Ruin
Journal Entry: February 19, 1998
The thing about love is that it’s more closely related to hate than people realize. That’s how I figure it. Yearning for a person so badly that you actually feel physical and mental pain? That’s just too fucking much. And to be honest, God god can go fuck himself (if he was even real) for involving this waste of creation on Earth. Every love song you hear is about how good it is, all king of the hill, top of the heap and shit. But the next track is about the pain—the same person who made them feel like love was enough basically murders them by taking that feeling away. It’s just too much responsibility for the human heart to manage.
There used to be this song I loved, and at first I only listened to it because [redacted] said it was her favorite that day on the bleachers. After a while, it became my favorite, too. Then the whole album, then the band. Even when the band broke up the song was still the same. Then [redacted] called me a loser. She didn’t know I was standing there, but I was. And I still am. Standing there, a fucking loser. I hear that song differently now. Isn’t that funny? How a thing can change meaning just like that? It’s the same material, just…different, depending on who breaks your heart that day. Now when I hear any love song I can’t help but feel [scratched out] contempt for every living thing in this nihilistic world. I bet you that for every song about being IN love, there is an equal and imposing amount of songs about falling OUT of love. Phony. Fucking despicable. People only hurt each other because they can. NOW every time I hear a love song, I imagine the song that comes after. The song that means goodbye. The way we knew it before will never be the way it would actually go.
If god is love, like my mother says, I’ve got news for her. God is dead. So what does that mean for the rest of us?
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April 16, 1999
2:12pm
He knew she wouldn't try to run, which is why he saved her for last, and of course she didn't know that. Right now maybe she's thinking she's the reason why all her friends are dead. Maybe she isn't thinking much at all behind the sobbing. Why do girls wear so much mascara if it’s just going to run down their faces like that all the time? They’re crying all the time, and over nothing. Today she had a reason, though. Had to give her that.
Pressed against a counter at the far wall, Ruin had Julien looking anywhere but down the barrel of a semi-automatic handgun pointed in her Maybelline-streaked face. Next to her on the floor, Delilah Prophet was gasping through her last breaths, choking on blood. A litter of bullets ripped through her left kidney, pulverized her stomach, collapsed a lung and shattered the right collarbone. Had she not tried to run, death may have been quicker. Delilah’s eyes descended into black holes as she took one last look at her best friend, wrapping a soft hand around the ankle of Ruin's #1-Girl standing before him.
“Plea—”
Ruin fired into the ceiling before the girl could finish begging. A crowd had formed outside, slower to accumulate than he thought. Sirens wailed, parents were crying. Somewhere in the sky a helicopter was surveying the campus.
“Shut the fuck up,” Ruin said. He rolled his eyes toward the window. It’s already done, he thought. You’re all too fucking late. Under his trench coat was a pouch containing the final pipe bomb. Backing away, careful not to trip over Malcom Anderson (nigger) and Michael Kelly (asshole), he meandered to the door of room 406, chem lab, and lit the explosive with a flare before tossing it into the hall. Shutting the door, he realized the girl, always so pretty with her long red hair and seashell necklaces, had begun to wet herself. It was like watching a dog make a mess after being trapped inside the house for too long.
“I remember when we were kids you said you wanted to be a marine biologist. Is that still true?”
Her back shuddered as she rounded over, fingers laced into a ball trying to conceal the accident soaking her pink sundress. When they dropped her body on the steel slab, the morticians would notice that she pissed herself, and she was already embarrassed. Of all things.
“Hey!” Ruin shouted, “Is that still true?”
“Mm-hm,” she nodded.
“No, it’s not. Last week I heard you saying your parents wanted you to try for Juilliard. You were excited to dance for the New York Ballet Company someday. Why didn’t you just tell me the truth?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s right. You don’t know. Jesus. What happened to us all? I used to want to be an astronaut. I read all the books, used ticky-tacky to stick those glow-in-the-dark stars on my ceiling. What happened to that? I mean, really. What the fuck happened to all of us?”
The tile floor was quickly filling with blood, lines of indelible scarlet staining the grout. In the hall, the bomb exploded, sending a tremor through the foundation. The girl cowered, backing into the wall and sliding to her knees. Covered her ears as if that would somehow save her. A terrified roar from the mob outside reminded him of a crowd cheering at Wrigley Stadium. Friends and neighbors had congregated around police lines, praying the children were OK, calling their husbands at the office or friends in the city wondering had they seen the news.
“Kinda looks like they’re swimming, doesn’t it?” Ruin said. Whitney Jennings was face down in a pool of her own blood, and he kicked her in the head, scattering the candy necklace she’d been gnawing on that stained her teeth into a pastel mess. “Except they can’t swim anymore. He sighed, and the girl everyone called by her last name wondered where all of this was going.
"I used to like you, ya know? I made you a playlist freshman year and you threw it in the trash.”
“I’m sorry. I promise. I’m so, so sorry.”
“You’re what? You’re sorry what?”
“I want my Mom,” she cried, putting her face in her hands.
“I said what’s my name, bitch!”
Her eyes went wide as she looked him in the face, maybe more puzzled that she should have been. The urine on her legs was going cold and itchy now, and her mind was leading her back to the safety of her bedroom where pink and yellow lace fragmented the light over everything. Where the only boy who’d ever entered was Jonathan Taylor Thomas in the form of a poster. She wanted to change into a nice pair of denim shorts, help her mom set the table for dinner.
There was a disturbance from down the hall. Men, their deep voices muffled by gasmasks, chests protected by Kevlar sporting the letters “FBI.” Maybe she’d make it out alive, maybe she’d be OK even if nothing else was ever again.
“What’s my name, Julien?” Ruin said and pointed the rifle in her face again. Help was approaching. Seconds were passing by in the span of hours. For some reason, for the life of her, she just couldn’t remember his name.
A voice yelled, “Clear!” from the class next door where a sign had been taped to the window, that said “ALIVE INSIDE” drawn with blood on someone’s finger. Again, a voice bellowed, “Clear!” Time was running out for Ruin, and it was only quarter after 2pm.
Julien's mouth, the pouty lips boys talked about in the locker room, they were grimacing in despair. Shaking her head and apologizing with her sky-blue eyes, she mouthed the words, “I don’t know.”
“I didn’t think so.”
He pulled the clown’s mask over his head.
“By the way, your name is Claire Miranda Julien.”
As she screamed, he pulled the trigger.
Mia
6:35am
There’s a blue jay in the live oak outside her bedroom window, and she’s thinking how rare it is to see a bird like that. But when you do, it’s always memorable somehow, something to remark on later in the car if the mood was right. A storm the night before was setting the morning up for a slow, sleepy ascent into a humid spring day. The scent of rain still lingering in the air like a veil, wet earth and cut grass. Everything and quiet and misty. By now, Mia realized she was thinking too much, and blinked her way out of the hollow trance pulling her past the curtains and into outer space. The blue jay, she realized, was not there anymore. When did that happen?
“Honey,” A knock came from the door, gentle like her mother’s voice. “I’m making pancakes.”
Clearing her throat, she called back, “Ok, be down in a sec.” Mia’s mother didn’t need to wake her today. Didn’t need to wake her for the past week, really. If it hadn’t been for the Xanax she repeatedly kifed from her parent’s medicine cabinet she wouldn’t be able to relax. This morning, she’d been up since 5am, sitting at the white wicker vanity and chewing her nails. String lights decorated her walls, pictures of friends clipped to the wires, taped to the mirror. Pictures painting the portrait of girlhood ascending into a bright future. She kept fresh yellow Tulips in an antique vase next her bed. Whatever she’d had planned for her future until this point was at risk, and she knew there was no other option but to face him today.
Hopefully, he’d been able to keep his mouth shut. What they had was fleeting, but it still meant something to her and senior year was in full force. There wasn’t time to do the boyfriend/girlfriend thing amidst all the college applications and interviews, relentless auditions. Why, then, did she still find a way to let this happen? God, she hadn’t even told her best friend yet. Couldn’t risk this getting out, and in her own way, she kind of liked having a secret. Would people even be surprised, though? Mia, notorious for liking everyone and dating no one, was in the throes of a high school crush.
Mia and Gabe had been sweet on each other more than once, that’s true. It had been a back and forth dance between the two of them, starting last summer—an attraction that had seemed to appear out of nowhere. They’d known each other forever, she felt. It's funny how times changes our needs, the way we feel for one another. To see a person every day and suddenly it’s like they’ve appeared out of nowhere, the shape of his smile waking up a flutter of butterflies in the stomach. And he was sweet, handsome with eyes the color of polished amber. He seemed older most of the time unless he was with the rest of the guys, jostling bad jokes out of each other or comparing penis size in the locker room after a game. But when she had him alone, he had his own thoughts and ideas. There was a tenderness to him Mia hadn’t seen before.
Fuck! she thought, hitting her wrist against the desk. Mom and Vinny are gonna be so mad at me.
But it wouldn’t come to that. She knew it wouldn’t. And she could probably pay for it herself somehow, just needed to make sure it was discreet. Vinny payed off her credit card every month and occasionally asked questions. Which brought her to the present situation, financing the procedure with help from Gabe. Telling Gabe.
FUCK.
And why did it have to happen at a party? Ugh, she wanted to be disgusted with herself. Her chest rose, tissue-paper lungs filling with air, exhaling a conflicted sigh. Distraction would be her breakfast for the morning, and she felt guilty not eating her Mom’s pancakes. But as she applied her mascara, she could smell the bittersweet char of burning wood, see the flickering embers spiraling into the air like fireflies. Someone was singing—there’s always an acoustic guitar at these things. And the burst of waves clashing against the sand bank. Applying her lipstick now, she blushed, putting effort she didn’t need into the pillowy smile boys talked about when they didn’t think she was listening—but she was always listening. Brushing her hair, Mia thought back to the way he looked at her from across the circle, how he followed her into the darkness just to hold her hand. One-hundred strokes later, she still languished in the reality of knowing how good it felt to kiss him in the grass.
Her reflection in the mirror was something a girl could never get used to. Seventeen-years-old, freckles across the nose and strawberry-blonde hair. Always wondering if the face looking back at her was good enough. Sometimes it was hard to tell between now and all the rest of it. Boys, the way they talk in that crude way that would make their mother's cry. Girls, the way they gossip behind your back exactly like you knew they would, and then giving that same girl for a tampon in the middle of Spanish class because that’s what girls do.
Mornings like this were always her favorite time of day until recently. Mia didn’t need music or much of anything else to keep her company besides her own thoughts and the Midwestern sky waking up with her into a brilliant shine-down, warm and welcoming. By the time she stepped out of her bedroom, Mia would be the girl everyone needed her to be, a heavenly creature living an ordinary day on earth. Grace concealing the pain of crushing on another boy or the desire to wear a sundress in spite of cramps gripping her nerves like a vice. But above all this, the accomplishment of getting through each day smiling back at all those different looks, hoping without superficial pretense, to see the best in everyone. Lust, love, envy, fury, camaraderie, anxiety. Mia encountered these every day, and mostly from people she didn’t know all that well, occassionally begging them with her mind to raise their eyes up from her chest.
Slipping her feet into a pair of heels, she felt the small bones in her feet pop and crack—years of pliéing taking their toll. They hurt more than usual today in spite of the calluses, the repeated broken toe nails. But then again, so did her breasts. Sore, but nothing she couldn’t handle. Everything in place, except the visitor between her legs every month. No red spot in her panties this week. That’s not good. But the sun was out, and at least it was warm. Today was bound to be a beautiful day. She just knew it.
Ruin
Journal Entry: September 12, 1999
All I want, right? Just that one thing, just one tiny little thing to make me feel like there’s a reason to survive in this world. [Redacted] was supposed to be different, wasn’t she? I thought she was. Different. And yet, somehow, yet again, love has managed to find a way to fail me. Honestly, I shouldn’t be surprised at this point. Everyone is so fucking shallow, even the good ones. Bitches falling for anyone above 5’9’’ who shows them the slightest bit of attention. Oh my FUCKING god it so annoying. So pathetic, rather. Either her brain or her pussy is hemorrhaging, cause the [scratched out] isn’t thinking straight. Maybe she’s just a dyke trying to overcompensate for the clit she wishes were a dick. Or probably [Redacted] is a faggot, clinging onto any shred of respect he’ll inherit from his Republican parents at the country club. Who has that much fucking time to go golfing anyway? Gayest sport on the planet if you ask me. And if you can even call it a “sport.”
But really, getting her cherry popped at a party? Super classy. I’d have more respect for her if she at least claimed it was rape.
The people of this world are fucking crippled. Their minds are more cracked that a mirror should be in front of their pretty, ridiculous, narcissistic faces. I look at these dipshits every day, with their fake smiles and manufactured opinions. Trying to be relevant to anyone who will listen, especially if that makes them the bad guy, or actually the better guy. Because then they get to feel like they’ve made a difference. They’ve got influence. They caused a ripple in the stillness of things. Those same bitches like to wear a smug look of achievement as anyone around them applauds and cheers for putting in minimal effort to a cause they only know on paper. And to those same ugly bitches, I say YOU ARE ONLY HERE TO BE PRAGMATIC. They wouldn’t know an issue if it shoved a dick up their ass. Those same ugly bitches are the ones who like to question the faculty’s logic behind turning a profit on school lunches or buying generic fucking toilet paper, wearing sensible shoes to hold their shaking feet while they pretend to be making a difference. Those same ugly bitches are the very ones who walk onto campus mimicking the same outfit they just saw on Alicia Silverstone one day and Drew Barrymore the next, calling themselves original driving cars provided to them by their CEO daddies or mothers on the auctioning committee. Those same ugly bitches throwing their fists in the air if it doesn’t make them look retarded in the moment to anyone who’s actually lived through something, forgetting every day that their cleaning ladies from Mexico are scrubbing their toilets and sending money home to Chihuahua for the abuela living in a house made of mattress springs. Those same ugly bitches who would rather sell a baby on the black market than ever forego their trust funds, relinquishing their lovely futures to a charity or homeless shelter. Life just doesn’t work that way, kiddos. Or maybe it does, but not for long. Not for you. You ugly, retarded cunts.
Speaking of, I wonder if [Redacted] can smell the chemical burn smoldering around her yet.
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April 16, 1999
When there was no more screaming, the room felt despicably peaceful. Someone killed the music playing over the intercom. SWAT had likely infiltrated his playground. Under the heavy layers of black, Ruin was sweating profusely. Typically, the classrooms were “Arctic Tundra freezing,” as that snotty bitch Alycia McDaniel used to put it. He shot her in the face first, mostly to make a point.
Outside the door, barricaded with desks, the hippie English teacher was instructing everyone to stay calm, be quiet. The quiet is what killed Ruin. It was ironic, all this time no one ever had anything to say to him. And now they were dying to say anything, would do anything if it meant they got to live long enough to see the prom tomorrow night. When the barriers didn’t hold, and he walked in, the rubber soles of his boots squeaked on the tile floor. He told Ms. Tate to write her favorite phrase on the chalk board. Something by her favorite author, and she said, “Ruin, please don’t do this. It’s not too late. You can just take me, but please let—”
Alycia’s skinny shell collapsed to the floor.
There was no more room for talking. The threshold for too late was a burnt bridge left far behind in the distance.
“I told you to write. What is the last thing you want to leave behind? Write it.”
Behind her long hair was the sallow face of a defeated ambition, and with a piece of chalk in her hand took advantage of her final opportunity to make a difference in the world. And so she removed her many bracelets, tied up her hair, and wrote:
“Life is to be lived, not controlled; and humanity is won by continuing to play in face of certain defeat.” —Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison
At 25, she died with the chalk in her hand, looking directly into the eyes of the boy she’d talked about with friends after work. “He’s a good writer,” she’d said once. “But I think there’s something else there. He’s trying to tell me something, tell anyone something, I think. I need to work with him more…”
Julien was ordered to stand in the back while the rest of her peers were forced to take their assigned seats. Boys were crying, the tough guys. The ones who never left the gym and always started rumors about some poor girl sucking their cocks. Will Benson threw up on his desk.
“Write this down,” Ruin instructed, chucking his head toward the quote. “Whoever writes this down will be spared.”
Shaking hands reached into bags, clicked mechanical pencils into a point. And they began to write. At last, someone broke, screaming her lungs out. The sight of Alycia blown to pieces had finally registered for Amy Smart, who sat before the dead girls bloodied corpse. She screamed the way a desperate person would know, whether she did what Ruin ordered or not, they were all going to die. She went next. Papers went flying, various versions of the same scribbled words scattered into the air. They were running. Pushing past each other, climbing over a person they’d known since kindergarten, prepared in that moment to bury a friend. Animals, Ruin thought shooting each of them down, justifying every bullet by the lack of their solidarity. Every man for himself, right?
Only two people were left, the air in the room was thick and growing claustrophobic with every step he took toward them. Delilah was clinging to Julien. In their senior portraits, both girls displayed their “best friends forever” necklaces, one half of a silver heart to hang from their necks.
“What happened to all that team spirit, huh?” Ruin said, twirling with his arms out basking in the carnage. “Hi, Delilah. Nice of you to join us. That’s sweet.”
The girl’s face was buried in Julien’s neck, she couldn’t bring herself to look. But she was nodding through quiet sobs, Julien was whispering something into her ear.
“Julien, I’ve got something for you. Wanna see it?”
“Now!” she yelled, pushing Delilah to the floor. Her friend began running for the back entrance where the elevators were kept for special-needs students. Julien pulled a stack of books from the shelf behind her and heaved them at Ruin. Only a couple text books made contact, throwing him off guard. Still, there wasn’t enough time for Delilah to flee into the elevator. One of her legs blew out, three bullets annihilating her calf and knee cap.
Ruin pointed the gun at Julien who was sobbing now. The plan didn’t work. He said, “Drag the bitch back here.” And she did, apologizing to Dee with all her heart, pulling her by the arms as the girl wailed. The femoral artery in her exploded thigh was gushing uncontrollably, and it wouldn’t be long until she was gone. Until then, Ruin had something to tell Julien.
“You know, your boyfriend and I grew up together?” he said, pacing back and forth. “He used to be a nice guy, but something changed. At some point the two of us…just stopped talking. When I’d call, he was never there. I bet you think he’s there for you, huh? Is he good to you?”
“Please don’t hurt him.”
Nodding, he pulled something from his pocket. If Julien’s face were any deeper with sorrow, he would have dived in. She was looking at his number, a patch off his letterman’s jacket. It was covered in blood.
“Too late,” Ruin muttered with false sympathy. “No great loss for you though, you know why?”
Julien’s mouth was wide, her eyes closed. A silent scream shaking the universe as television reporters barreled on-air vans across the lawn outside, sending police into a barricade frenzy.
“Did you know he was fucking cheating on you?”
She shook her head, choosing to not believe him.
“Can you guess with who?” Ruin said, pointing the gun back to Delilah. “Maybe you should ask your BFF. There’s more.”
Producing Tanner Wilmot’s wallet, he chucked it's blood-sopped velcro at her face and told her to open it.
Delilah’s eyes bulged, her muscles flexing with one last attempt at breathing, and then her limbs dropped like rocks to the floor. Buckling at the knees, Julien at last cried out, thinking maybe she didn’t even want to live through this.
Her small hands picked up the leather wallet, and she gazed longingly at the picture on Tanner’s driver’s license. Inside, folded up behind a stack of small bills, was a hand-written note from Delilah. Tanner had physics with her, she sat behind him. Their correspondence was a back-and-forth of Delilah wanting to know when he was going to break it off with Julien. It said running around behind Mia's back was getting old.
“What’s crazy is, I’ve been here for you,” he said. “Forever! And I bet you don’t even know my fucking name. I would have loved you, and instead you chose to waste yourself on Tanner fucking Wilmot? Stupid bitch!”
The world fell silent after he asked her the question, what is his name? She couldn’t remember. But she did know the name she wanted to give to her unborn baby. It’s just that she never got to ask Tanner if he would like it too.
Mia
7:33am
“Ooh, turn it up, I love this song!” Her hand was already on the knob bringing the tune up to near-deafening decibels. Deanna had picked Mia up in her Jeep, one of their favorite rituals. This was private time between them when they could sleep on the conversations they’d had the day before, hoping to wake up with some clarity. Whatever conclusion had been decided over a REM cycle was discussed in detail like a PowerPoint presentation before class. Ten minutes to the school, and somehow they’d always find a way to be late or just on time. They could get away it too, they were good girls. Popular because they didn’t find it hard to be, well, nice. The outspoken one, currently driving above the speed limit, cackled into the air before turning the volume down.
“You and your boybands,” Dee nudged. “I swear you’ve been listening to the same songs for like a decade.”
“The old stuff is good, though!”
“Mia, it’s all old stuff.” Dee rolled through a stop sign.
“Exactly,” Mia said.
“You’re out of control. Are we getting McDonald’s today or no?”
“I’m good actually.”
“Spaz,” she said pulling up to the drive-through, “I’m getting a McFlurry.”
Circling the loop around campus, they fell into a stream of other teens and friends gossiping or smoking their cigarettes before it was too late. Both girls went quiet for a moment listening to the song come to an end, each with something on their minds. It was Mia who’d been anticipating the question on Dee’s lips, and when she finally asked it almost felt like a relief. Bringing pressure out of a swelling wound.
“So anyway, how’s your mom doing?”
“We picked up my prom dress if that’s what you mean,” Mia said dryly, fiddling in her purse for nothing.
“C’mon, I’m just checking in,” Dee bit her lip, sliding her sunglasses up to her head. “I’m sorry, I know this happens every year.”
“No, it’s fine. I was just kidding. Mm, she’s doing fine, I think? I mean, you know, she doesn’t really talk about it really. And Vinny told me not to bring it up a long time ago, so I never have.” Mia shrugged, chewing a nail to stare out at the school, trying to see in through the windows. “Honestly, I don’t want to. The way people still try to ask me about it…It does get kind of obnoxious after a while. Like, we already know what happened so what’s the need to rehash it all the time. It’s done.”
“For sure. Wait, who brought it up this time? Besides me, I mean.” She took a hand off the wheel to wrap her fingers through Mia’s, who pulled away suddenly sitting up in her seat. “What’s the matter?”
“Oh, you know.” Mia practiced breathing, counting down from 10 every time stress made her feel panicky. If there were a time to tell Dee about the pregnancy scare, this would be it. But she just wasn’t ready. She had to be sure. There was something else weighing on her, a guilt she couldn’t shake, so she decided to come clean about at least one thing. “It’s just, my Mom seemed fine this morning. But I know I heard her crying last night, and Vinny was running around looking for her pills. And really, it makes me kind of nervous when she gets like that, you know? But I couldn’t say anything because the reason the pills were missing is because I’ve been taking them.”
“You’ve been kifing your mom’s Xanax?”
“I’m such bitch, I know.”
“Well, first, let me just say thank you for sharing the goods,” Dee was talking out of the side of her mouth, trying to lighten the mood. “But also, I guess, why have you been taking them? Anything I should know about?”
“Now you’re sounding like my Mom.”
“Maybe,” she shrugged, “Would it help if I said Vinny is kind of fucking fine?”
“Deanna!” Mia fake-slapped at the girl’s arm and smiled, even though she did hate sex jokes about her stepdad.
Dee put the car in park as they found a spot in the upper parking lot. She put her hands up saying, “Hey, we all saw that episode of Saved By The Bell. Just trying to make sure you don’t spiral into a Xanax-addicted psychosis before we graduate. That’s what freshman year at college is supposed to be for. That’s what my brother tells me anyway.”
Mia managed to laugh, wiping away the tears forming at the wells of her eyes. Dee chuckled.
“That’s what I thought,” she nodded. “Let’s go.”
“Oh, by the way,” Mia added, “Would it help I said your brother is kind of fucking fine?”
Ruin
Journal Entry: July 12, 1998
I’m falling. And finally I’ve scared away all the ground left for me to land on. Trouble every day when I open my eyes, and I keep expecting to appear out of nowhere as the person I was expected to be. But at 18 years old—by next week, anyway—that just isn’t the case. And most days I can hardly breathe.
There’s a ghost in my house, I want to say. So I tell them, “There’s a ghost in my house,” and, “I think it’s trying to tell me something.” And they look back at me with an invisible wheel turning in their skulls wondering what the best course of action is to take. First on the list is to draw their lips into a hard line, look at the floor. They blink back the concern they’re feeling, thinking oh god, it’s finally happened. He’s lost his mind. But what they do say is far more hurtful. Things like “have you thought about Prozac?” or “I think maybe you should talk to someone.”
You, I want to say. I’m talking to YOU.
Sometimes I wonder if it would be easier if I were a girl, a pretty one. Pretty girls get forgiven. Pretty girls with problems still get laid.
So maybe I should have learned to just clam up by now, keep my thoughts to myself. Box my worries up in bubble wrap, store them on a shelf with my other anxieties. More than anything I think about how it was never supposed to be like this, asking the question to which no suitable absolution can be attributed. It’s just the way it is, and people call it life. They say, “That’s just the way it is,” and “Happiness is in the eye of the beholder.” I’d rather gouge my own eyes out than have to look at myself like this every day. I’d rather gouge their eyes out, actually. Then maybe they’d see things for what they really are. For who THEY really are. Distracting as a substitution for existing somewhere in the world as a real person. Which is why those people don’t call much anymore—not that they did much to begin with—and for as much as it hurts, I can’t say I blame them. It’s not their fault they’ve been taught to love their own morning shit more than they could love another person. Maybe that’s where I went wrong all those years ago on the swing-set. I should’ve taught myself to play alone. Instead I manipulated my world into believing love would save me. Now the love is gone. Now the love is what kills me. Now every day I wish I were dead. Then maybe everyone would have the chance to save themselves from my grip, forcing them to be decent people. Maybe everyone would have a chance to move on. I at least love them that much, to look at a knife and imagine what it could do to my jugular if there weren’t so many strangers around. Unfortunately, that just isn’t the case with hate. I hate them more and more with every experience, and like it or not, I do have them in my grasp.
Maybe I should try, at least once. Not exactly like ripping out my throat in such a spectacular display of my nihilistic personality, and not like if I did anyone would bat an eye in shock. (It’s hard to feel anything for a person you don’t remember.) But maybe something quieter, with a straight razor and more refined. In a bathtub. No music playing. For whatever reason that escapes me now, before it was too late, I’m sure I’d make the mistake of changing my mind. The truth is no one comes back from that. Even when the stitches are out no one looks at you the same way again. Maybe people would feel bad? But fuck that. Fuck that kind of thing. Having to kill myself for a little attention? What good would that do? People move on. They forget. They forgive themselves.
Am I’m just supposed to be cool with all that? Every fucking day opaapologizing just for waking up and doing so with a history that a better person doesn’t feel like agreeing with.
Even with [redacted], I’m sure. I bet she’d feel obligated to hold the door open for me one day, ask me how I’m doing, thinking, isn’t this that kid who tried to kick the bucket?And all the other cool kids would stop at their lockers to watch, holding their breath.
“How are you?”
“I’m good!”
And then I smile, watching her relief as I take off my jacket to reveal long sleeves. Regardless of how I feel, in spite of myself, I wouldn’t want to know me either. That doesn’t mean I fucking forgive them.
The[scratched out]
The complicated truth is, there is a ghost in my house. And I begin to get the feeling like something is about to change inside me. Something is trapped inside these walls, scratching at my bedroom door to set it free.
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April 16, 1999
1:18pm
Tanner "Teddy" Wilmot was the kind of guy who looked good in white shirts. It was easy for him to look the way he did, and Ruin had on more than one occasion experimented with copying his style. This was a mistake, he realized each time. For where Tanner filled out the sleeves, Ruin drowned in excess fabric, the soft of his triceps clinging to his frail arms. On Tanner’s abdomen, he sported a fine V-line sloping down his hip bones, beholden to a ripple of abs that Ruin could only always aspire to. His own stomach, just paunchy enough to make him feel self-conscious, was better left to hoodies.
From the base of the landing leading to the fourth floor, he watched objectively as Tanner fell backwards, rolling down the stairs in a pile of useless muscle and bones. Useless personality. Useless looks. White cotton was quick to saturate in the blood spraying from the exit wounds on his chest. Before the quarterback attempted to escape to the floor from which he came, Ruin stared him down, asking him a question that hurt almost worse than what was coming next.
“Do you still think I’m a fag?” Ruin asked. Inside the mask, there was no way to escape from the chemical stench of cheap plastic and smoke. Inside the mask, he could tell Tanner didn’t know what to say. “No” would have been the correct answer. Not that it mattered. He asked, “Do you still think I look like a douche bag? That’s what you said, right? The last time. You said, ‘Fuck off, ugly douche bag.’”
Everyone acted like this kid was a superstar. All the fucking time. Tanner Wilmot walked on air. And he wasn’t the only one, which was the worst part. But Tanner was supposed to be the nice one. And he was, to everyone else. For whatever reason. Actually, that was the worst part. This boy in the good-fitting long-sleeve white t-shirt? He had stopped other guys (like himself) from picking on guys like Ruin. Just not Ruin. Last time, Ruin thought, would be the last time.
We used to have sleepovers, you and me. We used to be friends.
“Your girlfriend’s pretty,” Ruin said, which for some reason must have scared Tanner more than the assault weapon before him. It was then he started to sprint up the stairs. Two stairs at a time. The kind of run jocks can do in a hurry without tripping on their faces.
When Tanner rolled to a stop at Ruin’s spray-painted ARMY boots, he started to twitch. Stupid sexy fucking little pig. Fucking faggot. Fucking douche bag.
Three explosives left. His utility belt was getting lighter by the floor, but he didn’t have much further to go. He wiped his nose, taking a moment to look at his hands, fitted with black leather driving gloves presently saturated with his own blood. There was nothing in all his research about the toll excessive use of military grade weapons would take on his hands. Repetitive discharge had incurred his palms with deep blisters that would never get the chance to heal. There was movement on the floor, a shadow appearing over the body, growing in size as someone approached. It was that dopey teacher who taught retard math, tip-toeing up in penny loafers with a fire extinguisher held high over his shoulder. A rip of the man’s blood crossed Ruin’s face as the makeshift defense weapon hit the floor. Watching Pike’s body was comical, stumbling backward into a wall and dropping to the floor like a discarded puppet. Ruin quipped a chuckle, kicking the extinguisher clattering down the marble steps. The boy rolled his eyes, shaking his head thinking they never learn while he turned back to his business.
Grabbing Tanner’s empty face, Ruin pulled his mouth open. One hand wrapping over the top incisors to hold on by the palate, the other hand gripping deep into the lower molars, Ruin was compelled to peek inside. He has fillings, Ruin thought, I didn’t know he had fillings,and inserted a pipe bomb deep into the teenage corpse’s throat. Later, in the basement of some coroner’s room where Ruin’s body would be on a steel table next to Tanner’s, there would be some debate about who the latter’s body belonged to. Ruin needed a result beyond more than mangled. “They’re gonna need something worse than dental records to identify you,” he seethed. He thought about how he’d always wanted to do this, lighting the fuse that would ensure Sarah and Gil Wilmot would have to take their time picking over specific freckles and scars, deliberating over a secret tattoo they didn’t know existed. External secrets and memories embedded in the skin of the son they’d raised for 18 years.
Fifteen steps separated him from the beginning of the end, and he could hear doors slamming shut. The frantic pitter patter of feet running down the long hallway, palms slapping the glass window of a locked door leading into a classroom. Ducking for a moment to watch the splintered remains of Tanner’s face erupt through the air in a toxic blaze. The end was nearing as he crossed the threshold into the final floor. It was all happening. One way or another, this was going to end, what he’d started only 40-some minutes before and counting.
Start with Mrs. Hannity’s class, he thought. Maybe if the bitch didn’t single him out so much, he would’ve skipped her room. Or maybe not. Falling asleep in class like it’s the worst thing a person could do. But was there really any need to berate him the way she did? For a political science teacher, she wasn’t very diplomatic in how she chose to consider a problem.
No one was visible through the small window, everyone undoubtedly huddled together on the other side of the wall behind overturned desks. The door was locked, no surprise there, and he blew the handle off with bullets. A few muffled screams were heard as he kicked the door open. “Oh my god! Oh my god!” a girl screamed, frantic now. The monster under the bed come to life before them. “Hi, Mrs. Hannity,” he replied.
The small woman was sitting in a chair some feet before her students. What usual steely-faced authority was left on her face looked like a lie. It looked like the face of someone who enjoyed being in control sitting in the middle of a house fire.
“You could at least show your face,” she quivered. Ruin obliged, removing the mask. This moment felt like angels singing all around him, watching the flinch of desperation flash across Hannity’s eyes. She was thinking something like regret, probably. Maybe not so much for having yelled at him in front of the entire class, but for her rhetoric on Hitler and the Holocaust, which they studied in great detail for two weeks last semester.
“Zieg Hiel,” he said, raising the gun to his shoulder. First, the teacher’s hands went up, cutting off whatever speech she’d prepared in a last-ditch effort to get him to stop. Several rounds went through her head, and his peers were frantic now, clamoring atop each other like a game of Jenga that was about to topple.
One more class. One more girl. She’d be there. She’d be there. Leaving the pile of wasted youth in the corner of a room to bleed out, somewhere out in the crowd was Ruin’s mother. Pushing through police tape and clutching a stranger’s hand, begging God to spare the life of her son.
Mia
12:22pm
Lockers opened and slammed shut as indiscriminate banter filled the hallways, prom banners ornamented with streamers had been slung from all directions by members of the Student Council. Voting for king and queen had taken place two weeks prior, and final ballots for the court were collected that Monday. Teen spirit had was spreading like a hot rumor, and for most in the senior class, there was not much left to accomplish in their high school careers but smile for the cameras at graduation.
What will become of all of us? Friends forever, was the promise. No matter what, and I’ll be there for you, too. Mia closed her locker to find Gabe standing there, holding a prom invitation that said “IOU.” It was decided the night of the bonfire they were attend the dance together. But there was more to it than that now, and Mia would have to get him alone.
“You haven’t gotten them, yet?” Mia asked, feigning annoyance. If they didn’t get their actual tickets by the end of the day, they’d have to pay for them at the door to get in.
“I know, I know,” he said with grimace, “Sorry for the wait, I’m gonna stop by the office on my way out for lunch to pick them up.”
“Ok,” she said, taking the IOU in her hand. With a coy smile, she stuck it to the inside of her locker with a magnet. “Promise?”
“I promise,” he replied and leaned in for a kiss. Would this be their first in public? Mia panicked, countered with her concern before their lips touched.
“Actually, there’s something I need to talk to you about…”
“Oh no. You’re not backing out on me now are you? Look, if this is about…I mean, did someone say something? One of the guys? Because I only told Jake and he swore he wouldn’t—”
“Wait, you told Jake?” Mia’s shoulders slouched and she put a palm to her forehead. “I thought we were going to wait.”
“I mean, don’t tell me you haven’t told Dee yet, right?”
“Well,” she paused, “not everything.”
This was getting away from the point. She put one small hand on his chest, felt the beating of his heart. For a moment, her stomach churned. Enough was enough. Just come clean, she thought, when Dee sauntered up throwing her arms around both their necks.
“Hey love birds,” she grinned. “What’s shakin’?”
“Dee!” Mia put a finger to her lips.
“What?” she said, oscillating her head at the bustling student body dodging around them, shoulders strained with heavy backpacks shrugging past each other en route to their next class. “You think anyone’s paying attention to us right now?”
“Dee, shouldn’t you be terrorizing some freshman for his lunch money, or strong arming them to be your date tomorrow night?”
“I’m perfectly content dating myself, right now. But thank you for your concern, guy.”
“Moving on, then! Babe, what were you gonna say?”
Babe, she thought. That's new. Mia massaged her temples, releasing an exasperated sigh at the same time a boy approached their group. Right now she just wasn’t in the mood for someone else to provoke interest. This kid’s Marilyn Manson shirt had holes in it, and he reeked of cigarette smoke and Axe body spray. But he was otherwise unremarkable, clear skin and a little skinny. Sporting the same haircut he’d probably had for years. The trio turned to consider the boy, each of them sizing him up with their respective curiosities.
“Hi, Mia,” the kid said. “I just wanted to say…I just…”
Dee pursed her lips, raising her eyebrows, embarrassed for him because she knew where this was going. He couldn't have had worse timing…whoever this was.
“It’s just that, I wanted to say…” the boy was stammering, and even Mia was getting impatient.
“Dude, just fuck off already,”
“Stop it,” Mia hissed at Gabe.
“You look really pretty,” the boy finally said in something harsher than monotone. It was a dialect that meant something else, Mia thought. But she couldn’t pinpoint it, and there were other things on her mind. The boys freckled arms dropped to his sides, walking away with his head high and an attitude about him that wasn’t there before. There was a duffle bag over his shoulder, but he was grabbing another one from his locker. Heaving them both into the boys bathroom.
“Freak," Gabe said, shaking his head, "What was that about? Anyway, babe, I gotta get going. We’ll talk later ok?”
Mia watched as Gabe descended the stairs, and the bell rang.
“Who was that?” Dee asked. Mia’s jaw dropped and she shook her head, covering a laugh.
“Honestly, I have no idea.”
“You’re really pretty, Mia,” Dee mocked, “Can I please put my penis inside you so my Mommy will let me out of the closet?”
They both laughed, probably harder than they knew they should. But everyone’s allowed to be bad once in a while. Just for a little while.
Knowing they would be late, their default plan was to use the restroom. Not an excuse a teacher can compete with, when a girl is carrying her purse. Dee linked arms with Mia and they walked into the restroom.
“So when were you planning on telling me?” Dee asked from the next stall.
“I know, I’m sorry. I was this close to telling you in the car this morning. But I just needed to figure out—”
She paused, spreading her legs on the toilet to peek into the water, were a delicate red blossom was swirling into the bowl.
“Oh my god,” she bated, and closed her eyes, wearing the smile of someone who’d never been so happy to get their period.
“What?” Dee asked. “Hey, what’s wrong?”
Dee flushed, knocking on the separator with more than enough concern.
“Nothing,” Mia said. “Nothing is wrong. I’m great.”
At the sinks, Dee asked to borrow Mia’s lip gloss, pulling her hair into two small buns atop her head.
“You know, I think you might win,” Dee was really digging into her today.
“I doubt it,” Mia said rolling her eyes. “It’s fun being on Top Five though.”
That Monday, last class of the day, the court was announced. Her name came last, Principle Bateman’s deep voice declaring, “—and Mia Julien-Wilmot. That’s it for the girls.”
Pulling a black hair-tie from her wrist, the girls startled when a viscous burst of static erupted through over the speakers. After a brief silence, the song began to play.
“What the hell is this?” Dee asked, looking at Mia. A confused smile glazed over their faces. “Is this…oh my god. Is this Savage Garden?
An involuntary laugh fell from their mouths. If this were a prank, it wasn’t very funny. If this were a prank it was pretty fucking lame of someone to do.
From the window, there was some kind of commotion and the girls ran to see. People, they were running. Ricocheting through the halls was the sound of clapping, like fireworks going off before having the chance to meet the sky.
“What was that?” Dee asked.
The girls turned, staring at the door. They could hear screaming, a stampede of feet running up the stairwell. Why were they running up?
Down the hall, Mrs. Sawyer had already begun her lesson plan for the day. When the song began to blare, her heart stalled. The students fidgeted uneasily in their seats. “Truly Madly Deeply” was not a welcome song here, and everyone knew it. Her kids looked at her with wide-eyes, pleading her to say this was a kind of reckless mistake.
Sawyer’s eyes got lost in the sound, staring into the speaker on the wall next to the fire alarm. When she accidently muttered the words, “Not again,” did the students begin to unravel. Two girls were missing. The teacher put her hands up, yelling, “Wait! Everyone! Wait! Try to stay calm.”
“We gotta get outta here,” someone was crying. They would be right if leaving this room could be an option, but they were on the top floor. For now, there was no way out. For now, where were the girls?
“Does anyone know where Deanna and Mia are? Anybody!”
“I saw them go into the girl’s room before class,” Miranda Kim said, gripping the sides of her desk.
“Oh my god. Ok, listen, everyone. Is someone already on the phone with 911?”
Miranda lunged into her bag for her cell phone, prompting others to scramble into their backpacks and purses. Phones weren’t allowed in class, but it’s not like rules ever stopped someone from pissing in the swimming pool.
“I need to call my sister, she’s on the second floor!”
“No!” Sawyer commanded with a finger. “If whoever is doing this hears her phone go off, they’ll go after her. Tommy? Tommy, get over here. And Max and Marco, you guys too.”
They were the biggest boys in the class, and she needed them to guard the door, hold it shut while he ran out to get Mia and Dee. Were they willing to do that? Good. The rest of them would (and she knew from experience it wouldn’t work either way) cover themselves with their desks against the wall.
“No way,” Mia said. “Oh my god, this isn’t happening.”
“This is a joke right?” Dee said, grabbing Mia by the shoulders. Screaming. There were people screaming through the open window of a classroom from the floor below. Tears were already streaming down her eyes. “Right? It’s can’t happen again, it’s not supposed to! Nh-Mm, no way. Nope, this is a joke.”
There was a clash against the bathroom door that startled dee off the ground. The girls held each other close, Dee burying her face into Mia’s shoulder.
“What do we do?” Dee whispered. “Mia, what do we do!”
But Mia just kept watching the door handle, waiting for it blast off the frame.
“I love you,” Mia said, and wished she’d eaten her mom’s pancakes that morning.
“I love you more,” Dee said.
Another banging on the door, and both girls closed their eyes until they heard a soft voice calling Deanna’s name.
The door burst open, and a guarded Mrs. Sawyer stuck her head in, calling for the girls.
“Mrs. S!” Dee screamed, and the girls ran for their favorite teacher who pulled them into her arms.
“Ok, girls. Ok, let’s go.”
The three of them ran, but the sound of the semi-automatic was berating the hallways. A boy screamed from the stairwell. Mia began to pray that Gabe was ok when it dawned on her that he was getting their prom tickets from the office. Turning in Mrs. Sawyer’s arms, she fought back for the opposite stairwell, thrashing with irrational hope that, out of all the bodies littering the office, Gabe would not be one of them. Both Dee and Mrs. Sawyer had to pull Mia into the classroom, pounding on the door for the three boys to let them in.
Deafening explosions seemed to surround them, followed by a rush of splintered paint and bits of concrete. He was here, shooting at them, and not far behind. The first shot hit the wall as the door opened. Nightmare pangs pulled the girls’ feet deep into the floor, running through the opening in slow-motion. Flashes of light blistered their peripherals while the door pulled shut without Mrs. S, who was left stranded in the hall.
Tommy pulled Mia away from the door, a kind of instinctive shield. But Dee cried out, “No!,” scratching at the other boys weighting the door shut.
“She’s still out there! She’s still out there!”
Dee tripped over the boys, falling into the door and inadvertently pressing her face to the window. Mrs. S stood with both arms across the frame, and the shooter wouldn’t be entering without going through her first. Even through the glass, Dee heard the boy ask Mrs. S what it was like back then, when she was student herself. Was he getting it right this time?
“You had a friend die that day I imagine. Yeah? Got her head blown off?”
Without initially engaging, Mrs. S stood firm against the door.
“What was her name? Or his?”
Quivering before the boy, she said, “Rebecca.”
“Rebecca Johnson, that’s right. I read about her, she was the nigger girl, huh?”
“That’s enough, Liam.”
“Enough?” he said, lifting his shirt. Displayed around his waist was a tangle of tubes and wires, bulk strapped down with Velcro. “Don’t fucking tell me what do. Tell me. What was your porch monkey friend like?”
“Rebecca was a very sweet girl. The world lost a good person that day. That beautiful girl is why I became a teacher.”
Samantha Sawyer was no longer quivering; her voice was steady. Suddenly she felt something like a young lady then, jumping on the trampoline in Becky’s backyard. Becky’s mom and dad were like second parent’s to her, when her own mother was in the middle of another violent breakup, Sam would stay at the Johnson’s, and Becky always found a way to make her laugh. One way or another, they took care of each other.
“Well,” Liam raised an assault rifle to the woman’s face. Dee screamed from a place deep within her soul, slapping at the window. “Tell Rebecca the devil says hello.”
The blast sent Dee and even the strongest of young men scattering, the girl hitting the floor flat on her back, knocking the wind from her lungs. Blood appeared at her hairline, dripping as she rocked back and forth, finally steadying herself with one hand. Gasping, she turned over to crawl for Mia, who’s arm was reaching out from a intermingled web of well-meaning friends holding her back. Smoke permeated the room—more explosives had detonated, and a black boot kicked the door off its hinges. Max, coughing against the dry-erase board managed to slip out, running past the debris as the gunman entered. Marco wasn’t as lucky, only just pulling himself up with the help of a chair when the rifle obliterated his chest, sending a wave of shock-red across the white tile.
“Ope! We’ve got ourselves a little peeping tom!” The boy, Liam, sauntered over to Dee who was desperately attempting to pat her own back. “This year’s Becky, I guess. Right, guys?”
By now, Mia was thrashing, scratching at the faces of anyone in her way trying to keep her safe. Liam pressed his boot down onto her back, dropping Dee to the floor. A knife was duct-taped on both his feet.
“Tell you what, first person to call this one a nigger gets to leave.”
Dee was looking up at a light she was taught about in church. Just then she wanted to kiss her grandma on the cheek one more time.
“Christ already!” Ally Saunders stepped around the crowd. “She’s a fucking nig—”
The girl who gave up, succumbing to the lie in exchange for her future, had proved her friendship to no one in this room.
“Any other takers?” Liam paced. “How about you, Jew boy? Call yourself a kike and I’ll let her live.”
“Whatever you’re trying to do here,” Michael Ableman stammered, “You’re not going to win.”
“Of course, I am. Just ask that vapid piece of Juicy Couture over there. Does it look like she’s going to make it out of this?”
Michael didn’t need to look at Ally to know she wasn’t breathing. Liam shook his head, the black contacts in his eyes glaring back and the 15 remaining students, and mouthed the word “nope.”
“Alright, fuck it. Here goes nothing.”
Kicking Dee in the ribs incited a hollow swell of a scream from the girl. With one hand reaching out for Mia’s, she tried a final effort to pull herself away from Liam, anywhere but here before the blast to her head ended her life.
Deafening cries erupted from anyone still holding on to each other, precious arms of all shapes and sizes draped around the closest person’s shoulders. The gay kid Zach holding the hand of jock Tommy Diandries, and so forth. The crook of one kid's elbow linking to the next like a human chain. Miranda Kim was on her knees, using her Lisa Frank flip phone to say maybe one last thing to her mom, including: “Tell Dad I’m sorry about the car…”
The barrel aimed at Mia’s face and the gunman ordered her over to the window. He was separating her from the others, making a move, using what would be called in reports as a “strategy.”
“What about you, Mia?”
Inconsolable dread had cracked her heart into pieces. The room was spinning, creating a blur around Dee on the floor. And she was wishing that somehow she’d been stronger, enough at least to save Dee, the rest of them. Or at least, she wanted to not be so fucking terrified.
Mia looked at him, eyes red and despondent. She said, “What about me.”
“How does it feel? Knowing this isn’t going to end the same way for you as it did your mom?”
Hot rage was building in her veins that she’d never recognized before now. The thought had crossed her mind before, in nightmares winding up in the same room as a gun-wielding maniac. Everyone said she was safe. Everyone said it couldn’t happen again, because the wound had healed. The past was buried, and their names were displayed in gold on the arched entryway. Nightmares aren’t supposed to be real, but that doesn’t stop them from catching up to a person, she guessed. Stranger still, she did recognize this boy, the little nobody who told her she was pretty. Was it incidental that he would approach her like he did today? Was this entire diabolical plot deliberate, specific to her? If so, she had decided against the side of rationality, the answer would be yes. She should die. “Truly Madly Deeply” was one of her favorite songs, if not for novelty reasons, and it was playing over the sound system incessantly.
“It feels different,” she said.
“Oh yeah, why’s that?” Liam splattered a snot rocket onto the wall, wiping his nose on his sleeve. “Ah, the song, right? But you like this one. I know, I wrote the lyrics out for you sophomore year when I asked you to take a chance on dating me.”
Honestly, Mia was pursued so often that it didn’t even ring a bell. There was no lack of love or friendship around her. But she saw the connection here, growing increasingly obvious.
“I like the one from the time before, actually,” she said. It was a secret she was prepared to take to the grave, the thought of her mother even knowing this small detail of Mia’s life made her feel ashamed. “The song, I mean.”
“No shit?” he said, and without warning unloaded a hail of bullets through half of the class, all falling into each other. Some would die instantly, other’s had time to watch. “I never figured you for a Fleetwood Mac kind of girl.”
“But you love me right? That’s what this is about?” Mia was getting dizzy, the smell of blood was thick in the air like sweat in a steam room. “Please just let everyone else go, you can do whatever you want to me, I’ll—”
More shots pierced through a few more students.
“Oh, god!” Mia’s whole body conversed, scaring herself into the plate glass window. So many people were outside. How was no one helping them?
The ones who were left pulled their eyes away from Mia, pulled away from each other. They had lost hope, passing a cellphone around for final text messages to a loved one.
“Your! Mother!” Liam screamed, “That was her favorite song, right? ‘Songbird.’ Yeah, I like that one too.”
Red and blue lights prismed through the windows, electrifying the cheerful walls decorated with inspirational quotes, bulletin boards stuffed with flyers, events and activities. Graduation signs spoke loudly from the banner held by clips above Mrs. S’s desk, dangling from the drop ceiling.
“You’re a coward,” Mia sobbed, “What kind of MAN does something like this to innocent people just because he wants to get his dick wet!”
It impressed Liam that she was screaming at him, practically losing her voice. This was getting good. Have fun, he told himself, Just go in there and have fun, no matter what. But he had to tell her, “This isn’t about you, you dumb bitch. This isn’t even about me. All you rich, happy, ignorant fucks are going to have monuments built in your names. For you, this is about martyrdom. Your mommies and daddies are probably going to be thrilled. Poor little rich girls, and Jews and porch monkeys, and faggots and whoever the fuck else thinks that THEY are the center of the universe. And all you give a shit about is how you don’t want to work while you’re in college.”
“And I suppose,” Mia was crippling under the weight of reality. Her mother, Claire Julien, sole survivor of classroom 406, would be outside this very moment, Mia knew. Her mother, she would be dissipating into inky-black mist of haunted memory. What Mia had planned as her own graduation present was to finally give up her biological father’s name. Tanner Wilmot would always be in her DNA, if not her spirit. But Vinny was the one who raised her, and it was time to honor him, both her parents. She was going to say, Vinny, I love you and I want you to be my father forever. And across the table she’d pass the wrapped box to her mother, and Mia would watch them open it together. Maybe they’d be so happy they would cry, reading the documents nestled in a bed of silk flower petals. It was going to be a beautiful day, she just knew it. “I suppose, you don’t see any of that in yourself? You self-righteous FUCK!”
Liam laughed and laughed as Mia buried her face in her hands. To her right, she heard Zach scream, “No!” before she even knew what was happening. The semi-automatic pointed beyond her, there were more cries to god that preceded the gunfire. Then there was nothing. Nothing at all. Someone had killed the music.
“You don’t get it, Mia Julien-Wilmot.” He allowed her to look up from where she fell to her knees. Confused by the abrupt termination of nonsense berating her eardrums, she took a last look at all the hate in the world that even someone like Liam couldn’t understand. It’s not that she was hopeless, but in her last moments she knew that somehow there had to be a better way. Seventeen forever wouldn’t be so bad. Now that she was the only one left, Liam said, “I can’t see any of that in myself. I’m not the center of the universe. I AM the universe. You are looking directly into the eyes of God.”
When he shot her in the head, Mia Julien-Lorenzo did not look into her killer’s eyes. She didn’t even try to consider how something like this could happen, and then happen again. And to her, for that matter. Instead, she looked at her hands, small and soft. Her mothers hands. It was one of their favorite secret qualities. “We have the same hands,” Mia said one summer, lying next to her mom by the pool. “Yeah? Yeah, I guess we do,” Claire replied with a glittering smile, and kissed her daughter’s hand.
1:46pm
Done, he thought. All done. Mia’s body fell back, arms resting palms up at her sides. He pulled a squeaking a chair from under a random desk and took a seat to observe his handiwork. Admittedly, he was tired, the weight of his chains was wearing him down. Fondling at his gear, he dropped the heavier artillery, keeping one of the handguns. Gravity was working overtime in this school. Everything being pulled down into the ground.
From his pocket he produced the wrinkled letter he’d written three years, ago. The lyrics were leaking from sweat. Taking any available pen, he wrote he final journal entry on the back. Mia was dead, and that was kind of the master plan, to finish what the other guy couldn’t. Back in 1999, the dumbass Clark (Ruin) Merriman wasted too much time trying to detonate faulty bombs, rookie mistake. By the time he had Claire Julien in front of him, not only had the gun misfired, but the SWAT team finally caught up to him, practically shredding his body apart with the amount of ammo they pummeled into him. And just like that, Claire was saved. Her face plastered every magazine. People’s headline: “Touched by an Angel” How fucking romantic. Lived long enough to have her unborn baby, thought. But not before burying Mia’s mutilated, cheating, father. (It was a wake, actually. Hard to bury a body that’s not all together there), but he’d done it. Liam told himself, all those years ago when he gave her those song lyrics, just to see them tossed into the trash, that he was going to make his own love song. One people would have to listen to, over and over and over again like they do on the radio. History, like songs, just keep repeating. Events have a way of spitting in past’s face if people have anything to do with it. That day, Liam realized amid all the change happening around him, that the people we grow up with are not the same people we say goodbye to.
But he found a way.
-------
Journal Entry: April 16, 2006
1:47pm
Inside, bones bend and break
From below the ground begins to quake
To have a legacy, one must have time.
Your time is up.
The future is now, and it’s mine to take.
With Love,
Liam
Clark
Final Journal Entry: April 16, 1999
Where there is no more room for sorry, there is usually a trail of blood. I used to think I was stronger than the rest, walking into a room with my head held high saying never apologize. Never explain. But that’s not how it went, is it? That’s not the truth. My mouth has begged forgiveness from just about everyone I’ve come into contact with, and the fantasy in my head about doing something incredible with my life has segued into reckless delusion. That’s why when I woke up this morning to the beautiful weather I’d been so keen to see I thought to myself, “I can’t do this anymore.”
I won’t leave a note behind, but I think the message will make it through the hideous stain that was my body. After all, there are only so many times a person can relinquish their remorse to someone they love, who will look back and say, “I’ve heard this song before.” Or worse, maybe they say nothing at all. The silence is enough to render a person entirely despondent. Laying on the floor one last time, just to be sure, I’ve come to the conclusion that I am doing what is the best thing to do. I’ve come to realize that a person like me has only one purpose in their quest for life, and that is to fail.
I’ve made a list. The faculty doesn’t matter so much as far as points go. But [redacted] is at the top, followed by my old pal [redacted]. The next tier is the niggers, then the fags (they won’t say it but [redacted] definitely gave [redacted] a hummer in the parking lot), and basically as many jocks and cheerleaders as I can fathom. They’re at the bottom because their they’re a combination of 3 and 4, and will be easier to identify in groups. Shouldn’t be too hard.
When I dream, their screams are music to my ears and I squirt in my shorts. It’s all happening, that’s what they say. It’s all happening, and before they know it? It’s over. These were the best years of their lives, everyone says it. My stupid parent’s say it. But no one is looking at the bigger picture. No one is looking into my eyes where the lake of fire burns. That’s the future, that’s the reality. Mostly, and I can’t stress this enough, I’m excited to be the one that has a little fun for a change.
My name is Ruin. My name is Chaos. My name is The Son of No One. And today is the end of the world.
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April 16, 1999
12:28pm
Collette wasn’t well liked in the office, and most students dreaded dealing with her whenever Jennifer wasn’t there. Of the two desk clerks, Jennifer mostly answered the phones, took care of late-passes, things like that. She was in the atrium, bleeding to death all over the glass. When he opened the door, Collette was standing at her desk. With the phone still at her ear, someone on the other end asking “Hello? Hello?” over and over again. Clark could have masturbated to the look on her face before he held the gun up, blowing her to smithereens. Like the crack of whip, he ran through the office, taking out the principle and Mr. Turner’s wife who was bringing him the lunch he forgot.
Turning back, he locked the door. Pushed, Principle Louis out of his chair and nestled into the gray swivel. Unzipping the duffle bag around his shoulder, and with a heart pounding like the first step toward parachuting out of an airplane, his shaking hand pulled out a boom box. Though the tape inside was a recorded sequence of the same song, it was labeled differently. On the scotch tape, written in black Sharpie, was his theme: “Love Songs Are For Goodbye.”
Before the chaos ensued, starting in the music room, then the mezzanine level cafeteria, Clark Merriman wrapped a black banana around his head. Claire Julien was talking to Delilah Prophet in the bathroom, telling her a secret that brought both of them to tears. Tanner Wilmot was telling the boys about the tail he was ready to get at Iowa University. You know, dorm rooms. Out there in the world, there were problems, but nothing the youth of America couldn’t handle. Before he ascended the four floors like a stairway to heaven, this boy was applying chap stick (he always had some in his pocket) to his dry lips. He cleared his throat and cracked his neck.
At last, he said exactly what he’d wanted to since freshman year. Pulling the microphone close to the cherry scent of his lips, he pressed down on the live receiver and said, “This one goes out to all the lovers out there…”