On the edge of everything

Part 18

Suddenly, it is my very last week of high school. Every day of the week is filled to the brim with senior activities, attempting to keep our minds in the building as they start to inevitably wander towards summer and the more intimidating and free world beyond the bricks. It's the week that we have all been waiting for, more lasts to be checked off the grand list of finality. Once again, I am not sure if I feel more excitement or sadness.

On Tuesday night, me and Rose are sitting in my room, each of us with a notebook on our laps and textbooks to our sides, attempting to make it through the final few days of academia before the summer festivities begin.

My legs are draped over hers when I hear a knock on the door. We both gratefully set our pens down as my mom enters the room.

"Hey, you two. Have you seen the email?" she asks. I look towards Rose, confused and concerned, and I receive a similar expression.

"No. Why?" I ask her. She carries her phone over to us and sits on the edge of the bed as we read.

The email has the SC header, a blue design spanning the width of the page. The message is the full page with a formal signature at the bottom from Principal Sanchez. Rose and I read simultaneously in silence. She reaches for my hand before I understand why. A couple moments later, I see the words: Mrs. Lewis passed away last night.

It's just like that email last August, holding the news and a list of their roles at Saint Catherine's without stating any specifics. No when or where or why -- just the what. It's not the same as when two twenty year-olds die-- it's not accompanied by the same amount of shock and irregularity-- but it is still so sad.

My mom leaves the room after giving me a swift kiss on the forehead and I rest my hand on Rose's leg, the black brace still engulfing the wrist. "You okay?" I ask, looking towards her eyes as she stares out the window.

"I guess so," she says with a tone that insinuates a level of uncertainty. "I'm not really sure." I nod in agreement, somewhat feeling the same way. "It's not like I was very close with her as a teacher or I feel like this is a very personal loss. I am just sort of surprised that I am not shocked." It takes a moment of silence for me to understand what she is saying, but when I get there, the clarity of this sentence hits me. "Just after Lena and Eliza and James and the shooting at Evans, it feels like this year, the tragedies have just been piling on in our lives and it feels less shocking-- I'm getting used to it." I nod, give her a swift kiss on the cheek, then join her in staring at the clouds moving slowly past us in the sky.

The moment that I appear at the corner of the building on the left side, closest to the university, a sort-of dread washes over me. One of the absolute last things that I wish to do is to attend yet another memorial-- the fifth of this year-- especially in my final week of high school. This year seems to have been so filled with mourning that I would love for this final week with all of these people in this building that has been my life for four years, to be simply fun and happy. I would love for all of the sadness to be behind us, simply looking at our bright futures rather than reliving the pasts of those without futures.

Still, here I am-- here we are. All of us, each senior and SC student and teacher, have had no choice in the matter and this is what the universe has opted to do with this moment in time. Despite the way I feel, who am I to argue with the universe? Everything is this way for a reason, whatever it may be. I just desperately hope that I will find out what that reason is. Someday.

I see several SC students walk briskly past me, as is our fashion, as I stand looking down the front of the school. I don't know what I'm waiting for, or who, I guess, until I see her walk towards me; she comes up 5th, hand outstretched, waiting for me despite the remaining twenty feet between us. She is magical.