And It All Fell to Pieces
The day my life changed forever started very early as Jack shook me awake.
“Come on, Milo!” he said, “We’ve got to get moving if we want to see everything in three days.”
I groggily rolled over to look at the alarm clock beside my motel room bed. I groaned out loud when I saw the time.
“Seriously, Jack? Seven o’clock? I thought this was supposed to be a vacation!”
Jack shrugged and casually tossed me my duffle bag. “Bree’s always a slow waker. I want to get to the Trade Center before 8:30. The school tours start at 9:00, and it’ll be busy at the viewing area then.”
As Jack woke up Bree, his eleven-year-old sister, went into the cramped bathroom and changed into jeans and a t-shirt. I accidentally bumped my wallet off the tiny countertop and everything spilled out onto the floor.
“Dang it,” I muttered as I picked up the money and pictures. When I shoved them back in, my eye caught a picture of Jack and me. My mind wandered.
The picture had been taken just last May when we graduated from high school. We were all decked out in our caps and gowns, and Bree was photo-bombing with a creepy stalker face in the background. Jack and I had always been best friends. He was like my brother. As a graduation present, our parents let us go to New York City for a couple of days, as long as we’d take Jack’s sister along. This was our second day in NYC.
It was September 11, 2001.
The three of us got to the Trade Center at around 8:30 (Jack was right, Bree was a slow waker). My dad was friends with a corporate official who worked in the North Tower, so we got special, un-guided access, although my dad’s friend wasn’t going to be there. He took the day off work to take his daughter to kindergarten.
“This place is amazing!” Bree shrieked. “It’s so huge!” She was right, it was enormous! The towers loomed over us, bright sun glinting off the plate-glass windows. They were so tall, we had to crane our necks to see the top.
The lobby alone was bigger than my entire house back home, and filled with more people, it seemed, than our entire hometown. People in business suits shoved past us to get to the already crowded elevators.
“Maybe we should take the stairs,” Jack noted. Bree and I agreed and we started climbing the metal stairs. We climbed for about half an hour before we really started to rethink our decision.
“How… many… floors… are there… again?” I panted.
“110,” Jack replied breathlessly. He leaned heavily against the wall. Bree glanced at the plaque beside him. She groaned.
“We’re only on the thirty-fourth floor! What time is it, Milo, anyway?” she asked.
Looking at my watch, I started to say “8:49.” But then there was an explosion high above us. Fire and rubble rained past the window like confetti. We were silent for a moment.
“What just happened?!?” Bree exclaimed, panicking. We heard screams from high above us. Jack and I looked at each other, alarmed.
“I’ve got no idea,” Jack said, “But we’d better get out of here.” Then the lights went out. I pulled out my penlight on my keychain and shone it on the others. “Fast,” Jack added.
As we stumbled down the stairs, my mind was whirling. What the heck had just happened up there? Was it a bomb? No, they had to have security for that. It couldn’t have been a fire. Too much explo-
