The security guard was walking through the courtyard yelling. Lockdown mode. That’s what they do when someone has a gun. When people could die. When your school is on the news and everyone sends your family flowers and homemade lasagna. When I feel an anxiety attack coming, twitching my hands usually helps me calm down. As we were ushered into the auditorium by teachers with faces like a funeral, I didn’t feel the need to move my fingers from where they held one strap of my backpack to my shoulder. I wasn’t sure I could move them at all.
When you read a book about a school shooting, they always talk about the chaos. Kids running away from the unstable teenager with a gun, teachers trying to make sense of the disarray, wondering which window you could safely jump out of. They don’t tell you about the waiting. They don’t tell you about the graveness of the teachers’ faces as they ask you to be quiet. They don’t tell you how a tiny corner of the blackness lifts when your friend texts back. They don’t tell you how you will not stop staring at the door that leads directly to the parking lot, wondering when it will burst open with a crash, a bang, and the color red.
I stared at the stage lights still left on from drama class. I rested my muted white converse on the seat in front of me, then vaguely wondered if a teacher would get angry at me for dirtying a chair while teenagers and adults alike sat wondering who wouldn’t get to go home that day. A girl I’d known since second grade texted me and said her algebra teacher barricaded the door with an old, orange bookshelf. Three flights of stairs between us. My friend told her mom she loved her. Too many miles between them. I thought about my dog, sleeping at home on a green blanket filled with holes. I couldn’t remember the last thing I said to my mom that morning. I couldn’t remember the last time I said “I love you.”
When I read the books, I didn’t realize how scared I’d be. I didn’t realize that my throat would close up like the eye of a tornado and the rock in my stomach would double in size every time the teacher got a message on his radio. When I read the books, I wanted to know if everything would be alright. I turned each page with the raw, nervous energy I was so interested in reading about. But as I sat between my friends on the auditorium seats that were now much too red, I didn't want to know what would happen next. I wanted to grab my friends and run away from the red of the seats that could so easily be echoed in all of their faces a moment too late. As my shaking fingers tapped out a rhythm on my phone, the reassurances from three floors up and the anxiety bombarding me from all angles mixed with the clanking sounds from behind the stage to create a bloodshot mind uncertain of its actuality.