Jodie Picoult - Nineteen Minutes

“Warning signals,” he said in response to the anchor’s question. “Well, these young men pull away from others. They tend to be loners. They talk about hurting themselves, or others. They can’t function in school, or are subjected to discipline there. They lack a connection with someone-anyone-who might make them feel important.”

Ervin knew the network hadn’t come to him for his expertise-only for solace. The rest of Sterling-the rest of the world-wanted to know that kids like Peter Houghton were recognizable, as if the potential to turn into a murderer overnight were a visible birthmark. “So there’s a general profile of a school shooter,” the anchor prodded.

Ervin Peabody looked into the camera. He knew the truth-that if you said these kids wore black or listened to odd music or were angry, you were discussing most of the male teenage population at some point during their adolescent years. He knew that if a deeply disturbed individual was intent on doing damage, he’d probably succeed. But he also knew that every eye in the Connecticut Valley was on him-maybe even in the whole Northeast-and that he was up for tenure at Sterling. A little prestige-a label of expert-couldn’t hurt. “You could make that argument,” he said.

Lewis was the one who settled the Houghton household for the night. He’d start in the kitchen and load the dishwasher. He’d lock the front door and turn off the lights. Then he’d head upstairs, where Lacy was usually already in bed, reading-if not out assisting at a birth-and he’d stop in his son’s room. Tell him to shut off the computer and go to bed.

Tonight he found himself standing in front of Peter’s room, looking at the mess wrought by the police during their search. He thought about righting the remaining books on the shelves, putting away the contents of the desk drawers that had been dumped onto the carpet. On second thought, he gently closed the door.

Lacy was not in the bedroom, or brushing her teeth. He hesitated, an ear cocked. There was chatter-it sounded like a furtive conversation-coming from the room directly below him.

He retraced his steps, drawing closer to the voices. Who would Lacy be talking to at nearly midnight?

The screen of the television glowed green and unearthly in the dark study. Lewis had forgotten there even was a television in that room, it was so infrequently used. He saw the CNN logo and familiar ticker tape of breaking news along the bottom. A thought occurred to him: that ticker tape hadn’t existed until 9/11-until people were so scared that they needed to know, without any delay, the facts of the world they inhabited.

Lacy was kneeling on the carpet, her face turned up to the anchor’s. “There is little word yet about how the man who was the shooter secured his weapons, or exactly what those weapons are…”

“Lacy,” he said, swallowing. “Lacy, come to bed.”

Lacy did not move, did not give any indication she’d heard him. Lewis passed her, trailing his hand over her shoulder as he went to shut off the television. “Preliminary reports are focusing on two pistols,” the anchor confided, just before his image disappeared.

Lacy turned to him. Her eyes reminded him of the sky you see from airplanes: a boundless gray that could be anywhere, and nowhere, all at once. “They keep calling him a man,” she said, “but he’s only a boy.”

“Lacy,” he repeated, and she stood and moved into his arms, as if this were her invitation to the dance.

If you listen carefully in a hospital, you can hear the truth. Nurses whisper to one another over your still body when you are pretending to sleep; policemen trade secrets in the hallway; doctors enter your room with another patient’s condition on their lips.

Josie had been making a mental list of the wounded. It seemed she could play six degrees of separation with any of the injured-when she had seen them last; when they had crossed her path; where they had been in proximity to her when they had been shot. There was Drew Girard, who’d grabbed Matt and Josie to tell them that Peter Houghton was shooting up the school. Emma, who’d been sitting three chairs away from Josie in the cafeteria. And Trey MacKenzie, a football player known for his house parties. John Eberhard, who had been eating Josie’s French fries that morning. Min Horuka, an exchange student from Tokyo who’d gotten drunk last year out on the ropes course behind the track and then peed into the open window of the principal’s car. Natalie Zlenko, who’d been in front of Josie in the cafeteria line. Coach Spears and Miss Ritolli, two formers teachers of Josie’s. Brady Pryce and Haley Weaver, the golden senior couple.

There were others that Josie knew only by name-Michael Beach, Steve Babourias, Natalie Phlug, Austin Prokiov, Alyssa Carr, Jared Weiner, Richard Hicks, Jada Knight, Zoe Patterson-strangers with whom, now, she’d be linked forever.

It was harder to find out the names of the dead. They were whispered about even more quietly, as if their condition were contagious to the rest of the unfortunate souls just taking up space in the hospital beds. Josie had heard rumors: that Mr. McCabe had been killed, and Topher McPhee-the school pot dealer. To hoard crumbs of information, Josie tried to watch television, which was running twenty-four-hour Sterling High Shooting coverage, but inevitably her mother would come into the room and turn it off. All she had gleaned from her forbidden media forays was that there had been ten fatalities.

Matt was one.

Every time Josie thought about it, something happened to her body. She stopped breathing. All the words she knew congealed at the bottom of her throat, a boulder blocking the exit from a cave.

Thanks to the sedatives, so much of this seemed unreal-as if she were walking on the spongy floor of a dream-but the moment she thought of Matt, it became authentic and raw.

She would never kiss Matt again.

She would never hear him laugh.

She would never feel the print of his hand on her waist, or read a note he’d slipped through the furrows of her locker, or feel her heart beat into his hand when he unbuttoned her shirt.

She was only remembering the half of it, that she knew-as if the shooting had not only split her life into before and after, but also robbed her of certain skills: the ability to last an hour without puddling into tears; the ability to see the color red without feeling queasy; the ability to form a skeleton of the truth from the bare bones of memory. To remember the rest of it, given what had happened, would be nearly obscene.

So instead, Josie found herself veering drunkenly from the soft-focus moments with Matt to the macabre. She kept thinking of a line from Romeo and Juliet that had freaked her out when they’d studied the play in ninth grade: With worms that are thy chambermaids. Romeo had said it to Juliet’s looks-like-dead body in the Capulet crypt. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. But there were a whole bunch of steps in between that no one ever talked about, and when the nurses were gone in the middle of the night, Josie found herself wondering how long it took for flesh to peel from a skull; what happened to the jelly of eyes; whether Matt had already stopped looking like Matt. And then she’d wake up and find herself screaming, with a dozen doctors and nurses holding her down.

If you gave someone your heart and they died, did they take it with them? Did you spend the rest of forever with a hole inside you that couldn’t be filled?

The door to her room opened and her mother stepped inside. “So,” she said, with a fake smile so wide it divided her entire head like an equator. “You ready?”

It was only 7:00 a.m., but Josie had already been discharged. She nodded at her mother. Josie sort of hated her right now. She was acting all concerned and worried, but it was too much too late, as if it had taken this shooting for her to wake up to the fact that she had absolutely no relationship with Josie. She kept telling Josie she was here if Josie needed to talk, which was ridiculous. Even if Josie wanted to-which she didn’t-her mother was the last person on earth she’d want to confide in. She wouldn’t understand-no one would, except for the other kids lying in different rooms in this hospital. This hadn’t been just some murder on the street somewhere, which would have been bad enough. This was the worst that could happen, in a place where Josie would have to return, whether she wanted to or not.