Page 86 of The Lies Always Told

“Please,” he pleads.

“I’ll call you tonight, okay?” My fingers tighten around the door handle. “There’s just…a lot I need to figure out.”

His jaw clenches, but he nods. Then, suddenly, he reaches for my hand, brings it to his lips, presses a kiss against my palm like he’s trying to leave something of himself there, something I can hold on to.

“Okay,” he murmurs. “But please, call me. Please. I’m begging.”

“I will.”

“Promise me. Promise you will come to me.”

I nod, but I don’t say anything. I can’t promise things I don’t know I’ll keep. I’m stepping out of the car, the air rushing to meet me, before I know it. I take the steps slowly, one at a time, my pulse thrumming in my ears. I don’t know what’s waiting for me there.

But I know there’s no turning back.

PART 4

THE AFTERMATH

Standing on the shore,

watching the waters recede,

leaving behind the debris of everything,

E v e r y t h i n g,

E v e r y t h i n g,

I thought I could hold on.

What is left but pieces?

There is no perfect return,

no way to make the pieces fit again.

Only time will tell.

TWENTY-SEVEN

SHUT IT ALL OFF

A WEEK LATER

Hallelujah,Pentatonix;Keep Holding On, Glee Cast;Heal, Tom Odell

Nellie

I never thoughtI’d be here my first year as a counselor, standing at a funeral, surrounded by friends and family—the funeral of a man I’ve known my whole life. Someone who is loved, cared for, and appreciated by this community. A father, a husband, a friend. I definitely didn’t think he would lose his life at the hands of a student, one who never meant to hurt him. A student he loved.

But here I am.

The September air is thick—humid with grief, suffocating with the weight of things that should never have happened. There’s a crackle on the microphone, a brief moment of feedback that makes some people flinch, and then the head football coach’s voice drones over the silent crowd. He’s guiding the funeral, as he was not only Nick’s head coach, but also hishigh school coach when he played. Coach has been part of their family for years, and it just made sense. He speaks about loss, about tragedy, about faith, about God’s plan.

I wonder if he actually believes a word of it. Does he believe this was His plan all along? That Josh was going to be bullied so much, he snapped? That he was so distraught because his parents kept punishing him for his grades, grades he couldn’t bring up because he wasn’t getting any help? Was His plan to give him access to his parents’ gun and for him to bring it to school to scare his bullies into leaving him alone, but it turned into a disaster? A disaster that came at a high cost. A sentence for a sixteen-year-old boy who was hurting so much. A boy whose parents took out their frustrations on him, and he never said anything. A sentence for the sixteen year old boy who needed help and didn’t know how to ask. A sentence for that boy’s teacher, who now is gone. That boy’s teacher and coach who stood between the gun and his students while he was trying to figure out what was going on. A teacher who called for a code red so nobody else would get hurt. A teacher who managed to pull half of his homeroom out of the classroom. A teacher who had been trained on what to do in case of an active shooter, but when put in front of a kid he cared about, he forgot. A teacher who tried to take the gun away. A boy who accidentally fired in fear. A teacher who took a bullet for the kids under his watch. Was it His plan all along?

I’m having the hardest time believing everything truly happens for a reason. What’s the reasoning behind this? None—this is just a tragedy. Praying won’t turn it around. Praying won’t do anything. Actions will. More safeguards in place. More awareness and more consequences. More access to mental health care, more talking to kids about kindness. Maybe we did everything we could here, but Josh was still hurting before any of us knew it. We needed to do more. Not everything happens for a reason. Not everything is fair. This shouldn’t have happened. This is unfair.

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