Breathe In, Breathe Out

       Breathe in, breathe out.
       I scan the room again, trying to see what I didn’t before. What makes this room different than it was yesterday? What makes this time more important than any other? What makes this school the chosen school?
       I see the lab tables in neat rows running throughout the room, one right in front of me, illuminated by the window behind me. I see the lights off, just like every other room in the school. I see my teacher crouched in the far corner to my right, not tearing her eyes away from her phone.
       I see my classmates shaking, crying, whining, lying down, huddled together.
       But it’s not really about what I see, because we weren’t blind, but our sight didn’t matter. No matter how much we watched and analyzed, our eyes weren’t enough.
       Right now, it’s about what I hear: the popping, the screaming, the stomping. I hear crashing and breaking, and not just the physical. I hear my friends breaking apart inside, crying like it’s their last hope. Talking to their parents like it’s their last words.
       “Be quiet, please,” a kid a few people over whispers furiously.
       Breathe in, breathe out, I tell myself.
       Right now, it’s about what I feel: the room shaking, and not just the walls with the hit of the bullets and bodies, but also with my anger. With my resentment. My fear. I feel pain in my ankles and knees from when I was pushed to the floor with the rest of the students, running for cover, for the far wall, for security, for anything. I feel the pain in my head as my blood runs cold with terror, unable to do anything about what we all see as inevitable.
       Another round of bullets leaves the gun, ripping through people, stopping their screaming, through computers, stopping our learning, through windows, shattering our safety.
       Someone else cries harder with the noise. “Stop!” he whines with determination, as if we are the ones behind the gun, and a simple finger would terminate the destruction tearing through out classrooms, our building, our school, our home, our welfare.
       There’s more stomping, more screaming, more bullets, but I can’t hear it anymore. I can only hear what my mother will say at my funeral, what she’ll say when the news story breaks about the school shooting at Douglas High School, in the safest city of the nation.
       Will she say how I was disagreeable all the time? How I never got straight As, no matter how hard I tried? Will she say I was a disappointment, and never has the chance to change it?
       Or will she talk about my good moments? How I was always happy? How I always tried to make others feel better? Will she talk about my favorite color, and the sport I played? How I loved going to school, but now I no longer can?
       Breathe in, breathe out.
I want to tell her I’m sorry, but I don’t want those to be my last words to her. She would cry, thinking I spent my last moments believing she hated me.
       I soon realize I’ve joined my classmates in crying. I feel the tear slowly creep down my cheek, replacing my confidence with vulnerability.
       My body is shaking, but not with the force of my tears, only my fear. I can’t stop or slow it down. I stop trying.
       Time passes, and I don’t know how long. It creeps along with the slow tears on my face, but we don’t hear shots being fired off. We don’t hear bullets ruining our lives, our education.
       I try to hope it’s over, but the feeling scares me more. The inevitable disappointment when my family’s lives get ripped apart is too much to bear.
       I hear loud footsteps, and my body automatically tenses. Bringing my knees up to my chest and burying my head in my arms, I continue to cry.
       Breathe in, breathe out.
Then there’s banging. Loud, abrupt noises of a fist on our door.
       “Open up! It’s the police,” the loud voice shouts, matching the knocking.
       No one moves, and I realize we’re all holding our breath. No one will allow the hope of what his means, everyone knows not to open the door.
       It could be him, everyone is thinking, not needed to be said out loud to be transmitted throughout the room.
       The call is repeated, and, still, no one moves, no one breathes, no one hopes.
       In seconds the small window is shattered and people are moving in. My body is shaking, and I bury my head again.
       I’m sorry, Mom. I love you all.
But then we’re moving out of the room. It was the police.
       “Keep your head down,” they say. It’s so we don’t see the bodies, but my classmates and I already know the damage. We saw it, smelt it, heard it, felt it.
       “It’s over,” someone whispers as we leave the school. “We’re fine.”
       But it will never be over, and it will never be fine.