That Year

That Year: Part 5

19

The month has been peaceful for the school compared to previous months. Security has been tightened in the hallways. The vicinity of the school which consisted of Fontane’s compound and what we thought contained Fontane is now abandoned, and his whereabouts are not yet known. To get through the remaining months of the school year, our team’s primary goal has shifted to making sure other attacks don’t occur.

 “Maybe he’s dead,” a team member says entering the abandoned classroom. I look out from the shattered window, the warm March breeze whistling past me assures me that spring is arriving. “I don’t think he is,” I say finally.

Students who still cling onto the belief that good will prevail arrive into the vast and unfilled auditorium. The students are seated spread out from each other since an abundant amount of empty seats remain.

A month since the school went to war with itself; the school is still picking up the pieces left. Division among students is still prevalent, as violence still occurs though on rarer occasion.

I walk onto the auditorium stage not the least surprised by the limited amount of students whom decided to show up. I stand at the podium looking out at the faces of the crowd. I don’t hear anything but my left chest is in sudden pain, blood is falling onto the stage on which I stand.

I slam hard onto the ground as Justin unsuspectedly tackles me.  I hear shouts and screams as I lay on my back on the stage.

 I open my eyes to the sight of Justin knelling close to me. “Where am I, what happened,” I ask perplexed. “You’ve been shot,” Justin says observing me closely. “We have a shooter in the auditorium, assistance needed,” Justin shouts frantically through his headset. I hear more gunshots and screams. “Stay here,” Justin demands me.  My eyes start to close.

My eyes reopen.  “Look whose finally up,” Justin says looking down at me from the floor. “What happened, the auditorium, what happened,” I ask. “Some nut who believed that killing you is the answer to the Fontane problem tried to kill you. I lift myself up from the floor. “How many people died,” I ask. “Only 3 are dead, around 15 got injured,” he replies. “Only 3?” “I’m sorry, after this school year 3 seems like such a small number, I hate myself for having that mindset,” Justin says.

“Why are these people listening to Fontane? And why would they try to kill me while the school has been in moderate peace for the past month. Fontane has not attacked. It has only been our own students doing the attacking,” I say.

“At first it could have been because they were scared and believed or wanted to believe that giving into his threat will solve everything. Now it may be because we killed their friends or loved ones in the war. Heck Fontane doesn’t have to do anything. He already has the school against each other,” Justin says. I grimace while I touch my gun wound. “Yeah you may not want to touch that. Fortunately, you’re going to be okay though.”

“Thank you by the way,” I say. “For saving me out there,” I finish. Justin waves his hand at me, “Don’t thank me,” he says.

I get into the front passenger seat of Justin’s car. We drive past the campus baseball field on the driver’s side. “Colt was my best friend growing up. We use to always go this field at the park near our house to play baseball. Passing that field reminds me of him every day. We grew apart as the years went along. Not that we hated each other, we just befriended different people and hung out less and less and less until we didn’t hang out at all,” Justin tells me.

“I used to have a best friend. We would hang out and come up with one crazy thing to do after another. There was this one time we tied a rope to my bike and my best friend, Mike, held the rope sitting on a skateboard behind the bike, while I rode down this steep hill. Let’s just say it didn’t end that well, but we laughed about it for months,” I say laughing. “What happened to him?” “He moved. At first we communicated by phone but that became less frequent and then eventually not at all. I have pretty much the same friends since I was younger because I’m so quiet,” I say.