a dirty hoodie and ripped jeans. I’d pictured him as having the same warm smile as his grandmother, not a face that shifted from sulky to angry and seemingly nothing else.

  I wasn’t sure why Miles had come to live with his grandmother, because we’d never really spoken. I know that’s hard to believe—two kids, roughly the same age, living right next door to each other and never interacting. But if you knew us, especially before the shooting, you’d understand. He was a year ahead of me in school at the time. He was quiet, even back then he mumbled everything, and as far as I could tell, he didn’t seem all that interested in getting to know me. Not that I tried that hard, either. I spent most of my time with Sarah, and he was definitely not the sort of guy I could see her becoming friends with.