The Churning Wake

Chapter Seven - Then

I don't know how to explain what happened, and I don't know the whole story. I don't know why he did it. I will never know why he did it. Nobody knows. I've often watched his mother walking in town, her sky-blue eyes always bubbling with tears, and her hands always full: groceries, the hands of children, a meal for a neighbor. That's who she is; she's a good-hearted person. Her son made a name for his family, and it wasn't a good one. I always thought he ruined life for the rest of his family. I mean, they can't just walk into a public place and say their names aloud without getting stared at or riddled with cruel words for something they didn't even do.

The morning after the massacre, with the sun just rising, the paper ran a story on their house. The windows were shattered and the tires of her family's cars were slashed. Windshields were broken; the cars were destroyed; the hate had been spray-painted on their garage door; and their trash cans had been dumped across their lawn.

I know that they fled town for a while, taking all the little ones with them. They went into hiding and I suppose that was the wisest thing they could've done. It was pretty bad for the first few months, actually, the entire first year. No one could understand why he'd done it. I called his older sister Nikola, about a week after Crestview, because I needed to be sure she was alright. She was absolutely crushed. As we spoke, her voice was raw and her stumbled into each other.

"Nikola?" I asked when she answered.

Something rustled on her end, a paper maybe. "Bri?"

"Nikki! Are you alright?"

She let out something between a moan and a laugh, "Will I ever be alright?" She had a point, but I didn't want to admit that out loud. Nikki sighed, "Nevermind. It's just so confusing, you know? Like, everyone hates me, they hate my family, my brother, everything about us. My dad got fired, and my mom hasn't been back to work because the people there think she's a danger. My life is falling apart and I can't catch the pieces!"

"Is there anything I can do?"

"Pray," Nikki said, her voice low and hollow, "I know you don't believe, and to be completely honest, I'm not sure I do, either. After the week I've had, I have just about zero percent confidence in a superior gracious Being. But if there is a God, the way Dad says there is, pray."

I nodded, then silently chided myself because she obviously couldn't see me. "Of course. Anything else?"

"Not really." Nikki sighed again, and I pictured her pushing a lock of black hair from her face.

"I know the feeling," I said, trying to make my voice seem reassuring. I looked down at where Beanie lay, sleeping, on my lap, trying to make myself smile. I couldn't.

Nikki gasped, "Oh my God! Bri, I'm so sorry... Cole was one of them. The victims. Right?"

"Yes." I choked on the word. Just hearing his name brought tears to my eyes anew.

"Oh god. Oh god. Oh god!" She repeated it over and over, more forceful each time, "I'm so sorry. I'm so..." Her voice crumpled and sobs escaped. I set Beanie in her bassinet and held the phone as Nikki cried.

"It's not you, Nikki. It's not you."

She cried harder, and it was all I could do not to hop on my bike and go find her. "But what if it is me? Everyone says it's my fault. Dad's fault. Mom's fault. What if one of us could've stopped him, Bri? What if we'd known? He killed so many people... I haven't even begun to comprehend the enormousness of it all."

"Nikki," I said firmly, "Listen to me. I know you. You're a good person. A good person, alright? I know, and I've told myself so many times, that if you had known, you would have stopped him. Simple, you would have. Nikola, this isn't your fault. He made the decision to do that, to do what he did. You couldn't have stopped him. He didn't want you to."

"But I can't even go see him!" Nikki exclaimed, "And it feels so... so wrong. He tried to kill himself, Bri. He tried to end it before the authorities could get him. Did you know that?" I wanted to tell her yes, yes. I wanted to remark that I had been there, that I'd watched him shoot so many people, that I wondered every waking minute why I had survived and they hadn't.

Instead, I offered my sympathy, "I'm so sorry, Nikki. So sorry."

"It's okay." She seems to be saying it aloud as if to convince herself, not me, that's the truth. "It's okay. Right? I'll be okay."

"You'll be okay."

The line is silent for a minute and I wonder if she hung up, when I hear her breathing. Then she speaks softly into the microphone, her voice so sad, "It's just a reminder to hold the little ones tighter tonight, tomorrow night, forever."

"Mhm," I said, completely in agreement.

"Nikki!" I can hear a child's voice in the background of our call. "Nikki, Mama needs you downstairs."

"Gianna!" Nikki exclaims, then turns back to me, "I'd better go. Gigi and Mom are gonna be on my case soon."

"Okay. Bye. I love you, Nikki."

"Thanks, Brianna. That means... so much. Goodbye." She hung up and I sighed.

Every time I tried to do something; the weight of the world seemed to settle on my shoulders again, even more firmly. Before, I had Cole to wrap his arms around me and help me keep my balance, but without him? Without him I had to support the problems and the struggles by myself, a lone pillar supporting a heavy roof.

I became a single mom at fourteen, with no way of supporting my little Beanie baby or myself, fighting the depression that sucked everything out of me like a sponge. I had no joy, no motivation, no hope. Especially no hope.

I couldn't smile. I went to watch Kayla and Ella, Cole's little sisters, dance, shortly after the shooting, and I just cried. Not even emotional tears, just tears. They just came and I kept wiping them away, but there were still more. Jen reached over and squeezed my hand, but she couldn't stay there. When the girls finished their performance, we went down to get them and they were so... alive with joy. Kay was seven and Ella was ten, and the way the dance lit such a happiness in them... It was like when they were dancing, they could forget everything going on around them, and they could be free.

I longed that freedom and I envied those who had it, but I simply couldn't find it. Mom took care of Beanie until the middle of May, so like three weeks. I mentally hurt to the point where I physically could not care for her. It was like the motherly part of me had been replaced with a giant black hole, sucking all the love from me. Jen came over several times, and we just sat and stared at nothing together, and I think in those moments are where I started to heal. I think I found him there, too.

I know it sounds crazy, like I was hearing things or something, but I was looking through my phone, at pictures of us, and I swear I felt him hug me from behind. I gasped and started sobbing uncontrollably, because at that moment it all became real. Until that moment, I had been able to convince myself that it wasn't real, that Cole was gonna come back and we were going to be a happy family again. But it wasn't true. Cole was dead and he wasn't ever coming back. Never. The overwhelming weight of my loss seemed to settle around me in a thick cloud, like the dust from a building that had just come crashing down, except said building was my fucking heart.