Mr. Ross would only lift a finger to help me if it were the most convenient thing to do, and truth is, here at this school, I’m just a little bit inconvenient. It’s amazing how many people don’t want to look racist and how few care about not actually being it.

“So, I will face consequences, and Chad will face nothing.” It’s the professional, concise recap of our meeting that he refuses to phrase in that way.

Ross looks bewildered still, like the panic of losing control of this interaction will drive him to insanity. “I . . . didn’t say that. Don’t put words in my mouth.”

Be driven to insanity, you pathetic excuse for a principal. “But you implied it, Mr. Ross.” Still respectful. Always respectful. “I’m not who this school is interested in protecting. So, at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what I do.”

I get up so fast the chair falls over behind me, but I don’t bother picking it up. It’s a miracle I’ve stayed as calm as I have.

I storm out of the office, and as the door swings shut behind me, I hear Mr. Ross calling, “Jake. Jake! Sit down! We’re not done here!”

He’s wrong about that. We are very much done here. And I’m tired of sitting down.

Sawyer

I shot myself in the lobby of my school, in between the principal’s and vice principal’s office. I stopped existing. I must have.

I came back to the scene of my suicide, bullets exploding through my head as cops in helmets with rifles stormed the four doorways, sunlight framing their shadows.

I locked in the nightmare of dying via bullet wound over and over.

There was a voice that made me do it.

Now, it hissed. I shot myself. Now, it hissed when the blackness cleared again, in front of those doors where the light spilled in, highlighting shadows of police.

Now. The whispering voice pushed me in whatever direction it chose. It insisted that my death be on replay.

For a while I resigned from a fight that felt impossible to best. On the dark outskirts of my death moment, beyond that terrorized hallway, was a blackness I couldn’t name. A darkness so deep I’d never find myself in it.

I chose to go toward it.

I remembered the people who should have been in front of my gun but weren’t. And I freed myself and found myself surrounded by bodies of red mist, which shaped themselves into the images of my enemies. There were Rod and Bill, standing in the backyard. My sister throwing my bug factory into the river and laughing at my pain. The mist carried the pain of the world in little blinks of light and smoke. I saw Kieran Waters dying, the essence of his organs, bones, and skin picking themselves away in starlight.