September of 2004, in the aftermath of a school shooting, new student Connie Turner avoids the young man who saved her younger brother's life, while battling with a shameful awareness that she is not the same as before the event.
Meanwhile, Max Nat...
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It didn't take long for the local sheriff's office to mess up the investigation. Badly.
Only hours after the families of the survivors were shown the CTV footage of the episode between Brandon, Max, and the shooter, it was being blared across the nation. The sheriff tried to backtrack, claiming that the reporter he'd shown it to had said they wouldn't use it. The journalist claimed that stipulation had never been declared.
The Cleargate Incident caught national attention when it had occurred, but now ABC, NBC, and all the other major news networks were clamoring for more. They needed to know more about what happened in that split second exchange. The shooter's name had been plastered everywhere when it happened, but now Max Nathan was superseding the gunman with Brandon coming in at a close second. Max had gone from local to a national hero in a matter of hours and he wasn't even out of the hospital yet.
The phone at the Turner household was ringing off the hook. Then the journalists in their vans with their cameramen found out that dad was staying at the local Holiday Inn. He had to bust his way through a herd of ravenous reporters to get to his rental Honda.
"Blood sucking parasites," dad blustered as he burst through the front door. "All of them. That moron of a sheriff should have charges brought against him. I have half a mind to sue him and his department. I thought he was a joke the first time I saw him. Posturing himself like some sad John Wayne knock off with his cup of herbaltea."
The venomous way he spat the word 'tea' made Brandon laugh where he reclined, leg propped up on the couch with a game controller in his hands. The phone shrilled a ring and mom took another pill for her migraine. Connie stuck her fingers in her ears where she sat in the window seat with a magazine open, but unread on her knees.
Her eyes trailed over to the street beyond the copse of woods in front of their home. Media vans were pulling in, sniffing out their location. They wouldn't trespass. At least she hoped they wouldn't.
Dad's heavy steps stomped over to the window. "You have got to be shitting me," he bellowed.
Sinking to the hardwood floor of the stairway landing, Connie put on her headphones and drowned herself in the new Tori Amos album.
***
"He was so smart. Really smart," the blonde sophomore declared on the screen.
"Yeah, yeah. Like so smart," her friend reiterated, smacking her gum and flipping the hair from her eyes. The myriad of bracelets on her wrist jingled with the movement. "Like the smartest kid in their class."
"But such a weirdo," the blonde said, her lips turned down in disgust.
"Oh my god, such a weirdo," her friend parroted, blinking rapidly.
