was at a place that mattered, even if I didn’t particularly want to give my studies my all. School, for me, was a safe place, where I felt at home, and I didn’t want to miss any of it.
“My father died when I was the same age as many of you are now. Five days after my seventeenth birthday, another stock car crashed into him on a corner, and he went hurtling into the barricade at ninety-three miles an hour. He was killed instantly. I was there, sitting in the stands with my mother as I always was whenever he raced, and I watched that day as my hero died. It was…officially,” he says, his voice breaking, “the worst day of my life.
“A week later, I went back to school, and I was a wreck. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t function. I was a zombie, stumbling through my day, a war raging inside me because I now hated something that had consumed my entire life. I didn’t want to be a Nascar driver anymore. I didn’t know who or what I wanted to be. All I wanted was to have my father back.
“Grief was a long, lonely road for me. I didn’t want to be consoled. I didn’t want to feel better, because feeling better somehow felt like I cared less, and that…” Principle Darhower dashes at his eyes with the back of his hands, and my throat begins to ache. “I didn’t want to do that. Eventually, when the grief became too much, it nearly finally broke me, and it was my friends and my teachers at school who I turned to for help. They consoled me. They held me together. They saved me. It was then that I decided to teach. To help continue on a legacy of support and care that had been shown to me at a time when I needed it.
“Two weeks ago, one of the students at this school, one of my students, did something terrible. People were hurt. Lives…were…” He clenches his jaw, his nostrils flaring. “Lives were taken,” he rushes out. “Many of you lost friends. Many of you are feeling the same way I felt after I lost my father, crippled with grief and alone…and I am standing before you now…humbly apologizing to each and every one of you. The world has changed so much since I was at school, but that is no excuse. It was my burden of responsibility to ensure that this school was a safe place for you to come to every day, and…two weeks ago, I failed you. This tragedy never should have happened. It should have been prevented long before any of my students ever felt the need to harm others. What he did was wrong. There’s no excuse…ever…for the kind of violence we suffered through here. But I became complacent. My vision became narrowed by years of routine and ritual, and I wasn’t looking for the unexpected. And I am profoundly and deeply sorry for that.
“Today, we return to Raleigh with heavy and broken hearts, but please know…I will never allow anything like this to ever happen to our community again. I promise to keep you safe. I promise to do better. Now, let’s go and shine…and let’s help each other remember how to breathe again.”
SILVER
I don’t think I’ve ever been this nervous. Alex has been to the house before, but never under these circumstances. Never as the boy I’m dating. Not as my official boyfriend. God, it’s still so weird to think of him in those terms. It feels stupid. Childish. Immature. Alex was shot not too long ago and nearly died. Seems to me there should be a weightier title for him now.
“Silver! Can you remember where we put that photo album with that one picture? Y’know, the one with you hiding behind the couch, taking a shit in your diaper?”
Dad is loving this.
In turn, I have learned that it’s possible to love a parent but also want them to writhe in pain. Nothing serious. A broken toe would be nice. Or surprise root canal surgery.
I almost trip over my own feet in my haste to make it down the stairs and into the dining room. Mom’s laid out the table with all the fancy cutlery and dishes, six places set around the massive, formal dining table that only gets used at holidays and for special occasions. I gape at the set-up, holding out my hands just as Dad enters the room.