Unimaginable Tragedy

Story contains sensitive content: depression, anxiety, PTSD, and violence

Gemma’s knuckles turned ghost white, and she'd lost all feeling in her fingers, but held on strong to the steering wheel like it was a lifeline. Letting go was one step away from getting out of the car. Before she could give herself another pep talk, a high-pitched dinging made her jump. That never used to happen. The bells were always either a call to action or a reprieve at the end of the day. But they never made her sink into herself, immobilized in fear as they did now.

The remaining stragglers raced through the front doors of the imposing brick building. There had been many changes since she was last here. A local police officer now stood by the front door, waving a late arrival inside before locking the only accessible entrance. Ballistic glass had replaced the front windows, and maintenance installed new locks on every exterior door.

These were the same safety measures the staff had proposed years ago, but no one ever implemented them. Something else always took precedence. After all, in a building of this size, there were dozens of maintenance requests a day. And there were never enough funds. How could they prioritize precautionary measures over more immediate concerns? The Math department needed new textbooks, and there was black mold in the science lab. These were more pressing matters.

But after tragedy strikes, priorities change. “Too little too late,” Gemma thought now.

After the cascade of people flooded into the building and the last car pulled out of the parent drop-off lane, the sounds of a chaotic morning came to an abrupt end. The air was unusually still, and the cold front that morning kept even the birds at bay. All that remained was a peaceful silence.

But Gemma’s mind was anything but quiet. Because, as she sat in her ten-year-old sedan with the failing transmission and leaky oil pan, Gemma was reliving the worst minutes of her life. She heard the screams from two months ago like they were coming from inside her car. The sound of her students’ quiet sobs played on a loop in her mind like the restrained underscore in a movie. And even as she told herself none of it was real, her body didn’t believe her.

While she tried to calm her mind, she was embarrassed to discover that the rapid huffs of air she had mistaken for her car exhaust were coming from her. Over the past few months, she had been well acquainted with the early signs of a panic attack. And sure enough, her heart started racing too, and she could barely catch her next breath.

The worst part of this new condition was that it deprived her of her greatest strength. She had a gift for staying cool under pressure, which is why she excelled at her job. Not many could handle the unpredictability of teenagers. That was clear in the reaction she got when she told anyone she was a teacher. They would respond incredulously that they could never do her job. And she would always respond, “Never a dull moment.”

And that Friday at 10:16 am. She kept her composure. While her students huddled in a corner holding onto their twenty-year-old textbooks like missiles, she crouched in front of them. Her small frame did little to protect them, but her assurance was comforting nonetheless. She took their hands and held them close, just in case it was the last time they experienced a warm embrace. She pretended her love for them could repel the hate terrorizing the hallways.

It only lasted 18 minutes, but those were the last 18 minutes anyone would ever call her Ms. Cameron again. Those 18 minutes robbed her of the possibility of ever being calm again. How could she be a mentor and educator to others when she was in a constant state of panic?

They called her a hero after. But she didn’t feel very heroic. She had done what she always did; she followed the plan. When the principal made the alert for the school to go on lockdown, Gemma took immediate action. She locked her door and closed her window shades. Students grabbed a textbook for defense and huddled together without hesitation. They had rehearsed this before. They were prepared. Because they lived in a world where this unimaginable horror was their reality.

It must have been an adrenaline boost that held her together that morning until the local police officer came to unlock their door and escort them to safety. They rushed out of the building, trapped in a fog of unknowns. They had been locked in that room for almost twenty minutes, hearing the gunshots but never seeing a shooter. Once her students ran to the safety of their loved ones' arms, she quietly slipped away to take refuge in the same car she now sat in. That was when she fell apart. The days that followed were a blur. She remembered sleeping and her mother cooking for her, forcing her to eat, but she was never hungry. It would be a week before she could bear to hear the details of the attack. A student came to school late, armed, and intent on harming others. And ten people were killed, including two of her colleagues.

She missed their funerals. She couldn’t get out of bed. Everyone said they understood, “You need time to heal.” Then, she skipped the mandatory back-to-school meetings, and they said, “Take your time.” But when she failed to report to school on the first official day back, they demanded, “How much longer?” And when she struggled to leave her house for two more weeks, they guilted her, “What about your students?”

She was no longer their hero. And she didn’t know how to be the teacher she once was. After five attempts at going back to work, it was the first time she had made it into the parking lot. Gemma took one last glimpse at the school building before pulling out of her parking spot and driving back home.

But maybe she would try again tomorrow.