With that, Anne releases my arm like it just bit her, like she realized it’s actually a slippery, slimy snake. She takes a few steps away from me.

Her voice shakes when she speaks again. “Fine, May. All right. I get it. I’ll leave you alone. We’ll leave you alone. I guess some people are just beyond help.” She turns and pushes her way out the cafeteria doors.

After she leaves, I stand there, frozen, until I’m forced to move by the flow of people into the room. When I reach out to grab a tray from the stack by the entrance, my hands are shaking and my stomach is churning. A wave of shame passes over me as I remember Anne’s face and the way she snatched her hand back from my arm like she was afraid I might bite her.

Maybe I shouldn’t have been so mean. Anne’s harmless, really. She founded her stupid support group at the end of last year for all the people who were affected by the shooting. It started out small: Anne, whose sister Madison died. Madison was first chair violin. Adam Neilson, who lost his cousin Marcus, first chair saxophone and Jordan’s best friend. Peter Oppenheimer, who lost his dad, Mr. Oppenheimer, our jazz band leader. My favorite teacher. And from there the group expanded.

Now it includes like thirty other people, not that I pay attention to the DMs and texts they send me asking me to go to their dumb meetings. And when Lucy told me about the newest addition to the group, I vowed all over again to never join. Their new member is none other than Miles Catalano, my ex-boyfriend.

I heard he has some guilt about that day.

Yeah. No kidding. He should.

But he survived, just like all of those other assholes.

They survived. They’re alive.

You’ll never see Jordan at one of their stupid meetings.

—

After school, I’m in Lucy’s car and we’re heading to her house so she can get ready for the show on Friday—her first with Proper Noun and the Noun. It’s hot and dry. My shirt sticks to my chest and my armpits even though we have the windows of the car rolled all the way down. Lucy’s A/C stopped working last year and her dad never got around to giving her money to fix it. She gets money from her gigs, but it always ends up going to equipment or other music-related activities instead of her (as she puts it) boring-ass car. As long as it has four wheels and drives, Lucy doesn’t care.