Violent Ends

by Neal Shusterman

  My tears blur their words.

  If time machines were real, I’d be figuring out exactly which moment I’d have to travel to in order to prevent Kirby from doing what he did. But time travel doesn’t exist and it never will. Not in my lifetime, at least. I know this because I would have already gone back if I could; I wouldn’t have hesitated to do whatever it took to stop the shootings.

  All I have now is the knowledge that my brother did some good things and some monstrous things in his life. I can’t change any of it. But I can stop letting his actions define me. I can turn on my phone and let my friends know I’m going to find a way to be okay, and that I want to make sure they will be too. I can help my dad make decisions that, to him, feel impossible right now.

  I pull open the glove box and sift through it until I find some leftover McDonald’s napkins. I hand one to Dad and keep one for myself. “If you’re ready,” I say, wiping my eyes while he blows his nose, “we should head to the funeral home. Do you think they allow dogs in there?”

  ALL’S WELL

  Mom stands guard on the same kitchen tile where I left her, studying the TV mounted under the cabinets. Did she sleep? I heard her come up the stairs last night. I heard the water in the shower this morning.

  On-screen, an overly manicured blonde is reporting live. “Tell me,” Carolee at Channel 6 prompts, “How do you feel about returning to school? Have you been forever changed by the shooting?”

  My classmate Gillian Marie sweeps her newly ginger curls to one side. “We’ve all learned a lot about fear and personal strength and conviction. For example, I always wanted to be a redhead because they’re so witchy and cool. But I never would’ve actually dyed my hair if I hadn’t almost died. You know, dyed. Died. Or nearly died. It changes a person. And so does a new hair color.”

  And we’ve officially run out of things to talk about. I peek inside my brown lunch bag—a green apple, a wedge of Swiss cheese, and a mini bag of Cheetos, to offset the otherwise obnoxious healthiness. Then I grab the remote and turn off the television.

  “Hey!” Mom exclaims. “I was watching that!” She absentmindedly takes a bite of bagel. “Ruben, you don’t have to go today, you know. I could call in sick and we—”

  “I am going to school.” She has a little problem with anxiety.

  “There’s no shame in admitting you’re not ready.” She’s been on meds since the divorce. “Or waiting to make sure the new safety protocols are effective in—”

  “I am going to school.” I get it: I’m all she’s got. But if I don’t go today and come home safe, she may never let me out of the apartment again.

  The good-bye hug lasts for four Mississippis. “You’ll check in between classes, right?”

  The thing is, she’s not much better on days when we haven’t just had a school shooting.

  Kirby’s name leads the chorus. Billie, Mia, Tyler—the names of the dead, the wounded, the heroes—they make up the verse. The song rages in the parking lot. Alongside the bike rack, it’s whispered through tears.

  I know what you’re thinking. That’s Ruben being dramatic again, mentally sketching a scene for his latest graphic novel. Too bad he never finishes one. Too bad he can’t draw worth a damn.

  Well, screw you. I’ve got Mrs. Johansen for first-period English, and she called me A Real Writer last week. She said my imagination is a wonder, and it’s too bad that I’ve been strangled by the testing-obsessed education system. She said I should find an illustrator to team up with. I’ve got somebody in mind already.

  Mom has already texted me twice, spooling me back into her stress web. I’m trying to be patient, but I’m desperate to think about something, anything else.

  “Hey, kid!” a voice calls, shoving a handheld camera in my face. “Just one question!” The asshat jostles through the crowd in front of me. “Where were you when Kirby started shooting?”

  I wonder if he’s pro media or indie. He’s not playing by the rules.

  I tug my hood tighter, trying to escape into the crowd.

  “Kid!” The guy tries again, grabbing my arm. “Where were you?”

  “Taking a goddamn piss, all right?” I shout, jostling myself free. “I was holding on to my . . .”

  Oh, crap. Where is my brain? Now, I’ll be that guy on the Internet forever.

  Mom will see the video. We’ll have to talk about anger management and how my future college admissions counselor and every prospective employer will turn me down because I almost mentioned my dick, and the video will live online forever.

  I blame Dad. Kirby may have killed people, but Dad ruined lives. Sure, I get that Mom is exhausting. She frets over every little thing. But the more he lied about where his time and money were going, the worse she got. Besides, dumping your high-maintenance, now-ex-wife on your sixteen-year-old kid is bullshit. I mean, really? I get that the associate at his law firm is hot. But it’s not like being married stopped him before. He couldn’t wait two lousy years until I bailed for college?

  I shove past a couple of girls carrying instruments and that brings me back to myself again. I’m surrounded by people hugging, crying. I feel like an ingrate, a whiny idiot. Lots of parents get divorced.

  None of my best friends died. None of my best friends are hooked up to tubes in the ICU.

  Then again, I don’t have much in the way of best friends.

  I missed the whole thing, thank God. I heard the shots and stayed put until it was over.

  Today I wore my long black coat and hoodie to hide my face and body from the cameras, trying to stay low on adult radar. I’ve had my fill of sympathetic cluck-cluck noises. They don’t know what went wrong. They can’t promise it won’t happen again.

  There’s a rumor going around that Kirby may have had an accomplice who chickened out, who might set out to finish the job. It’s bullshit, I’m sure. I’m pretty sure. Mom is obsessed with the idea.

  She kept asking me if I was in classes with any of his friends.

  What did I know about Kirby? Not much. Come opening weekend, he was at every superhero, sci-fi, horror, and fantasy flick. I’d see him at the theater, always fourth row. Close enough that he was in the thick of battle, far enough away that his neck didn’t get sore. I’d turn and nod to him from up front.

  I thought about asking Kirby to come with me sometime. But then I saw him out with John and Meiko and figured . . . eh. Why make the effort? Apparently, I was wrong. Or at least something inside him was wrong. What if I’d gotten off my ass and gone to sit beside him, offered to split a tub of popcorn? Would that have made a difference somehow?

  “Where’ve you been?” My stepcousin Logan’s voice is intense as he scolds me in the sophomore hall.

  It’s a werewolf-y name, Logan. Wolverine’s name. Where were the X-Men when we needed them? The Avengers? Wouldn’t it have been something if I were a mutant? If Ruben Chase was just my secret identity, and I was in the restroom, changing into my black leather and cape? I could’ve flown through the halls and flung out my hand and melted the bullets and . . .

  “Sorry, man,” I say. “I was running late.” We’re supposed to stick together today. I don’t want to bitch to him about Mom. Or at least I don’t want him telling his mom I bitched about mine and have her pass that on. “I couldn’t decide what to wear.”

  His laugh is too sharp, and everybody stares. Up ahead, Amber Delaney drops her books.

  “Karl Andrews hyperventilated in the parking lot,” Logan informs me. “He’s in the nurse’s office.”

  Post-traumatic lung implosion. Poor guy. It’s about a third less crowded in the hall than usual.

  “You better hang that coat up in your locker,” Logan advises. “People will wonder what you’re hiding under there.” His tone catches me off guard. He says it like he’s wondering.

  I feel better with the trench on, like Nick Fury. Give me an eye patch and I’ll be all set.

  Logan and I have been cousins for less than a year. He’s the new stepson o
f my aunt Jill. When my mom and I moved here, he was the first person from school who I met.

  We could’ve hit it off. We didn’t. He could’ve taken me under his wing. He didn’t.

  Doesn’t matter. I’ve got better things to do than talk sports with the superficial people.

  I scan the crowd for Misty Chen. She does all the posters for the Thespians’ Club. I spotted her last week at the Joss Whedon movie marathon. I wonder if she’s at school today.

  Me, Misty, and Kirby were all in that theater for hours. Together but not together. Weird, huh?

  When the bell rings, I take my time wandering into English class. On the way, I text my mom.

  Not dead. She won’t think that’s funny. I backspace until it disappears. All’s well.

  Lots of vacant chairs; one in five students are absent today. No, make that one in four.

  Most important, there’s no Mrs. Johansen. The bright spot of the day I’d been hoping for dims. I poured my soul into my extra-credit crossroads demon/possessed Impala/witch-hunting story. (Okay, it technically might have started as Supernatural fan fic, but I changed the names.)

  “Good morning, class,” begins the sub, whose name (according to the chalkboard) is Mr. Gomez. “Mrs. Johansen sends her thoughts and prayers. She has decided to take her maternity leave starting immediately.” Maternity leave? I didn’t realize she was pregnant.

  If she’s pregnant, she must’ve had sex. I knew she was married, but sex? That’s disgusting. She’s at least thirty years old. You should never have to think about teachers having sex.

  Gomez is hypersensitive to any mention of violence. He stumbles all over talking to us about Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities without mentioning the guillotine. Next up on the syllabus is Hamlet, though, so he’s basically screwed.

  God, I miss Mrs. Johansen already. My algebra teacher, Mrs. Russell, worked up until the day she delivered. People were taking bets as to whether she was going to pop out the kid in class.

  I’m spacing out when there’s a knock on the door. It’s Misty Chen, in full artsy glory. Gomez looks relieved to take a quick break. He excuses himself, they speak in low tones, and then he turns to motion to me. “Ruben, you’re needed in the office.”

  “I didn’t do anything wrong.” Why did I say that?

  “You know what this is about?” I ask Misty as we head past a long row of lockers. I’ve never seen the hall this empty. There’s always a student running in late or a janitor carrying a mop.

  “You don’t?” she replies. “I’m an office assistant, first period. Except the day of the . . . when Kirby . . . I . . .” She was there.

  “I was in the john,” I admit.

  Misty smirks. “I know. Everybody knows.”

  The Internet. “Great.”

  She takes pity on me. “I like your coat.”

  I’m actually getting kind of warm. I consider stashing it in my locker, but I don’t because she said that. Misty is a fashionista. On a day that everyone else is in almost uniform jeans and T-shirts, she’s got on a flouncy turquoise-and-white dress with silver shoes. There’s a pink streak on the left side of her bangs. She’s nothing like Amber. It’s like Misty’s trying to prove that what happened won’t change her, except . . . “What happened to your leg?”

  The bruise is bigger than my hand and covers most of her knee, bleeding into the shin. She could’ve worn jeans to hide it. “I fell,” she says.

  I imagine the chaos—people pushing, shoving. She can’t weigh more than 105 pounds.

  Wait. “Is it my mom?” I ask, reaching for my phone. She works in the city. She could’ve gotten in a car wreck. It’s not like the rest of the world no longer exists. This isn’t the only place where bad things happen. No reply. We turn the corner. The office is only steps away. “Did my—”

  Misty reaches for my free hand and gives it a gentle squeeze. “Nothing like that. “

  I’m shocked enough to come to a halt in front of the library. “You’re holding my hand.”

  Thank you, Captain Obvious. The world has changed. We’re all closer somehow because of what we lived through, because we survived. I should say something now about my graphic novels and how I’d like her to do the art for me and how it would be fun to hang out. Or not fun. More like two kindred souls . . . no, dear God, not that. She’s still holding my hand.

  Her showing up to fetch me, it’s not a coincidence. It’s a sign. A sign—could that sound any flakier? Any more like something Mom would say?

  I’m a writer. I need a pen and paper. A keyboard. My phone.

  Misty gives my fingers another squeeze and then gestures across the hall at the counselor’s office. “Ms. Washington is waiting for you.”

  Not the principal’s office. This must be some kind of random psych check on the student body, which is fine, I guess. It’s at least potentially less boring than listening to the sub’s lecture.

  The cinder-block walls of Ms. Washington’s office have been covered in a textured wood paneling, painted a soft yellow. The barrel-shaped chairs are deep and soft leather. The walls are adorned with motivational posters: a photograph of a bald eagle labeled SOAR. A photograph of otters floating on their backs, holding each other’s paws—FRIENDSHIP. The wall calendar theme is kittens, and a collection of little crystal angels gleams under the brass reading lamp.

  Ms. Washington invites me to have a seat and leans forward in her chair, folding her hands on the cluttered desk. “Ruben,” she says. “It’s not uncommon in the wake of a tragedy to find yourself grappling with mood swings or intense emotions. Feelings like sorrow or anger.”

  Great, she watched me tell off the reporter on YouTube.

  “Sometimes, we may even find ourselves tempted to lash out at those who’re trying to help.”

  I did unleash a bit. “Look, I may have lost it for a minute there, but—”

  “Lost what?” Now she’s retreating, leaning back in the chair.

  “My temper,” I admit. “But that could’ve happened to anybody. You’re just in the moment, you know? And it feels right.”

  “Do you think that’s how Kirby felt?” she asks, head cocked. “Lost in the moment? Did you feel a connection to him?”

  I have no idea how Kirby felt. I barely knew the guy, except . . . “We liked the same movies.”

  I overheard similar conversations in the hall. “Kirby was in my gym class.” “Kirby almost rear-ended my car once.” Kirby, Kirby, Kirby.

  “You went to the movies together?” Now Ms. Washington’s right eyebrow is cocked too.

  “No,” I assure her. “I saw him at the theater a lot, though. We were both into geeky stuff. Sci-fi, fantasy, superheroes, horror.”

  “Vicarious thrills.” She opens a manila folder on the desk. “Horror like this?” She shows me my latest extra-credit story for Mrs. Johansen.

  “Sure.” I can’t resist asking. “Did you read it?” Wait. “Why do you have that?”

  Ms. Washington skims the text. “Mrs. Johansen said that a lot of your writing is violent.”

  “Mrs. Johansen said?” Hang on . . . Oh, hell. “Look, no, I barely knew . . . I thought you meant this morning in front of the school. That guy with the camera. He touched me.” That sounded worse. “I mean, he took hold of my arm. I was trying to get away from him. I didn’t want to answer his questions. I’m sick of the media vultures, so I told him to back off. I thought you’d seen the video.”

  “There’s a video?” Ms. Washington returns my story to her file. Then she excuses herself and leaves the office for forty-two minutes. Forty-two minutes.

  The end-of-first-period bell rings.

  The start-of-second-period bell rings.

  I text Mom: All’s well.

  I’m starting to think Ms. Washington’s forgotten about me when she returns with a tight smile, reaches for a pen, and begins scribbling. “Kir—I mean, Ruben.” She takes a breath. “Kirby is on everybody’s mind. Ruben, you live down the street. I don’t think there’s m
uch substantial academic achievement happening in this place today. Why don’t you take the rest of the day off and come in with your mother tomorrow? I’ll give her a call.”

  No, no, no, no. “This is all a mistake,” I say. “Uh, Mom has been under a lot of pressure, and . . .”

  Stop talking. Nothing I can say to Ms. Washington is going to help. She barely knows me.

  I need to talk to Mrs. Johansen. I’m her star student, her “little Stephen King.” I know she didn’t mean for this to happen. If I could just talk to her in person, everything’ll be fine again.

  Her house is on my way home.

  * * *

  Mrs. Johansen lives in a green cottage with blue trim located between the high school and my house. I’ve seen her out there, raking leaves as I walked home. I stopped to talk to her and her husband. I wonder if she’ll return to teaching after her baby is born.

  I pause at the fence, and a white Shih Tzu appears in the picture-frame window, barking its furry head off. The lace curtains flutter. I spot another face peeking through. Mrs. Johansen?

  I unlatch the front gate and take a couple of steps up the walk to Mrs. Johansen’s door. I’m imagining ringing her doorbell and her answering. When she sees me, she laughs and apologizes and says the shootings have made all of us crazy.

  The barking trails off, as though the dog has been carried away from the front of the house. I ring the doorbell and wait. And wait. I ring it again and wait some more.

  Mrs. Johansen opens the door. She’s got her phone in her hand. “Ruben, what are you doing here? You’re supposed to be in school.”

  “They sent me home,” I tell her. “They think I’m . . .” Like Kirby. “They’re—Ms. Washington—is worried about that last story I wrote for your class. For extra credit. Did you read it?”

  Of course she did. She’s the one who gave it to Ms. Washington.

  “Yes. It was . . . very imaginative.” Last week my imagination was a great thing. Today, staring at me on her front step, standing on the monogrammed doormat, she sounds unsure of herself.

  “Look,” I begin. “This is all a misunderstanding. You know me, right? You get that I understand the difference between fantasy and reality and that because I fantasize about killing demons on the page doesn’t mean that I would ever shoot a human being in real life.” The dog suddenly appears at her feet, yipping at me. “Or, for that matter, a Shih Tzu.”