Anyway, Doug was gentle and quiet when he was part of their group. He took good notes. And he understood things. When Bonnie was struggling with something, and she often was, she went to find him in the library where he spent most of his study halls, and recess, and after school because his older brother always picked him up late in a beat-up old pickup that looked and sounded like it was going to shake apart. He always helped her.
On Valentine’s Day, she made sure that he was one of the people who got the little bags of candy she handed out. And at the end of each grade, she’d signed his nearly blank yearbook. Have a great summer, Doug! You’re such a good friend!
She’d known Doug since kindergarten. She would say he was a school friend, not an outside-of-school friend like Jessie and Evie. He didn’t go to the movies, or the games, or the fair with her group. Sometimes she saw him at those things, but he was usually alone or with his brother, who everyone knew smoked and sold pot.
One afternoon when Doug was helping her with algebra, he said out of nowhere, “My brother has a gun.”
Something about the way he said it made her uncomfortable. She shifted away from him a little; they’d been sitting kind of close together so she could see his notebook.
“Oh, yeah? Wow.”
“He took me to the range and taught me how to shoot.”
She knew that boys did that sometimes. Lied or exaggerated to make themselves seem cool. Her brother did it all the time—saying he made a goal in soccer when he’d really only assisted, or pretending a girl liked him when she obviously didn’t know he was alive. She figured that’s what Doug was doing.
She changed the subject, back to algebra, and he didn’t bring it up again. Probably if she had seemed impressed, he would have talked about it nonstop, since boys also seemed to do that.
She was in English class when it happened. Jessie sat beside her and Evie was out sick with her period. The sound, like a loud crack, made everyone freeze. Her teacher, Mr. Brennan, stopped writing midsentence on the board.
Another sound, louder, more like a bang.
When she looked back on that moment, she knew. Even though it was so far from anything she’d ever imagined. She knew what was happening. She knew it was Doug.
“Okay, guys,” said Mr. Brennan, his voice tight with a false brightness. “Don’t panic. Just get under your desks, okay?”
Get under our desks? She and Jessie looked at each other, and Jessie started to cry.
Bonnie grabbed her friend and pulled her down to the ground. Mr. Brennan walked over to the door and turned off the light. She saw him try to lock the door, but it wouldn’t latch. She heard him swear under his breath. He heaved a table in front of the door, with the help of Bruce, who leaped up to assist. Then he put his finger to his lips, and everyone was stone still. Except Jessie who was whimpering so softly into Bonnie’s shoulder.
When Doug came to the slim window in the door, his eyes seemed to find hers right away. She was in a direct line from the door. He was so pale, and his dark hair was wild, his eyes glassy and strange, like he wasn’t Doug at all, but some monster in a Doug shell. She forced herself to offer him a sad smile, her whole body shaking, her mouth filled with cotton.
“Ohmygodohmygod,” Jessie whispered. “Ohpleaseno.”
Bonnie gave him a slight shake of her head. Please don’t do this, Doug. It’s not right, she thought. Trying to send the message to him with her mind.
He pushed the door, was stopped by the heavy table. She saw him redden. She heard sirens, very faint, way, way too far away.
That’s where he did it.
Holding Bonnie’s eyes, he put the gun to his own head and pulled the trigger.
The sound. The sight. That moment. It burned into her brain, into her soul.
She would never, ever stop seeing it. It would invade her dreams, her thoughts.
Whenever there was a loud sudden noise of any kind, it would come back. From that day, she would be plagued by migraines. Doug killed five kids, Becky Johnson, Amy Watson, Chad Markus, Martie Doyle, and Will Jones, and two teachers, Miss Carol and Mr. Beech, and then ended his own life. Bonnie thought he sought her out on purpose, looking for the only one who had ever seemed to care about him. Someone who would bear witness to his tragic end.
Jessie said that Bonnie screamed and screamed, but Bonnie didn’t remember.
Later there were funerals, and a long investigation. Some of the parents brought a lawsuit against the school because so many of the doors had failed to lock, and the police seemed to think that would have saved lives. Not everyone had been as fast thinking as Mr. Brennan in moving obstacles in front of the door.