Paper Airplanes (3 page)

I didn’t understand why he was telling me to stop, but I listened. I froze, stayed where I was, trapped beneath Will. I couldn’t move. My head ached. It felt like it was literally split open. I figured I must have smacked it against the floor when Will had fallen on top of me. Why had he fallen? Why wasn’t he getting up? Why wasn’t he moving?

I heard another
bang. It sounded like a car backfiring, and I jumped inside my skin. I saw tears fill the blue eyes that I couldn’t stop looking at, because at that moment, they were grounding me at a time when I didn’t know what was happening, but I knew enough to be afraid. The look in those eyes told me to be afraid. And in that second, I realized what the loud bangs were.

Pa
nic flooded me as I registered the voice of a guy shouting, barking orders, making demands. Blood flooded my ears, distorting my hearing. I couldn’t understand what he was saying, but something told me I didn’t want to know. Nearby I could hear someone crying, but another loud bang silenced those cries, and I fought to not think about what had just happened less than ten feet from me.

My eyes darted to the left but I couldn’t see anything.

“Look at me,” I heard from the boy with the blue eyes, and I shifted my gaze back to him, grateful for something to focus on other than the terror surrounding me.

“Are you okay?” I asked him as softly as I could.

“No.” He shook his head infinitesimally where it rested on the floor, and then he swallowed hard as if it was difficult for him.

“Are you scared?”

I saw more tears fill his eyes, spill over and splash to the floor as he nodded. “Stay with me,” he pleaded, his voice so raspy and strained.

“I will,” I
promised, even though it was getting increasingly difficult to keep my mind focused. I was drifting, but I would do everything I could not to let him go.

He nodded
, his gaze never leaving mine.

A few seconds later, panic registered on his face, putting me on high alert. Then I
heard footsteps coming closer, boots thumping on the tile floor, and the boy looked at me once more with such desperation before he closed his eyes. His beautiful blue eyes, the only things that had been keeping me grounded, were suddenly shut off to me.

Then he mumbled, “Play dead,” through barely opened lips.

I did exactly what he said. I lay there as still and as limp as I could. I closed my eyes, and I started to silently pray. The footsteps were slow, deliberate, and they vibrated through the tile floor around me. I held my breath, kept as still as possible and tried to do exactly what the boy had told me. It wasn’t hard, I was starting to drift, to lose consciousness. I fought to stay alert so I could hear what was going on, but I was fighting a losing battle.

The footsteps stopped. I
could feel the presence of those boots near my head. I stayed still. I didn’t move. I played dead.

Then
I heard Marley. She was softly calling out to Aiden. I didn’t know where she was, where Aiden was or if he was dead or alive. But I knew her voice so well that I could tell it was her, and in that moment, I wanted to scream at her to shut up, but I didn’t dare move. I didn’t say a word.

Then the voice from before, now right above me, shouted, “Shut the fuck up. I
will
kill you.”

Marley started to
cry. Then she was begging for her life, and I wanted to cry too. I wanted to scream at him to leave her alone, but I forced myself to stay quiet.

“Fucking cunt,” the voice above me muttered, and then he stalked away from me, his footsteps receding.

He kept telling Marley to shut up. Then I heard Aiden’s voice. And then there was another gunshot. Marley screamed, and I started to shake as I knew what had happened. My breath started coming in shallow bursts, tears threatened to spill from my closed eyes, but I was afraid to move, afraid the guy with the gun would come back, that he would know I wasn’t dead, and then he would kill me too. My head was on fire, and I couldn’t see anything, but I knew exactly what was happening. I could picture it clearly in my mind’s eye.

I couldn’t hear movement from next to me. I had no idea if the boy with the blue eyes was dead or alive.
He’d been bleeding so badly. I didn’t know where my other friends were, if they were okay. All I knew was that I’d never been so scared in my life, and there wasn’t anything I could do about it.

Then s
lowly, as if the world was fading away, I started to lose consciousness. Just as I blacked out, I heard what I thought was another gunshot, and all I could think was,
Please don’t let it be Marley.

Chapter Two

Cassie

I had no idea what day it was or even where I was when I woke up. My
mouth was dry, my eyes burned, and the bed I was sleeping in was uncomfortable. I blinked a few times, looking around the room, seeing machines and florescent lights and gray walls.

“Oh, my God, you’re awake!” I heard, and
I swallowed as I looked toward the familiar voice.

I
tried to swallow, but it was too hard. Instead I locked eyes with my best friend who suddenly burst into tears. Before I could fully wake up, Marley was hugging me from an awkward angle, her arms wrapped around me from the side, and she was crying. She was crying so hard. Why was she crying?

“Mar?”
I croaked out.

“Cass! Oh, Cass,” she said, sobbing against my shoulder.

“Water,” I managed to say.

She pulled back from me, her eyes wet and red-rimmed.
It took her a few seconds to comprehend what I’d asked for. Then she nodded, reaching for the pitcher near my bed and filling a plastic cup with water. She handed it to me wordlessly. I tried to take it, but my hand felt like it hadn’t been used in a while, the muscles not working like I wanted them to. Instead of commenting on the fact that I couldn’t quite grasp a plastic cup, Marley tilted it to my lips to let me drink.

I swallowed almost all of it, and then fell back against the pillows, exhausted from the small effort. She was watching me the whole time.

“Where am I?” I asked her.

“The hospital,” she said as if
I should have realized. Her eyes drifted down. It was like she couldn’t look at me.

“Why am I in the hospital?” I asked her, panic creeping up on me. “What happened?”

I couldn’t remember anything. I racked my brain to remember the last thing I’d been doing, and I remembered walking back from class that afternoon. Was it that afternoon? I wasn’t even sure what time it was, but I’d had my chemistry lab. My group had stayed late to finish up our report. Then Marley and I had plans to go to happy hour at APB. I hated chemistry, and after a grueling week of classes and a hellish lab, I needed drinks.

Marley
looked up at me, tears in her eyes once more. “You don’t remember?” she asked, the appalled look on her face matching the tone of her voice.

I shook my head, trying to think back on what she was talking about. Remember what?
Had I even made it home? Was there an accident? It had been snowing. I remembered that. There was white everywhere, falling into my hair, the gray beanie I was wearing decorated with snowflakes. One had landed on my gloved hand. It had been one of those perfect formations of crystals that looked like the snowflakes I’d cut out of paper as a kid. It hadn’t looked real.

But after that, after the moment I unlocked my car door, everything wa
s blank. I had no recollection of what came next. Had I crashed my car or something?

Marley
started crying all over again. I needed her to stop. I needed her to tell me what was wrong. A few seconds later, my mother walked in the room.

“She’s awake!” she shrieked, looking at me before she burst into tears.

What the hell was going on? Seriously!

“Joel! She’s awake,” I heard her say, calling my dad into the room.

Why were my parents there?

In seconds they were surrounding me, hugging me, and
now everyone was crying. So out of part fear that something was really wrong and out of part relief that my family was there, and simply because I wasn’t sure why I was upset, but I was, I started crying too.

Warm tears splashed down my cheeks, and
oddly, the release felt good. My father was on one side, my mother on the other, arms wrapped around me like a cocoon, and my best friend was holding my hand that was starting to regain feeling. Why did I feel so safe and lost at the same time?

M
y mother pulled back and looked at me, cupping my face with her hand. “Oh, baby. I’m so glad to see those brown eyes.”

“Okay,” I said, not understanding
as she wiped the tears from beneath my eyes.

Why was my mom acting like this?
She’d just seen me three weeks earlier at Christmas.

I looked at my dad whose
eyes were shining. He looked weary. In fact, both of my parents looked drained. I glanced at Marley who looked just as bad. Then I saw her arm.

“Why do you have a
cast on?” I asked, my voice sounding weak and hoarse, like I hadn’t used it in weeks.

S
he looked solemn as she filled my cup with more water and handed it to me. This time I could grip it in my hand. “I broke my wrist. I have to wear this for the next few weeks.”

“What
happened?” I asked after I’d drained the cup. I was so thirsty.

Looking at her arm,
I was so worried that something had happened to her, to both of us. Was it my fault?

Tears filled her eyes again
as she said. “Oh, my God. Do you seriously not remember?”

I shook my head, panicked that something horrible had happened, and I had no recollection
of it. Had she been in a car accident? Had I been driving?

“Tell me,” I insisted.

She shook her head. “I can’t. I can’t.”

She was full-on crying again
, shaking her head back and forth. My dad hugged her, and she fell into him. He’d been like a second father to her throughout her life, since her own father traveled so often for work. She’d practically lived at our house on the weekends while we were growing up and spent a good number of weekdays there too.

My mother’s hand reached out and smoothed back my hair. “There was an incident,” she said softly, and I looked over at her.

“What do you mean ‘an incident’?”

I noticed she didn’t say accident. She’d said incident. What did that mean?

Marley wouldn’t stop crying, so I reached for her hand and squeezed it. She squeezed it back.

“I think we should let
the doctors check you first,” my dad suggested, but that only made me mad.

“Tell me
what happened. Please,” I insisted, fearing the absolute worst.

My dad shook his head.

“I think we should tell her, Joel,” my mom said to him. “She’s going to find out eventually.”

“Fine,” he said. “But I’m getting Dr. Rattigan.”

“Who’s Dr. Rattigan?”

“Your doctor,” my mother supplied.

“Why do I have a doctor? Why am in the hospital?” I asked again since no one had supplied that information the first time I’d asked.

Marley
still wouldn’t stop crying. Tears were streaming down her cheeks, and she was gripping my hand like if she were to let it go I’d die.

My mother looked pensive.

“Someone tell me something!” I said as forcefully as I could, but I was weak, so it just came out half-hearted.

My mother took a deep breath. She shook her head. “It’s all over the Internet,” she said, almost to herself.
“So many stories, the coverage never seems to stop.”

“What is all over the Internet?
What coverage?” I asked, feeling like I couldn’t get a grip on reality.

“The shooting,” Marley said around a sob.

My blood started to run cold. “Shooting? What shooting? What are you talking about?”

My mother nodded
as her eyes filled with tears again. “Three weeks ago, there was a young man who was very troubled. He suffered from depression, and he wasn’t in his right mind. He – he somehow got a gun, and he went out looking for – well, no one really knows what he was looking for – but he went on a spree.”

I blinked a few times trying to process what she was saying.
As spree? A
shooting
spree? Had I somehow been involved in that? Had I been shot? Where the hell had I been that I’d been involved in a shooting spree?

“Who was he?” I asked.

“A student.”

“I don’t understand,
” I said, shaking my head.

My mother drew in a shaky breath. “You and your friends had walked down to the
dining hall on campus. The boy was already in there, and soon after you all entered, he started shooting. They’re still trying to figure out his motive, but he killed fourteen people and injured seventeen before he was killed.”

“Did he shoot me?”
I squeaked out, not able to process what she was saying.

I’d seen school shootings on TV too many times to count. I remembered watching the coverage of what had happened at Virginia Tech and thinking to myself, what would I do if I was in that situation? How would I get away? Had that seriously happened at my school?
To me? And worse, who had I been with? Why couldn’t I remember anything?

I looked up and met Marley’s gaze, so many questions swimming in my head that I couldn’t keep them straight. Who was there? Was anyone hurt? What happened to her? What happened to me?

“Yes, you were shot,” my mother confirmed as Marley started to cry harder and my heart stated to pound. “Not directly, though.”

“What does that mean?”
I squeaked out, looking at my mother.

“We don’t know what happened for sure, but the police think that the boy you were with?
Will? He saw the gunman first. He only had a split-second to react, before the gunman shot him twice – once in the arm and once in the head.”

Tears suddenly filled my eyes as I comprehe
nded everything she was saying. Will had been shot? Was he dead? Is that what she was telling me?

No! No, no, no,
noooooooo!

I heard myself wailing, the noises coming out of my throat not making any sense, and it was as if they were involuntary. All I could think was,
Not Will. Not my perfect, beautiful boyfriend, the boy I loved so much because he was special and sweet and wonderful. Not him. No!

My hand reached for the paper airplane necklace he’d given me the first night we got together. I never took it off, and whenever I thought of Will, I found myself inadvertently playing with it, worrying it between my fingers. But it wasn’t there.

“No,” I heard myself saying, and then I was shaking my head. “Not Will. No. Not Will.”

I was grappling for my necklace, scraping my skin with my fingernails, panicking for so many reasons.

“Where’s my necklace?” I demanded.

My mother took my hand in hers, folding her fing
ers around mine as she guided my hand away from my throat. “I have it. The doctors gave it to me when you were admitted. It’s at the hotel we’re staying at. I’ll bring it tomorrow.”

I felt tears prick my eyes. I wanted my necklace. I wanted Will. In that moment, I wanted so many things that I knew I couldn’t have. I looked up at Marley. S
he was crying.

“Not Will,” I said
softly, my face crumbling around the words, because even without her or my mother confirming what I was thinking, I knew he was dead.

She
reached out and hugged me. “He saved your life, Cass,” she said, and the world stopped spinning for a second as the tears spilled down my cheeks.

I pulled back and looked at her
, trying to process what she was saying. “What do you mean?”

“
Witnesses said that the guy fired his gun several times in quick succession when he initially stood up. He shot another student, and then he aimed at you and Will. Will saw it and turned, blocking it from hitting you. It ended up going through his arm and it grazed the side of your head, but second one–” Her breath hitched, and she shook her head as if she couldn’t say the words.

“The second bullet killed him,” my mother said softly, and I felt
more tears well up in my eyes again as the image of Will shielding me played over and over again in my mind.

“I saw it, Cass,” Marley said then. “I turned, and I saw Will get shot. He fell on you. I thought you were dead too.”

Not Will. No. Not Will.

Will was only twenty-two. He had his whole life in front of him, and it had been taken? I couldn’t even make sense of that. No, he couldn’t be gone. He couldn’t be.
No. I refused to believe it.

“
Who else was there?” I asked Marley softly, because I knew in my heart it wouldn’t have been just Will, Marley and me hanging out. It never was.

Marley’s head
dropped to my shoulder then, her tears soaking my hospital gown. “Aiden and Reese,” she said, the words muffled against my chest.

Fear sparked in me once again. “No,” I said, shaking my head, which only made her cry harder. “No!”

Recollection sparked in me, and I knew exactly what day they were talking about. It had been snowing, we’d been drinking, and we’d gone out for food. I remembered Will taking my hand as we walked toward the lighted dining hall in the middle of campus. But that was all I remembered. Everything stopped the second we walked into the building. What had happened after that? Why couldn’t I remember?