WHEN SHE LOOKED UP there were two black holes staring back at her. Alicia blinked and blinked again trying to understand. Once she understood, it was too late to do anything other than accept her fate.
The unique thing about Alicia was that, amid all the confusion and terror of the moment, she found the grace to be thankful. She had every reason to scream and cry about how unfair it was, but she wouldn't waste a nanosecond thinking about how being in the school library during first period was pure chance. She didn't wish that she'd made a different choice between sleeping in, studying for the big Chemistry exam and jumping in a white Cabriolet convertible with her bestie, Jill, who'd gotten the little car for an early graduation present. Jill had worn a weak, fake pout as she left campus with Marney. Alicia was invited but she'd had applied to NYU. She wanted to keep her grades up.
None of that crossed her mind because there was only enough time for Alicia to be thankful. Which was odd considering that one of her fellow classmates—maybe his name was Mark? He'd sat next to her in Study Hall a few times—was pointing the short-twin barrels of a shotgun in her face. It looked real, too.
Alicia gasped in surprise and knew deep inside that it was all over. Everything she'd been working towards. Her plans for the future, the blue dress she'd asked her mom to dry clean for her first date with Matt Reiner on Friday night; that was cancelled. She'd never wear the dress or kiss Mark goodnight. She'd never graduate. NYU was a pipe dream. So it was amazing—miraculous some might say—that right there, as Alicia Gonzales realized she was sitting in the chair she would die in, that she felt grateful. She didn't want to die. She wasn't depressed like some of her peers. She'd had her moments, but this was not one of them.
This moment was just long enough to pinch her eyes shut. Just long enough for her heart to form the thought, "Thank you, Jes—" then concentration was broken by the loudest sound she'd ever heard. It made her want to cover her ears.
The moment was over.
YOU ARE READING
After They Kill You
General FictionA fictional story about the very real problem of violence within the U.S. public school system. After They Kill You attempts to tell the story from the inside out; the events, the aftermath, and the politics that inevitably swallow the victims as a...
