Love, Heather

by Laurie Petrou

  No. Enough.

  I lay it against a tree and walk back a small distance. I can barely see it, that tiny little pocket bomb that has haunted me for so long. It’s there, though. Shiny pink case glinting in the moonlight. I can almost see its beating heart. I can nearly hear it. Pulsing, throbbing. Trying, dying to draw me in. I know who’s in there, who’s out there.

  I stand firm. I place a firecracker inside it. I light the wick. I take aim.

  My shoulder kicks, something small hits me in the face, but it works. It works! I quickly put in another one, and do it again, ready for the power this time. My heart racing, and ears ringing with the noise, the thrill of this cold, shocking, real deliverance from evil, the bold potential I have created out of nothing, I take the charred and tiny pieces that are left of that little phone bomb and throw them in my bag. No one can contact me now. No one can follow or comment on me anymore. And for that, I give myself a million likes.

  30

  Monday morning.

  I’m not like those other guys. I’m not going to get decked out in camo and wear a bullet belt and do a YouTube video proclaiming that this is the Reckoning and everyone is going to pay for my misfortune.

  I am nothing like them. I am like no one. I am Stevie. I am Dee. She is me. Any doubts I have are pushed down. She stomps on them, and I feel her eagerness. We are one.

  I put on the shirt I have planned just for the occasion. I put my jacket over top. I pick up my bag and relish in the weight of it. I have prepped the gun: added some gunpowder for extra power. Filled the bag with my colorful, celebratory ammo, ready to light up the world.

  I leave something for Mom. Nothing big. It’s just a bag of popcorn and a poster of that mom-and-daughter flick she loves, Terms of Endearment. I MISS YOU. It’s lame, maybe, but true. There really isn’t more to say than that.

  Everything is in hyper focus. I am aware of my every move. I look outside and see that the neighborhood has come alive; it looks so colorful. It is sunny and warm, and kids are chatting as they walk to school, parents are leaving for work, and joggers weave around everyone, their feet pounding slap, slap, slap. I close and lock the door, and I am thinking of only one thing. Nothing about what will happen after, or what has gone on before. I am the present. I am focused. I put my earbuds in and look straight ahead, the songs of my vengeance in my ears.

  As I get closer to the school, other students start to look at me. They are staring, but I am immune. My blood is pumping through my body like a beat. Someone jogs up beside me, grabs me, and I start, whipping around to see Ava, her hand on my arm. She is talking, but I can’t hear her. I shake her off and keep going. Stay focused, Stevie.

  The bell rings; I can hear it dimly over the music. I am a magnet, and people are watching me, waiting, and trying to get my attention. I walk past my locker and straight into homeroom, finally taking off my earbuds.

  Pete sees me, and I know he doesn’t know exactly what’s different or why, but his Spidey sense is tingling.

  “Feeling better, Stevie?” he asks.

  There is murmuring from the people around me.

  “Feeling great,” I say, meeting his eyes. He nods and returns to the tasks at hand, shuffling paper, calling attendance. I turn and look at Aidan, unblinking, waiting. He smirks and looks away, fiddling with the pencil on his desk.

  I know there are eyes on me, and people are tapping away at their phones to friends in other classes. My body is buzzing.

  “Okay, folks!” Pete announces to the class. “Settle down, settle down. Okay, so I know you’re all excited about presenting your media assignments to the class, and so am I!” There is more whispering and some nervous chatter.

  “Now, where shall we begin?”

  They are all watching me, my classmates. I can feel them zeroing in, talking, wondering.

  “Wow, you’re a lively bunch today.” He waits. “Who wants to go first?”

  He scans the room. A couple of tentative hands go up. Those people who want to get it over first, who might be more nervous than anyone about speaking in public, and also those who are proud of the work they did.

  I put my hand straight in the air. This is my moment. This is my time. My ears are roaring as Pete’s eyes meet mine. He raises his eyebrows and I see his mouth is saying Stevie?

  I stand up. The room falls silent.

  It is now.

  I shirk off my jacket, and some people gasp.

  I am wearing a white T-shirt. It’s the best kind to show off the red marker, the big, capital letters I scrawled on the front.

  CRAZY BITCH

  I look straight at Aidan. He stares back, his chin up, his face betraying nothing, but I see his Adam’s apple jump as he swallows. I walk to the computer on Pete’s desk to call up my presentation video. People are whispering and holy-shitting. I see a phone in my peripheral as someone takes a picture of me. Pete tries to regain control. The projector light is in his eyes. He raises a hand to shield them.

  A picture of a face is frozen on the screen. It’s me, passed out. From one of the pics taken of me at the party. It’s blurry, but it’s me. My mouth lolls open; I look like a little girl dozing. There are more gasps, exchanged looks.

  Pete glances at it, too, but is focused on my shirt right now. “Stevie, that’s not an appropriate T-shirt, even if you’re wearing it as part of your presentation. I mean,” he says, “I’m all for edgy commentary, but let’s please be mindful of offending or triggering anyone.”

  I smile, then, thinking about my secret, my special thing, lying in my bag, ready to pounce. Pete doesn’t know. He knows nothing of what’s been going on. Like every other grown-up around here, he’s the last one to know about the burbling undercurrent of activity outside his radar. He was always there for me, but now he’s so far away that he might as well be a stranger.

  He’s leaving me like everyone else.

  I laugh, and it sounds strange in my ears.

  And then I say, looking at my peers, my classmates, my friends: “Want me to take it off? I have the same thing written on my body, and it seems permanent.”

  Everyone is still. You could hear a pin drop. No one will tell. No one says anything.

  I didn’t do anything, they’re thinking.

  They did everything.

  They did nothing.

  “Stevie? Is this part of a character? Is this a theme?

  I don’t answer.

  He pauses. “Okay, you know what? Go ahead.” He sighs, sitting on the edge of his desk. “Push the theatrical envelope. It’s the end of the year, thank God.”

  There is a long pause, during which I could change my mind, and I almost do. My chest tightens. I feel a rush of sadness, of fear, regret. I am so nervous.

  I wait a moment. Then I walk, trembling, to the light switches and flick them down, casting us into darkness. Our classroom door, like all of them, has a small lock. Whenever we have lockdowns, teachers push the button in, locking us inside. I stand with my back to it, reach back and quietly lock it. And with a tiny click that only I can hear, with that small noise, she’s back. Dee. Giving me courage, helping me find my voice.

  People look at each other; someone laughs nervously.

  I stroll over to the computer and press play. My face on the screen slowly changes to a still from Carrie. Her anguish is splashed across the screen, in all her bloody, holy glory.

  I look out at them.

  There is music, while the faces of heroines of on-screen vengeance flicker in the darkness on the screen. It is loud, pounding.

  Say it, says Dee.

  I open my mouth and pull the tie that has been holding me together. My voice is loud and clear. I look at these people in front of me. They are all still. They are listening. Dee is speaking through me.

  “I hid from you, but you found me.”

  I am moving around the room.

  “I cried, and you laughed.”

  I walk between the rows of desks, speaking loudly, heads swiveling to
watch me.

  “I stood up, and you pushed me down.”

  Breanne, her eyebrows raised in the universal sign for what the hell is happening?

  “I lay down, and you walked on me.”

  Paige is trying to exchange looks with her friends, but their eyes are all on me. I walk to the front of the room. Behind me, a flickering montage of the damned.

  “I slept, and you robbed me.”

  I see Aidan’s face, a mask of phony indifference, a small smirk on his face, refusing now to look me in the eye, but his leg is jiggling, I know he’s scared. But not scared enough, Dee tells me.

  The room is completely silent.

  Pete is looking around. He’s onto me now. He knows there is something more to this than art.

  I stand in front of the door. I am reconsidering. I am scared. I reach into my bag and touch that perfect thing to remind myself. Its weight, its power. The thing that I made in the Makers’ Space, with help from a gang of rebels and loners and losers and winners online. People who would hate me also. I am afraid. I swallow. I retract my fingers. I doubt. I can’t.

  But Dee can. Her fingers wrap around it. She pulls it out. She holds it high. And from here on out, she is in control.

  They recognize it, even in its homemade glory: it is a gun.

  There is a riot of screams and screeching chairs. All the lockdown drills come to life. They are on the floor, hiding behind chairs, under desks.

  “Stevie,” Pete shouts above it, but in a firm, calm voice. He is moving.

  Dee holds the lighter up and points it at them.

  “Who knew what was going on, but did nothing? Who knew the truth but didn’t set it straight? Who saw my pain but didn’t reach out to me?”

  There is silence, a shaking, tearful, panicked silence. I can smell it on them. It is terror.

  My voice is cracking and I ask again, “Who. Knew.”

  Sniffling and silent sobbing.

  “You all did. You all knew, and you looked away. You left me all alone! You left me to disappear!” I scream, my voice breaking. “My friends. My enemies.”

  I whisper now. “I tried to teach you. I tried to tell you.” There are tears pouring down my face. I can’t see anything, hardly, anything at all, through them. “There is no justice. No one wins.” I begin to drop the gun; I don’t want this. But Dee lifts it back up.

  She turns it now to Aidan, Paige, Breanne, all of them, swiveling it to and fro.

  “You all,” she barks, her voice firm and low, “on your knees.”

  Pete is now moving toward me so slowly that he thinks I don’t notice. I hesitate, but Dee urges me on. Don’t fail me now, she says. Finish it.

  I flick the lighter, my hands shaking, and in one smooth motion point the gun at the ceiling. The fire ignites the gunpowder, sending an explosion into the water-stained white boards above us. A blast, a boom, dust everywhere, and now they are listening. Now they are paying attention. I am covered in white, and I shake it from my hair. I quickly refill the gun with another firecracker while the smoke clears.

  “On. Your. Knees.”

  “Holy shit, holy shit!” People scramble.

  “Oh God,” someone sobs.

  I hear footsteps in the hallway, in the adjoining room.

  There is crying.

  I feel a panicked urge to run, to stop this, but Dee pushes back, holds me firm.

  I am fighting her. I am losing.

  Pete’s voice is quavering and he walks slowly forward with his hands out gently, like he’s lost his sight and is finding his way, like he doesn’t want to trip and fall.

  “Let’s think about this, okay?” he says. “Let’s not do something that we’ll regret. It’s not too late to change our minds, okay? I’m here for you.”

  “I don’t believe you,” I say. “You weren’t there. You left, Pete!” I cry out, my voice hysterical in my ears. “So stay, now, Pete. On your knees.” There are tears, or maybe it’s blood running down my face.

  He falls where he is, his hands still out, trying to placate me.

  Aidan’s large frame is crouching near the front of the room between two desks, close to Paige, who is shaking with sobs. He looks up at me and shuts his eyes tightly, shaking his head in fear. He gags, then, and vomit trickles from his mouth. There is rattling at the doorknob; someone is yelling and trying to get in. I hear sirens in the distance.

  “You act like you care about things, but you can’t see what’s right in front of you. You never get to know anyone.” I look up at the hole above me, lift the lighter again. I close my eyes and whisper, “Who knows Dee? Who knows me?”

  The gun feels light, but I suddenly feel tired, weak. It is exhausting, this loneliness. This solitude. It is a burden. I don’t want this, Dee. Please. Just let it go. Let me go.

  There is someone at the door, screaming, “Get off me; that’s my dad’s class! Pete! Pete!”

  It’s Lottie. I pause, turning my head to the sound of her voice.

  Something reaches me as if from a distance. I can’t … It’s a fog, a ringing in my ears. But. All the pain. All the hurt.

  Stevie.

  I just want a release. Relief. I don’t want to hurt anyone.

  You’ve gone this far. Come ON.

  No. I want to stop, Dee.

  The lighter is flicked. The wick is lit.

  I take charge. I push her away.

  I am Stevie, I say.

  Pete lunges. There is screaming. There is an explosion. There is nothing.

  * * *

  PAIGE: I knew there was something that wasn’t right about her. She thought she was better than everyone. I tried to include her and make friends with her, but she [indecipherable] away.

  MATTHEW: She had been acting different over the last few months. I’ve known Stevie for a long time, but I think all the bullying really got to her. I just wish she’d talked to someone about it.

  MARTA: No, I never could have predicted this. That’s all I can say, sorry.

  ANTAR: Please. Just leave us alone. This is too upsetting. Just [indecipherable] please.

  LOTTIE: No comment. Get out of my way.

  AVA: Yes, we were friends. Look, she’s not a monster. Not at all. They all had it out for her for so long. It wasn’t right. For a while she was trying to defend people, trying to put the shoe on the other foot, I guess, trying to make a difference. It got out of hand. And then … what they did to her … I’m so disgusted with the people at this school. The pictures they were sharing around, too. Those are the real monsters. I’m not forgiving or justifying what she did; I’m just saying that’s not all she is. She is more than this.

  JULY

  31

  From Salon.com:

  Rape Culture made a girl school shooter, plain and simple. In last week’s attack at Woepine High School in a small town in Ontario, students witnessed what is a rarity of its kind: not a gunman but a gunwoman, using a handmade gun. And while shootings are few and far between in Canada, there has been such a rash of school shootings and attacks in as many years in the United States that we’ve become desensitized to them. What they have in common is that the accused are overwhelmingly young, white men. So much so that there have been books, articles and movies about angry white men, a disenfranchised and misunderstood group, and what is troubling them as a generation, about toxic masculinity and its impact. Now we have a new problem on our hands, and it may well be thanks to the same guys. The shooter was bullied, harassed, and possibly assaulted. She took to violence—whether for the purpose of self-harm or harm against others might never be clear—as a means of pushing back.

  We are accustomed to rape culture, that normalizing of violence and harassment against women. We are also accustomed to angry young people taking their furious revenge out on their peers. What we weren’t ready for was the intersection of these two things, and for the attacker to be female, for her rage to be gender-based. But here we are: at a moment when the pressure cooker blows and young women are f
inally releasing the tension of years of abuse. We are post-Weinstein, post-#MeToo, post-Women’s March, and now we are here.

  We created an environment that left little choice and few options. We must shoulder some of the blame. (cont’d)

  From CBC:

  Following the violent attack by a student shooting a homemade weapon at Woepine High School last week, an inquiry has begun into one of the teachers who had associations with the alleged student attacker. The young woman remains in hospital. Peter Sherman (formerly Rhonda Sherman, following a recent public transition), who was injured in the attack while attempting to prevent the homemade firearm from being activated, also remains in serious condition at hospital and yet has come under fire by the school board for allowing students—including the student in question—after-hours access to an art studio where police suspect the weapon that was used in the attack was made.

  A spokesperson for the school board explained that this access was not in the best interests of the students or their safety and that the policy around student access to dangerous equipment will be reexamined.

  “We are all still healing from the shock of this tragedy in our small school and are trying to find out how something like this happened,” she stated in an interview with CBC.

  While administration and parents were aware of a culture of pranking at the school and were taking steps to change it, neither seemed to be fully aware of the scope of it, nor the specific actions perpetuated on anyone’s or any group’s behalf. (cont’d)

  From Reddit:

  T0r0nt01987: Big shock: a girl attacks other kids and goes fucking nuts and now she’s the SJW’s new feminazi hero claiming rape culture bullshit is the reason. If she was a guy they’d have cut off his balls.

  URM0MStit: Rape culture is feminist for “Oops I drank too much.” She couldn’t fire the gun properly surprise surprise

  Y3sIsaidiT50: Here she is in all her ugly glory (jpg) after passing out like a lightweight.

  Ch3rryp0p: She’s fucked up. And now there’s a tranny teacher involved in the whole thing. I call bullshit.