Read an Excerpt
Chapter 1
What do you do when, in one moment, your entire existence is destroyed, your identity shattered, and your safety stripped from you, and you now must figure out how to survive and thrive in the pain and chaos of what just happened? How do you start over and heal?
“Mommy Made Me Mash My M&Ms,” the warm-ups in the choir room are finally beginning as we try and settle in for my favorite class. I love choir, I love singing, and music. There is something about sound and music that brings joy and hope into my soul. I love this one, I think, because I get to play with my range of voice and sing high and low notes I wouldn’t normally as an alto. I always like to push my voice, and as I was close to the end of my senior year and had been accepted to and able to participate in the audition-based All-State Choir competition this year, I was confident in my voice and was enjoying the monotony of the vocal gymnastics.
That’s weird, I wonder why he’s showing up so late again? It’s so distracting! Oh well, he’s always coming in late.
“Mommy made me mash my . . .” That sounds like gunshots! It must be fireworks. That’s an interesting senior prank. Someone’s going to get in trouble. Why do people think it’s funny to do that kind of stuff?
“We’ve got to go! Someone is shooting up the cafeteria,” one of my classmates yelled as he stood next to the keyboard, clearly panicking.
“What are you talking about? Get in your seat, let’s go.”
“No! Listen, get out of here!”
Then we all make the connection: It’s not fireworks; it really is gunshots. Instantly, and in total confusion, I am up and running out the east door of the classroom. Pushing through the narrow doorway and into the hall leading to the auditorium.
Are they getting closer? Why are the fire alarms going off? Is there a fire too? What is going on?
My survival instincts are in full operation now, and I am vaguely aware that I am not thinking, just doing. As the tunnel vision closes over my mind, all I can see is the path across the auditorium and out the other door. I am following no one in particular, I am not even aware of who I am running with. As I get to the opposite door, the one that will lead me to an exit out of the school. I realize that the only way out is the front door. The fire doors in the hallway separating the front of the school from the back of the school, where the gunshots are ringing out, are completely closed. We all have to go out the front of the school.
Huh, I wonder what he’s doing there in that hallway. Why is he just standing there . . . is that a gun?
It’s in the moment that I get close to the front of the school and the doors that will theoretically lead me to safety that I hear an audible voice in my head. “DUCK!” I have no reason not to comply, so I crouch and run.
What was that? Boom!
As I duck, I feel the bullet fly over the top of my head and watch it blow out the glass of the door I’m pushing on to exit the school. I have no idea what is going on, but I feel an aching in my arm, and keep running.
I wonder who is shooting at me? I thought they were at the other end of the school, and the fire doors are shut! It’s him; he’s part of this; he’s not just watching from the hall!
“What’s going on? Where is everyone going?” I am vaguely aware of one of my least favorite teachers trying to enter the school the same direction as the wave of students is sprinting out. “SOMEONE IS SHOOTING AT US!” I yell like this should be the most obvious thing and keep running.
“Can I borrow your phone?” I yell as I grab it from someone running beside me, not waiting for an answer. I call my mom at work and say, “Mom, they’re shooting at us, and I don’t know where Eric is!” Then I drop the phone and run.
Somehow my mom was able to get to me and drive me home, where we found my brother, Eric. He should have been in the cafeteria, but he came home for lunch. I lived across the street from the school at that time, and when I got home, my brother was in the park behind our house with hundreds of other students “watching” what was happening. As shots continued to ring out, students began pouring into our backyard seeking shelter and safety from the rampage. It still was not over, and it was well beyond the accepted 15 minutes of active shooting narrative that became the official statement of record.
For the next few hours, hundreds of students were in our home, I was desperately trying to leave my neighborhood and go anywhere, and Verizon was comping all our phone activity as everyone was desperately trying to reach their families.
Where are they? They were right behind me! What happened?
These are the questions I pondered as I realized that my only two friends in the world were not with me, they had not run out right behind me. I realized that the only answer was that they were still inside the school, or worse. Later in the day, I somehow ended up at Jefferson County Public Library, where they were busing students, and I was numbly and desperately searching for their names on the survivor’s lists.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know where she is. I thought she was right behind me,” I replied as my best friend’s dad was desperately asking me where she was. She should have been right next to me, we were only one seat apart! Ultimately, my two best friends, the only people who helped me to maintain any sense of self and normalcy in that horrible phase of my life, had been stuck in the school for hours. It wasn’t until a long time afterward that I learned what they had gone through stuck in a small, windowless room while the killers prowled the school searching for new victims. Waiting until law enforcement finally made their way to that end of the school . . . the end of the school where everyone had been lost.
Later that night, when there were no more buses coming from the school, I somehow managed to get to Leawood Elementary School where my mom was waiting with her friend, and the other twelve families, who by that time must have known. To this day, one interaction haunts me and destroys me to my very core. I was wandering around, numb and dissociated from the trauma, when I ran into a desperate mom.
“Do you know where my son is? Have you seen him? No one knows where he is? What happened?”
“I don’t know where he is, but I’m sure he’s fine. He has to be. They will find him soon.”
This was Isaiah Shoels’ mother. Of course, he wasn’t fine. They already knew where he was but had not officially notified his family yet. I didn’t know who she was; I had no idea what I was saying to her. I just wanted to reassure her, and maybe myself, that everyone was ok. I still hadn’t heard from my friends, and I think I was just willing them and everyone else to be alive . . . even though I knew that the thirteen families of those inside the school were not going to be taking their children and loved ones home that night. Years later, when I remembered this brief, yet poignant, conversation with Isaiah’s mom, I was broken on a whole new level. To this day, I wish I could speak with her again and tell her I’m sorry. I know that I did nothing wrong, but I feel that in that moment I gave her false hope that was swiftly destroyed forever.
