Crying Dry Tears
This short story was written by me (Kris).I had heard the stories of it happening over and over. I'd heard them so much that I'd become numb, like every media-controlled American. I never dreamed it could happen to me. But it did.
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"I wish we were together right now," I said with a sigh to my boyfriend, AJ, as I distantly twisted the transparent blue phone cord around my index finger.
"Yeah, me too…" AJ trailed off.
"I hate my parents. I did NOT deserve to be grounded," I whined.
I heard AJ chuckle. I closed my eyes and imagined him doing so. I could see every little detail on his face. The mouth, the nose, those sexy brown eyes that had made me fall in love with him the moment I looked into them…
"Ky, baby, you really did deserve it," AJ said, derailing my train of thought.
"No! Well…maybe. Ok, so I did!" I admitted. "But, it could be worse. At least I still have phone privileges."
"Yeah, thank god," AJ replied.
Suddenly I heard a beep. "'J, there's someone on the other line. Hold on," I said. I pressed the flash button on the phone. "Hello?"
"Hey baby," a deep and familiar voice said.
I giggled uneasily. "Josh, how many times do I have to tell you not to call me baby? I do have a boyfriend, and it's not you."
Josh mumbled something incomprehensible in reply.
"What?" I asked, alarmed. Josh had never been one to mumble.
"Nothing," he replied in a hushed tone.
I felt my body tense up. Something was wrong. The little voice inside my head told me to stay on the phone with Josh and try to get to the bottom of this, but I ignored it. This was a mistake I would come to regret.
"Um, Josh, I have AJ on the other line, so I'll see you tomorrow, ok?" I said.
"Fine," Josh muttered and hung up.
'Weird,' I thought as I pressed the flash button again. "I'm back, 'J," I said into the phone.
"Ok. Who was that, baby?" AJ asked.
I bit my lower lip. "Um, wrong number," I lied.
AJ believed my words and we continued our conversation.
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"Kylene…Kylene…Kylene Lemmons!" Mrs. Paston, my English teacher yelled, trying to get my attention.
"Oh, sorry," I apologized, looking up from my 'I Love AJ' doodles with a big innocent smile.
She glared at me. "Pay attention, Kylene," she warned, emphasizing my name, "or your parents just may make sure you never see your precious Alex again."
The class erupted into laughter as I groaned and rolled my eyes. "Yes Mrs. Paston," I muttered, pretending to pay attention from then on. I was saved from Shakespeare by the strangled ringing of the bell that announced it was now second break. The students quickly stood up and filtered out of the classroom like packs of dogs about to be fed. As I made my way out of the stuffy classroom, my eyes scanned the campus for AJ. Finally, I spotted him, walking towards the picnic tables in the center of campus where our group of friends normally hung out. His eyes lit up when he saw me, a large smile spreading across his face as he walked towards me at an increasing pace.
My eyes were taken off him when I heard the gunshots. They sounded distant at first, like something in a dream. But as they came closer I watched in absolute horror as one of my classmates fell to the ground each time the deafening noise shot through the air. I froze; I didn't know what to do. This wasn't supposed to happen at Eastridge High School; it was only something that happened in seemingly far away high schools in seemingly far away towns. 'I must be dreaming,' I convinced myself. 'I fell asleep in English and I'm having a nightmare.'
But the nightmare became reality as I saw my beloved boyfriend go down, joining the other bodies of innocent youth splattered on the ground. I screamed in utter horror, running with incredible speed towards my wounded love.
I gasped when I reached AJ, hopelessness coming over me. He lay in a giant pool of thick, dark red liquid, the puddle growing large with every second. His eyes were closed, his face set in a look of despair.
I knelt beside him, his blood soaking into my jeans as I struggled to breathe. In the distance sirens rang through the air, but at that point nothing mattered to me but that fact that my amazing boyfriend was lying on the ground with blood pouring from the wound in his chest, and there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it. I couldn't help him, and I couldn't save him.
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Alexander James Moyden was pronounced dead at 2:28 AM on May 28, 1999 - the night after the shooting. In addition to him, three other students died, one of them being one of my closest friends. Eight students and one teachers were injured, some to the extent of being in critical condition for a few days. Our school was devastated, and no one will ever be able to forget that horrendous event - not the students, not the faculty, not the families of the victims, and not me. It put the town of Eastridge, Ohio on the map but in the wrong kind of way. The killer was none other than 16-year-old Joshua Herles, the friend who had a crush on me. He was tried as an adult and convicted for the murders of AJ Moyden, Annie Thompson, Jillian Ondaynol, and Jonathon Nodan, and the attempted murder of nine others. He will spend the rest of his life in prison.
That brings only a small amount of satisfaction for me. Imprisoned or not, Josh still killed my boyfriend, and not sentence can or will change that.
I never really cried. I went through the motions - the funeral, the burial, the mourning. I forced out a few tears when it seemed appropriate for the good of the public. But the tears I cried when I was alone were dry, as they will be for a long, long time. If I could turn back time, I would have stayed on the phone with Josh that night. Maybe I could have said or done something to prevent all of this. After all, he was my friend. Unfortunately, life doesn't work that way. Sometimes the only thing we can do is cry.
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