It was a Tuesday. Fourth grade, two days into our first full week of school. I was already chosen to be on the safety patrol squad because I was a tremendous ass-kisser, though all that really meant was I got to wear this lime-green reflective belt and make sure everyone was in their classroom in time for morning announcements. I remember really feeling myself too, walking down the halls in my new navy FUBU jumpsuit and bright white sneakers, stuff my parents bought me during back-to-school shopping.

“It seemed like an ordinary day,” I say.

And it still took me a minute to catch on that it wasn’t.

My shift was over, so I returned my belt to the security desk, where the guard and vice principal were watching the news on one of those big-ass TVs that were always being rolled from classroom to classroom, depending on which teacher called dibs on it first.

“The footage looked like something out of an action movie, but it was so, so real. I saw the towers upright and burning, and then they cut to the collapse.” I feel a buzzing in my head and an emptiness in my stomach. “If you want to know how stupid I was, I didn’t know this was even going down in New York at that point. My vice principal had called the buildings the World Trade Center, but I grew up only knowing them as the Twin Towers. So I wrote it off as some video game company in another country, and I was so relieved that it wasn’t happening here because it looked so scary, and I went back to class without giving it another thought.”

I don’t know why I’m giving every damn detail like this, maybe I’ve got more of a novel in me than I give myself credit for, because I’m painting one hell of a picture.

Then I share the thought that haunts me the most.

“I had no idea my parents were dead at that point.”

I wipe away some sneaky-ass tears and stare at the ground, I can’t even look at Valentino or Dalma.

I start trying to wrap it up, but these memories are rolling fast like a montage, it’s got me thinking about how everyone says you see your life flashing before your eyes before you die. Maybe my body somehow knows that I’m hours, or even minutes, away from an End Day call.

If this is the last time I’m going to share this story, I’m going to tell it right.