“What?”
I was running toward a stall when I tripped. The laces on my boot must’ve come undone. I hit the tiles hard, knocking the breath out of me. I gasped and sat up. “Hide,” I told the girls again. I was frustrated that they didn’t seem to understand what I did.
Sarah must’ve picked up on it right after that, though, because she grabbed Lee by the arm and dragged her off toward another stall.
I got to my feet and rushed into the stall right ahead of me. I knew that if I locked the door, he’d know someone was in there. It’d be easy to shoot over or under. I also knew that if I didn’t want to be noticed, I’d have to stand with my feet on the toilet so he couldn’t see my boots under the door. Not to sound weird, but I’d thought about this before. In all the lonely hours I’d spent in that bathroom, I’d planned out a dozen nightmare scenarios and how I’d escape.
My mom calls me morbid. I call me prepared. Not that it did me a lot of good that day.
As I crouched on the toilet seat, my legs and back already aching, I raised a hand to my chest and reached under the neck of my T-shirt, but the little cross and the thin chain it hung on were gone.
Yes. You read that right. Cross necklace. The infamous cross necklace. The one that caused so many people to love Sarah McHale and hate me. That necklace was mine. I bought it with birthday money when I was eleven at a crafts fair, and I’d worn it pretty much every day since. Even after my parents split up and my mom stopped going to church. Even after at least three kids in my middle school asked me if I worshipped the devil because of the way I dressed. Even after I met girls like Ashley Chambers and realized why I kind of hated organized religion. I kept that cross on. And yes, despite all of that, I still believe in God. Regardless of whatever rumors you’ve heard.
But my necklace was gone. The chain must’ve broken when I tripped.
As stupid as this sounds, I almost went back to get it. I was thinking that if he saw it on the floor, he’d know people were in the bathroom, so I should go get it. But before I could move out of my crouching position, heavy footsteps entered the bathroom. I held my breath, thinking the words as I prayed.
But it didn’t matter. I don’t know if he saw me through the crack in the door or if he was just shooting at anything. I don’t know if this was calculated or impulsive. I’m sure everyone has theories about why he did it and what his plans were that day, but I’ve tried to tune it all out. Like Lee, I just don’t care.
Listen, I was an angry, depressed kid with a lot of hate for the people around me. And from what I’ve read in these letters, it sounds like Miles Mason had a messed-up home life. But neither of us ever shot at anyone. So I don’t care how sad this guy’s life was or how mean people supposedly were to him. Sorry, I just don’t. He’s the villain in my story.
One of them, anyway.
So he fired a couple of shots, one of which hit the wall and ricocheted back at me. I remember the pain bursting in my shoulder. Blunt and sharp at the same time. I screamed and fell forward, knocking the stall door open on my way down. From the floor, I could see my necklace, just a couple of feet away, but he was there, too. Standing over me as I bled onto the tiles.
And he saw the necklace, too.
“Whose ugly-ass cross is this?” he asked.
I gritted my teeth through the pain, but I was worried if I didn’t answer him, he’d either shoot me again or think someone else was in the bathroom and go looking for Lee and Sarah. That sounds like I was trying to be a hero. I wasn’t. I promise you most of my motivation for answering was selfish. I just didn’t know what he wanted to hear.
“Mine?”
“Yours?” He sounded shocked and almost amused. Even the kid with the gun didn’t believe I could possibly be the owner of that necklace. What foreshadowing of things to come.
“Yes,” I gasped.
“You think Jesus is watching over you right now?”
What did he want me to say? I didn’t know this kid. I didn’t know if this was some bizarre right-wing Christian terrorism or something. The odds of him killing me if I said no seemed just as high as if I said yes. I wasn’t defending my faith or being a martyr. I just wanted to survive.
“I … do. Yes.”
But he wasn’t listening anymore. Something from the other side of the bathroom must’ve caught his attention, because he was walking away, toward one of the other stalls. I crawled back into my stall and curled into a ball, trying not to listen to the next few gunshots. Trying not to think about how the girls I’d just told to hide were probably dead.
He left the bathroom then, and it wasn’t long after that that the police came. I was rushed to the hospital and told that I was very lucky. The bullet in my shoulder hadn’t done as much damage as it could have, and with some physical therapy and a lot of patience, it would heal. They told me I was going to be okay.
They didn’t know that the bullet wound was the least of my problems.
I didn’t tell people right away about what he’d said to me in the bathroom. Ironically, considering where we are now, I didn’t think it mattered. As far as I knew, no one had heard that brief exchange. When there were two teachers and seven teenagers dead in a high school, who cared that I’d lost my necklace? Or that the asshole with the gun had asked me about it?
I didn’t mention it to anyone until a couple of days after the shooting, when Detective Jenner stood in my hospital room, questioning me about what had happened. When I told him, he frowned and exchanged looks with the other officer.
“You sure that was your necklace?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said, annoyed. I had a shoulder wound, not a head wound. Of course I was sure. “Did you find it? The necklace?”
“It’s … still considered evidence,” he said. He left a few minutes later.
