Tuesday

Sunday

On Sunday morning, you burn all the letters you wrote. You do it in the sink because you are afraid you might burn the house down. One was addressed to the general public, one was addressed to all the students of Rosa Parks High, and besides that there were fourteen more, one to each person who died. Afterwards, you scoop up what remains because you don’t want the drain to clog. The ashes feel heavy in your hands, the souls of fourteen boys and girls. It’s a great burden to bear. Trust me, I know. 

There is an insistent knocking at your door but you ignore it. Your landline has been unplugged for days. You have taken all the portraits and mirrors in your small apartment and turned them to face the wall; you do not want to look at another human being, not even yourself. You sit down on the couch and stare into space. Above the TV, held up with cheap poster putty, is a map of Jackson, Wyoming. It was your girlfriend’s idea, to stab a red pushpin into every place where you’ve gone on a date. You pull the map off the wall and the pins crash to the ground like hail. Hours pass. You microwave some left-over pasta in the kitchen. Why bother? The pasta is soggy and tasteless; you eat half of it and throw the rest away.

You sit just a few feet away from the TV. You could turn it on at any moment, if you wanted to, but the thought of seeing your photo on the screen like a mugshot makes you want to throw up. Do you know that they’re not even talking about you anymore? There’s only so much they can say about the sheriff’s deputy who failed to do his job; by now they’ve moved on to gun control and mental health, to red-faced politicians yelling over the voices of their opponents. There’s a giant debate going on, and you aren’t even a part of the conversation. 

You lift the blinds a little bit, enough to remind yourself that the world is still out there. The cherry tree outside your window only blooms for one week a year, and you just missed it. The sky is grey with the threat of rain. You try to use the techniques your therapist taught you, deep breath in, deep breath out, focus on the rhythm, but you just can’t forget the things they said about you. You open a fresh book, something your girlfriend recommended, but the words won’t stay still. They run around the page like frightened mice, they spell out what you’ve been thinking: the breaths you take are not your own. They were stolen from the chests of innocent children. 

That’s the reason why you burned the letters. They were a gesture of goodwill, an attempt at redemption. But now you realize that it takes more than ink on paper to erase the evil that has happened. They will never forget, not the mothers and fathers of those who died, not their friends, not Jackson. Nothing you have to say can make it better. There is no redemption for cowards. 

Saturday

On Saturday you go to see your therapist again. You sit as far away from her as you can, behind the corner of the table. She wants you to do an exercise, something that will uncross the wires in your brain and make you happy again. Say it out loud, she says, say, it’s not my fault, I’m not responsible, I tried my best. The words come out of your mouth like they’re not your own. It is not up to me to judge you, she says, I just want to make you better. You’re not sure if you want to make yourself feel better, you say. The only thing you want, you tell her, is to turn back the clock, to step in front of the bullets, to feel the pain ripping through your chest. It was your place to die, not theirs. You look up and are surprised to see that your therapist’s eyes are wet. A sudden thought comes to your mind; you ask her if she has any kids. She nods and you imagine her watching the news from work, scrambling to find the phone, hoping against hope that it had happened to someone else’s children. 

Some reporters have been stalking you and you run into one of them as you leave. He is young, shaven, and his eyes are hungry. You relent, because, what does it matter anyways? You sit down in the coffee shop and you feel the eyes turning to look at you. Everyone knows everyone here in Jackson, Wyoming. The reporter has a notebook in his hand and he scribbles in it as you talk. Be gentle, you want to tell him, because you distrust the words, distrust the way the black shapes are forming on the page, the sinister figures growing from the dark ink. How long have you lived in Jackson? How long have you been working for the sheriff’s office? Were you aware of the active shooter protocol? The reporter is leaning in close, a little too close. You were armed, he says, his eyes sharp and accusing. Why didn’t you go in? You were their only hope. You tell the reporter you feel nauseous and you walk out into the cool March air, his questions ringing in your ears, why? Why? Why? 

There is a memorial service tonight, at Rosa Parks High. You debate whether or not to go, and you can’t find an answer. In the end you drive to the parking lot across the soccer field and look on as the candles are lighted. Fourteen candles, one for each life. The candles are placed inside small hot air balloons and you watch as they fly off into the sky, one by one. You are thankful that you are too far away to hear the sound of crying. 

Friday

Ever since I died I’ve been seeing things more clearly. Time isn’t a line, like I used to think it was; rather, it is a set of planes, a set of moments, the cross-sections of our lives. When I look right now I can see everything, every moment in my life and yours, side-by-side. If you want an analogy, it’s like a bunch of photographs laid out on a table, except that there are infinite photographs. It’s hard to explain but one day you will see for yourself. 

I’ve been thinking a lot. There isn’t much to do here except think. Why did I do the things I did? Why are we bound together, out of all people, you and me? When you’re alive you can keep the thoughts away with drugs or alcohol or sleep, but when you’re dead these things don’t exist anymore. A part of me always thought that death would bring enlightenment. It doesn’t.

But enough about me. On Friday your girlfriend corners you outside your apartment, her makeup smeared by the drizzling rain. She is holding a takeout box full of pasta because she knows you haven’t been eating. You tell her you’ve missed her but the truth is you haven’t thought about her for days. She tells you that she’s left you voicemails, she’s gone to the sheriff’s office, she’s come to your place and knocked on your door. You say you were probably out. She says the lights were on. She tries to hug you but you push her away. She doesn’t know about the aversion you’ve developed to physical contact. She tells you that she loves you, again and again, until the words start to lose their meaning. She asks you, remember when we used to be happy? We can still have that. Remember when we went on our first date together, and you told me that my dress reminded you of the roses in your mother’s garden? Do you remember? You do, but the memory is dim, as if covered by fog. You shake your head. When you leave she is crying. You think to yourself that you never wanted to hurt anyone. In that regard you are helpless, just like me.

You know that you should stay away but in the afternoon, you walk to the school, your clothes heavy with rainwater. There is a mural out on the soccer field, large printouts of yearbook photos with giant wreathes around them. Class is in session right now so the field is empty except for one woman kneeling in the artificial grass, holding a flowery umbrella above one of the shrines, shielding it from the rain. You walk through the maze of flowers and ribbons, looking into each student’s eyes as you pass them. There’s freckled Sam, short Susan, Nathan the football player. There’s Frank the math genius, Sarah the trombone player, and Britany, who laughed at me when I asked her out in eighth grade. Someone had left a whiteboard hanging underneath her photo and it’s filled with hearts of every color. You pick up a marker to draw your own but suddenly the woman recognizes you, starts walking towards you very quickly, and you know it’s time for you to go. 

I’ve always wondered if things might have been different, for the both of us, if you had come into the school. If you had stopped me. Maybe I was waiting for you. Have you ever thought about that? All the things I’ve waited for in my life that never came, and you were the last one. I saw your car when I drove to the school that morning; you were finishing up your breakfast, a donut and a coffee. You had no idea what was about to happen. No matter how much you dislike it, our lives are entwined in ways that you’ll never be able to understand. It’s a sobering thought, but on Friday night you fill yourself up with alcohol, and you whisper to yourself, again and again, I am not a coward. I am not a coward. 

Thursday

Thursday is when the story breaks. When you step out of your therapist’s office you are blinded by the flash of cameras. The reporters are shouting at you. Is it true that you stayed in your car for thirty minutes? Is it true that, instead of rushing into the school with your firearm, as was your duty, you simply did nothing? Is it true? You don’t have a good response, so you don’t answer. They follow you. Tell us what you were thinking, someone says. What do you have to say to the families of the dead?

Here’s what they have to say to you: coward. You first hear that word on live television, from the mother of one of the dead girls. She was a pretty girl, with blonde hair and glasses. The photo they show is of her wearing a red cardigan that her grandmother made for her, holding her shiny brass trombone. She’s the kind of daughter you would have wanted, if you ever decided to have kids. The mother says that she’s met you before, while picking Sarah up from school. She is sobbing and that makes it hard to watch. She says she trusted you. They say more things about you and you make yourself listen. They call you beast, monster, barbarian. Their children are dead because of you. Jackson is broken, because of you. What kind of officer shirks their duty in a time of need? What kind of man betrays the trust of an entire city? What kind of human being leaves innocent children alone to die? You listen, because you want to know too.

There’s another door, when you die. My grandma always told me that when one door closes, another opens. Doors never opened for me when I was alive but they do here. I think it’s different for everybody; for me it was a classroom door, swinging lightly in its frame, its splintered body full of holes. Maybe it will be the same for you. When you get here, don’t be afraid to knock. I’ll be waiting. 

Wednesday

On Wednesday the FBI agent asks to talk to you again. You expected this. Before you go you send an email to the sheriff’s office. You tell them that you are resigning for personal reasons. 

You sit down and the agent tells you that you are not under arrest. Not yet. He wants to know about everything that happened. You say that you’ve already told him, yesterday. He pulls out a picture of me and asks, do you know this person? The photo was taken from my Facebook profile; I am holding two handguns and sticking my tongue out at the camera. You shake your head. In fact, we have met before; you shouted at me once for smoking on the baseball field. You just don’t remember.

He asks you if you know what the protocol is, for an active shooter. You say yes. He asks if you received the transmissions correctly, on the radio. You also say yes. Then why didn’t you go in? You tell him that there was something funky about the way time passed, while you were sitting in the car. You ask him if he’s ever seen time splinter into a million tiny fragments, into all the things that have ever been and all the things that could still be. It’s kind of like a bunch of photographs floating in space, you say, except that there are infinite photographs. He narrows his eyes. You get the feeling that he’s trying to decide whether or not you are insane. You tell him that you were standing on the edge of an abyss, and that when you looked into it you saw nothing. There was life, so full of color and meaning, and then there was the dark pit. You think to yourself, would he have jumped? You know the answer is yes; anyone would have jumped, that’s why they hate you so much. The agent slams his hand on the table. He looks like a man with little patience, a man with no time for metaphors. Why, he asks again. Why?

You tell him that you don’t know. You tell him about how you sat in your car until the armored vehicles arrived in formation, until the streams of students and teachers filled up the soccer field, some crying but the others mostly dazed. You sat in your car until the officer pulled you out, screaming in your face, asking you where the shooter is. You didn’t know. 

The agent tells you the sheriff’s office is conducting an internal review and you tell him you’ve already quit. He leans forward, and you jump back in your seat. You suddenly have the irrational fear that he might try to touch you. He is human, so unbearably human, all flesh and bone, and you think that when he touches you, you will dissolve. He says that you might still be found legally liable, and that you should get a lawyer. You get up to leave. He advises you to stay in town, because you might need to be questioned again later. You tell him, sure. You hope that they have some way to coax out of you the things that you don’t even know yourself. 

You start writing the letters when you get home. You don’t need to look up the names because you spent last night whispering them to yourself as you sat awake in bed, your palms sweating into your crumpled bedsheets. You tell them about all the things they could have done, the places they could have seen, the people they could have been. You tell them you are sorry, again and again, until you start to question whether or not it’s even a real word. At the end of each letter you draw a little heart, and you fill it in with red, the color of your own blood.

When you finally fall asleep at night you dream about a door. It’s your girlfriend’s door, the front door to her house, and behind it you can hear gunshots and screaming. You pull at the handle but it doesn’t open; let me in, you shout, let me in. Then the shots are behind you and you realize that you’re trapped inside, not out. You bang on the door but nobody’s there to save you.

Monday

Monday night is the last time you are happy. You leave right as the bell rings; you drive to your girlfriend’s house and you hit all the green lights on the way there. She opens her front door wearing her red dress, the same one she wore on the first date you had together. You compliment her and for once she accepts it, grinning in a way that makes her look absolutely beautiful.

You eat dinner together at her favorite restaurant, and afterwards you go to see a movie. It’s her birthday so she gets to choose, and she chooses one with a happy ending because she hates it when people die. It’s a cartoon movie where two moles fall in love with each other but have to fight through social barriers to be together. There is an antagonist, a furless weasel, but in the end he falls off a cliff so the main characters can live happily ever after. You suppose that death is okay if it only happens to the bad guys. After the movie you go for a long walk along the lake and you watch the sunset together, her hand in yours. Her skin is soft and smooth to the touch, like velvet. You tell her you love her, and you really mean it.

Let me tell you something. I don’t blame you, not at all. In that moment, everything was chaos, and the urge to live is strong. I don’t blame you. If I had what you had, I wouldn’t have wanted to lose it either.