I spend a lot of time googling the massacre. It’s something like a hobby. Or maybe an addiction.

It started about a month after the shooting, on one of the many nights when the thought of sleeping in my dark bedroom was too frightening to fathom. I’d walked down the hall, to the living room, and logged on to the desktop for the first time in weeks. Mom had mostly kept me away from any media, but I’d picked up things here and there from the other survivors. And I wanted to know what people were saying about Sarah.

One link led to another and another and another. With every article or blog post, I became more anxious, more panicked. My heart was pounding and there were tears pricking my eyes. But I couldn’t stop clicking. I knew I needed to. I knew it wasn’t good for me. But I was in a spiral that I couldn’t break free from.

Eventually I ended up reading a series of message board posts about the shooting and how it was a conspiracy. There were dozens of commenters, trying to show “proof” that none of it had happened. That this was just the government trying to trick us so they could take everyone’s guns away. And all the teenagers running out of the building—including me—were just crisis actors. “It’s so obviously fake,” one comment said. “Use common sense, America.”

… obviously …

… common sense …

My mom found me at six a.m., staring at the monitor with red eyes and tears streaking down my face.

“Lee, what are you doing?” she asked.

“How can they say this?” I asked her, my throat aching. “They say it didn’t happen. How can they say that, Mom? Why would they say that?”

“Oh, Lee baby—”

“Why would they say that?!” I shoved the desk much harder than I meant to, violently enough that the monitor slid back and smacked loudly against the wall. Which only made me start to panic and gasp between sobs.

Mom stayed home from work that day and called my psychiatrist. We decided to up my medication and increase how often I was seeing my therapist. Mom also put a limit on how much time I could spend on the internet and only let me use my phone when I was leaving the house without her, though I usually just snuck on while she was at work or late at night. It made me miserable, but I was obsessed, and I knew how to clear a search history.

If you’re wondering where my dad was for all of this, then we have something in common. My dad was never really in the picture. He got my mom pregnant when she was a teenager and he was in his early twenties. He took off before I was born, and the only contact I ever had with him was the child support checks the court ordered him to send. After the shooting, I’d kind of thought he’d show up. Like maybe hearing that his daughter had been part of something so horrific would spark some sort of paternal instinct. It didn’t happen, though.

My mom has always had to be both parents. Sometimes I wonder if that means she felt the pain of what happened to me twice as much. I think I was angrier at him for that, for not being there to be a partner for her when I was at my lowest, than I was at him for being such a deadbeat in the first place.

Not that it matters anymore. He died two years ago in a car accident. I only know this because he left some money for Mom and me in his will. I guess some part of him did feel guilty. It wasn’t a ton, but enough to help pay for part of my college tuition.

Anyway, my father isn’t important. He wasn’t there. Mom was. But as hard as she tried after that morning, she couldn’t keep me off the internet forever.

Three years later and I still frequently find myself on Tumblr pages and message boards, reading posts about the shooting from people who didn’t have to live it. Most people have stopped talking about it by now. It’s old news. But there are still some dedicated bloggers who write about VCHS almost daily. Some of them are true crime junkies. Others have formed what I can only really call a “fandom” around the shooting.

Fandom may sound like a strong word, but I’m not exaggerating. There are memes and fan art and—I’m not kidding—fan fiction about the massacre. Sometimes the focus is on Sarah or Miles. Mostly, though, it’s about the shooter.

I’m not going to mention his name anywhere in this letter, by the way, if that’s what you’re waiting for. There’s enough out there about him already. I won’t be adding to it.

Anyway, as angry and disgusted as it all makes me, I still lurk on a few different forums and websites, checking them at least a couple times a week. The more anxious I am, the longer I spend online. And, of course, anniversaries are always the most anxious days. So when I got home on the night of the third anniversary, after spending as long as I could in our secret place in the woods, it was no surprise that I found myself heading straight for the computer, even when I knew I shouldn’t.

It was late. Mom was already in bed. And there was no chance I’d be sleeping that night. So I logged on and went straight for one of the most active VCHS massacre forums.

I expected to see the usual: debates about old conspiracy theories, discussions about why the shooter might have done it, that sort of thing. There hadn’t been any news on the shooting in years, so the same things tended to be discussed over and over again, just by new voices.

This time, though, there was something new.

The top post was from a regular poster with the username VCHS_Obsessed. He’d written a short message, Hey, guys, have you seen this? Below was a link to an article. The headline made my stomach flip over: “School Shooting Victim’s Parents to Pen Daughter’s Inspiring Biography.”

At the top of the article was the picture of Sarah, the one everyone knows. It was her class photo from freshman year, the one printed in the yearbook just two months after she died. The one that still stares out at Main Street from the sign in front of Virgil County Baptist Church.

That picture is the reason I drive home the long way after school. Because I can’t handle seeing my best friend smiling at me, her red hair worn in two braids, making her look even younger than she was, her brown eyes wide and bright and completely unaware of what was to come.

And, of course, the necklace. I’d seen this photo enough times to know that some sort of digital editing had been done to make it stand out even more—that little silver cross dangling from a thin chain. It rested against her chest, right above the collar of her lavender T-shirt. That stupid necklace. It wasn’t even the one from the crime scene. The famous necklace. But people see this photo as evidence. It makes them feel sure they know who Sarah was.

Here’s the thing, though: She’d only worn the necklace on class photo day because her grandmother had given it to her for her birthday, and her mom thought it would be nice to have it in the picture. Sarah almost didn’t do it—for the simple, silly reason that she liked gold jewelry more than silver—but in the end, she wanted to make her grandmother happy.

I wish she’d taken it off. If she hadn’t worn it, then …

But I’m letting myself off the hook too easy.

Because she did wear it. And now everyone knows her as Sarah McHale, the Girl with the Cross Necklace. Everyone believes she’s something she wasn’t. That she died for something when she didn’t. But that necklace isn’t to blame.

I am.

I scrolled past the picture, guilt already creeping up from my stomach and into my chest. I couldn’t bring myself to do more than skim the article. My hands were shaking and my eyes kept flitting around the screen, unable to focus on the same spot for more than a few seconds. But I got the gist of it.

Sarah’s parents were going to publish her biography. They had found her old diary and wanted to use excerpts as they told the “inspiring story of their daughter’s refusal to deny her faith, even in the face of death.” The book had sold at auction, to a publisher paying six figures. And there was already interest from Hollywood in adapting Sarah’s story to film.

“It’s been three years since she was taken from us,” Ruth McHale was quoted as saying. “It’s been difficult. Some days, my husband and I have just felt like we couldn’t keep going. But God has stood by us. Lifted us up when we needed Him most. And I know that what He wants is for us to keep Sarah’s memory alive. To make sure no one forgets what a brave girl she was, and how dedicated to her faith. We should all hope to be as strong as Sarah.”

I read that quote over and over, feeling sicker each time. I was feeling too many things at once—anger and sadness and guilt.

And dread.

Because if this was really happening, if there was going to be a book and possibly even a movie, that meant people would be looking at Virgil County again. The massacre would be on the news. The stories would get rehashed and repeated. Everything the world got wrong the first time was going to be pushed to the surface again. As if living with the real memories of that day wasn’t bad enough, the twisted version was going to haunt me, too.

And it would be even worse for Kellie.

I just barely made it to the bathroom before my stomach gave way and the fries I’d eaten on the way home from the woods came back up. I was a fool to think it was safe to grab dinner from a drive-thru, that this might be the first anniversary without vomit. But no. I was three for three.

I flushed the toilet and sat back, leaning my head against the wall as I breathed slowly. Our house is small and the walls are thin, so I wasn’t surprised when I heard Mom’s bedroom door creak open down the hall.

“Lee?” she asked, her voice still slurred with sleep. “Everything okay, baby?”

She wasn’t a light sleeper before the shooting, but since then, every little sound, every sign that something might be wrong, and she’s up. Sometimes, like when I’m having nightmares and she is there to shake me awake, I’m grateful. Usually, though, I’d rather be alone, without the pressure of knowing I’m worrying her.

“Fine,” I said. “I’m okay, Mom. You can go back to bed.”

“All right … Don’t be up too late.”

“I won’t. Good night.”

Her door creaked again, but I didn’t hear it latch, and I knew she was leaving it cracked. She’d be awake until she heard me go to bed.

I sighed and got to my feet. My empty stomach was still churning as I brushed my teeth. I headed down the hallway to my room, where I changed into my comfiest pajamas. Not that it mattered. There would be no rest that night.

I’d been staring at my ceiling for a little over an hour when my phone chimed with a text message.

You awake?

I typed back a quick response. What do you think?

Outside?

Too chilly. You can call though.

A second later, my phone rang.

“Hey,” I said.

“What’re you doing?” Miles mumbled on the other end of the line.

“Nothing. You?”

“Just watched a documentary on YouTube.”

“About?”

“The stock market crash of 1929.”

“That sounds … greatly depressing.”

“Wow. Denny doesn’t even make jokes that bad.”

“Hey.”

He chuckled, and the sound ran through me like a sip of hot chocolate on a cold winter night. I rolled onto my side and curled into a ball, knees pulled to my chest, phone still pressed to my ear.

“Tell me about it.”

“You … want me to tell you about the Great Depression?”

“Yes.”

“What about it?”

“Anything,” I said. “Just … talk. Teach me something.”

I could hear his hesitation before he sighed and said, in that mumbling, almost-slurred speech of his, “Okay, well … the stock market crash began on October twenty-fourth. It was right at the end of the twenties and …”

I closed my eyes and listened as he rambled, going off on soft, slow-spoken tangents and sharing a handful of anecdotes from other books he’d read or films he’d seen.

Most people would be surprised to realize how much Miles knows about history. Considering his poor grades and that he had to repeat sophomore year, it may not seem in character, but ever since we started hanging out after the shooting, he’s been really interested in it. You can ask him about almost any point in American history and he’ll go on for hours. This from the boy who answers in monosyllables half the time.

I’m not that interested in history. It’s just never really intrigued me the way it does other people. But I took comfort in listening to Miles. I love hearing it when he gets worked up or passionate about something. Admittedly, it’s just a small inflection, a tiny lift to his voice that I like to believe no one besides me notices.

I let him go on about the Great Depression for hours. I didn’t tell him about what I’d just learned regarding Sarah and her parents. I didn’t say much at all, really. Just slipped in questions or comments here and there so he knew I hadn’t dozed off, so that he’d keep talking.

I needed him to keep talking.

If he stopped, I worried about the places my mind might wander. And I hoped it was helpful for Miles, too. I couldn’t be the only one in need of a distraction until this cursed night passed.

He kept going, right up until the first hints of morning appeared through the blinds of my bedroom window.

“I should probably go before my mom gets up,” I said. “School is going to suck today.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “But at least we got through it. And we have another year before the next one.”

“Yeah.” Though I tried not to think about what I would be doing this time next year, about the prospect of the first anniversary spent far away from other survivors. Away from him. “Thank you,” I said after a minute of silence. “For staying up with me.”

“Not like I was gonna be able to sleep, either,” he murmured. “Just hope it wasn’t too boring.”

“You’re never boring.” I cleared my throat. “I have to go. See you at my truck in a couple hours?”

“Sure.”

I hung up the phone and rolled onto my stomach just as my mom’s alarm started going off in the next room. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to slow my breathing. She’d poke her head in soon to check on me, and I didn’t want her to know I’d been up all night.

If I could ease her worry, take away even just a tiny fraction of it with a lie, I would.

These little lies kept us both sane.