Hate List
Copyright © 2009 by Jennifer Brown
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced,
distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written
permission of the publisher.
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First eBook Edition: September 2009
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental
and not intended by the author.
ISBN: 978-0-316-07120-8
Contents
For
Scott
We’ll show the world they were wrong
And teach them all to sing along
—
NICKELBACK
1
[F
ROM THE
G
ARVIN
C
OUNTY
S
UN
-T
RIBUNE
,
M
AY
3, 2008, R
EPORTER
A
NGELA
D
ASH
]
The scene in the Garvin High School cafeteria, known as the Commons, is being described as “grim” by investigators who are
working to identify the victims of a shooting spree that erupted Friday morning.
“We have teams in there going over every detail,” says Sgt. Pam Marone. “We’re getting a pretty clear picture of what went
on yesterday morning. It hasn’t been easy. Even some of our veteran officers got pretty shaken up when they walked in there.
It’s such a tragedy.”
The shooting, which began just as students were preparing for their first class, left at least six students dead and countless
others wounded.
Valerie Leftman, 16, was the last victim shot before Nick Levil, the alleged shooter, reportedly turned the gun on himself.
Hit in the thigh at close range, Leftman required extensive surgery to repair her wounds. Representatives at Garvin County
General list her in “critical condition.”
“There was a lot of blood,” an EMT told reporters on the scene. “He must have hit her artery just right.”
“She’s very lucky,” the ER nurse on duty confirmed. “She’s got a good chance of surviving, but we’re being really careful.
Especially since so many people want to talk to her.”
Reports by witnesses at the scene of the shooting vary, some claiming Leftman was a victim, others saying she was a hero,
still others alleging she was involved in a plan with Levil to shoot and kill students whom they disliked.
According to Jane Keller, a student who witnessed the shooting, the shot to Leftman appeared to be accidental. “It looked
like she tripped and fell into him or something, but I couldn’t tell for sure,” Keller told reporters at the scene. “All I
know is it was all over real quick after that. And when she fell on him it gave some people a chance to run away.”
But police are questioning whether the shot that took down Leftman was an accident or a double suicide gone awry.
Early reports indicate that Leftman and Levil had discussed suicide in some detail, and some sources close to the couple suggest
they talked about homicide as well, leaving police wondering if there is more to the Garvin High shooting than originally
thought.
“They talked about death a lot,” says Mason Markum, a close friend of both Leftman and Levil. “Nick talked about it more than
Valerie, but, yeah, Valerie talked about it too. We all thought they were just playing some game, but I guess it was for real.
I can’t believe they were serious. I mean, I was just talking to Nick like three hours ago, and he never said anything. Not
about this.”
Whether Leftman’s wounds were intentional or accidental, there is little doubt in the minds of the police that Nick Levil
intended to commit suicide after massacring nearly half a dozen Garvin High students.
“Witnesses at the scene tell us that after he shot Leftman he pointed the gun to his own head and pulled the trigger,” says
Marone. Levil was pronounced dead at the scene.
“It was a relief,” says Keller. “Some kids actually cheered, which I think is kind of wrong. But I guess I can understand
why they did it. It was really scary.”
Leftman’s participation in the shooting is under investigation with Garvin County police. Leftman’s family could not be reached
for comment, and police will only divulge that they’re “very interested” in speaking with her at this time.
After I ignored the third snooze alarm, my mom started pounding on my door, trying to get me out of bed. Just like any other
morning. Only this morning wasn’t just any other morning. This was the morning I was supposed to pick myself up and get on
with my life. But I guess with moms, old habits die hard—if the snooze alarm doesn’t do the trick, you start pounding and
yelling, whatever kind of morning it is.
Instead of just yelling at me, though, she started getting that scared quavery sound in her voice that she’d had so often
lately. The one that said she wasn’t sure if I was just being difficult or if she should be ready to call 911. “Valerie!”
she kept pleading, “You have to get up now! The school is being very lenient letting you back in. Don’t blow it your first
day back!”
Like I would be happy about going back to school. About stepping back into those haunted halls. Into the Commons, where the
world as I knew it had crashed to an end last May. Like I hadn’t been having nightmares about that place every single night
and waking up sweaty, crying, totally relieved to be in my room again where things were safe.
The school couldn’t decide if I was hero or villain, and I guess I couldn’t blame them. I was having a hard time deciding
that myself. Was I the bad guy who set into motion the plan to mow down half my school, or the hero who sacrificed herself
to end the killing? Some days I felt like both. Some days I felt like neither. It was all so complicated.
The school board did try to hold some ceremony for me early in the summer. Which was crazy. I didn’t mean to be a hero. I
wasn’t even thinking when I jumped in between Nick and Jessica. It’s certainly not like I thought, “Here’s my chance to save
the girl who used to laugh at me and call me Sister Death, and get myself shot in the process.” By all accounts it was a heroic
thing to do, but in my case… well, nobody was really sure.
I refused to go to the ceremony. Told Mom my leg was hurting too much and I needed some sleep and besides, it was a stupid
idea anyway. It was just like the school, I told her, to do something totally lame like that. I wouldn’t go to something so
dumb if you paid me, I said.
But the truth was I was scared of going to the ceremony. I was scared of facing all those people. Afraid they’d all believed
everything they’d read about me in the newspaper and seen about me on TV, that I’d been a murderer. That I’d see it in their
eyes—
You should’ve committed suicide just like him—
even if they didn’t say it out loud. Or worse, that they’d make me out to be someone brave and selfless, which would only
make me feel more awful than I already did, given that it was my boyfriend who killed all those kids and apparently I made
him think I wanted them dead too. Not to mention I was the idiot who had no idea that the guy I loved was going to shoot up
the school, even though he basically told me so, like, every day. But every time I opened my mouth to tell Mom those things,
all that came out was
It’s so lame. I wouldn’t go to something so dumb if you paid me.
Guess old habits die hard for everyone.
Mr. Angerson, the principal, ended up coming to our house that night instead. He sat at my kitchen table and talked to my
mom about… I don’t know—God, destiny, trauma, whatever. Waiting around, I’m sure, for me to come out of my room and smile
and tell him how proud I was of my school and how I was more than happy to serve as a human sacrifice for Miss Perfect Jessica
Campbell. Maybe he was waiting for me to apologize, too. Which I would do if I could figure out how. But so far I hadn’t come
up with words big enough for something this hard.
When Mr. Angerson was in the kitchen waiting for me I turned up my music and crawled deeper in my sheets and let him sit there.
I never came out, not even when my mom started pounding on the door, begging in “company-voice” for me to be polite and come
downstairs.
“Valerie, please!” she hissed, opening the door a crack and poking her head into my room.
I didn’t answer. I pulled the sheets over my head instead. It’s not that I didn’t want to do it; it’s that I just couldn’t.
But Mom would never understand that. The way she saw it, the more people who “forgave” me, the less I had to feel guilty about.
The way I saw it… it was just the opposite.
After a while I saw headlights reflecting off my bedroom window. I sat up and looked into the driveway. Mr. Angerson was pulling
away. A few minutes later, Mom knocked on my door again.
“What?” I said.
She opened the door and came in, looking all tentative like a baby deer or something. Her face was all red and splotchy and
her nose was seriously plugged up. She was holding this dorky medal in her hand, along with a letter of “thanks” from the
school district.
“They don’t blame you,” she said. “They want you to know that. They want you to come back. They’re very appreciative of what
you did.” She shoved the medal and letter into my hands. I glanced at the letter and noticed that only about ten teachers
had signed it. Noticed that, of course, Mr. Kline wasn’t one of them. For about the millionth time since the shooting, I felt
an enormous pang of guilt: Kline was exactly the kind of teacher who would’ve signed that letter, but he couldn’t because
he was dead.
We stared at each other for a minute. I knew my mom was looking for some sort of gratitude from me. Some sense that if the
school was moving on, maybe I could, too. Maybe we all could.
“Um, yeah, Mom,” I said. I handed the medal and letter back to her. “That’s, um… great.” I tried to muster up a smile to reassure
her, but found that I couldn’t do it. What if I didn’t want to move on just yet? What if that medal reminded me that the guy
I’d trusted most in this world shot people, shot me, shot himself? Why couldn’t she see that accepting the school’s “thanks,”
in that light, was painful to me? Like gratitude would be the only possible emotion I could feel now. Gratitude that I’d lived.
Gratitude that I’d been forgiven. Gratitude that they recognized that I’d saved the lives of other Garvin students.
