Imagine (A Short Story)

Never.

  The morning after the shooting you wake up late. On a normal day you would wake up at six. But today you wake up at ten. Will anything ever be normal again? When you go out of your room, you hear voices. Your parents. They are talking about you.
  Staying quiet, you press up against the wall and listen.
"Nick, we can't just not send him to counseling! I mean have you spoke to him?" Your mom sounds desperate.. Scared.
"Michelle, no ones spoke to him. He hasn't said a word. Not to anyone in the family at least! That's the problem. Why would he talk to a grief counselor? They don't know anything about what he's gone through. Right now, he needs his family. Not strangers digging into his thoughts and feelings." Your fathers idea actually sounds like a good one.
  Deciding you've listened long enough, you walk into the room and open a cupboard. Your parents immediately fall silent and stare at you. They know you heard every word. They feel guilty. You can see it in their eyes almost as clearly as you can see your own reflection.
  But you don't care. Emotions don't matter anymore. Nothing really does. You feel.. Empty. Numb. Maybe you SHOULD go see a counselor. But like your dad said; they won't understand. They've never been through this.
  After a few minutes of silence, your mom purses her lips and shoots your dad a look that says talk to him! You finish pouring cereal into a bowl you don't remember pulling out and put the cereal away.
  Your parents are having a silent conversation about who gets to comfort you. They are scared. So much has happened to you that they don't know how to approach you. They don't want to set you off but they need to know your OK.
  Sighing, you grab your bowl of cereal off the table and turn to your parents. You force a smile on your face that feels fake and brittle. You pause for a moment and finally speak.
"Good morning." Your parents stare at you in shock as you walk out of the room. Not believing your fine but not wanting to push a response. Your still fragile. 
  The rest of your morning is spent sitting in bed staring at a wall. So many thoughts.. So much pain. Its paralyzing. Your so surrounded by memory's and shock and pain that your immobile. Trapped in your own brain.
  You struggle to focus, find something else to think about. To take away your pain. You don't want this burden. Its too much. Your suffocating in your own misery. You look around, not really seeing the objects in your room. Eyes refusing to focus on anything. You concentrate as hard as you can and your eyes finally focus.
  Your cereal is untouched and sits on your nightstand, soggy and cold. Untouched.
  Your bed is clean and made. Blankets all arranged to perfection. Your sister must have come in while you were downstairs and made your bed.
  Your dresser holds picture of your family and you on it. Your smiling and happy and innocent.. No. Don't focus on that. No pain.
  Your window is firmly closed and wet with the moisture from the cold outside.
There's a box next to the door inside your room.
Where did that come from?
  You slowly get up for the first time in three hours and approach the box. Bending over, carefully not touching the floor more than needed, you pick up the box. Tucking it under your arm you return to the bed and sit down.
  Staring at the box, you can't quite figure what it is. Its about as big as a toaster and colored black and red. Opening it, you find paper wrap. That's nothing new. Pushing it aside, you find a new pair of shoes.
  You're furious. Raging. You know there's really no reason to be mad but for some reason seeing those shoes sitting so innocently in the box, unworn, makes you pissed.
  You swallow your anger and carefully close the box. Setting it on the floor, you try to focus on something else. Its not enough. The anger remains, simmering under the surface. You take a deep breath and pick up the box again.
  Gathering up your strength, your throw it as hard as you can across the room. It crashes into the wall with a dull Thud. Nodding you head in satisfaction, you return to staring at the wall.
  But why did the shoes make you so mad? You try to think rationally. Your mom just wants to help. You burned your other pair because they reminded you of the shooting. Of Amy. The blood. The fear. New things seem like your moving on. Forgetting. But you don't want to forget. You need the memory. And receiving new shoes feels like betraying that memory.
  You hear your parents walk up the stairs and approach your room. You can tell they are trying to be quiet, just making sure your OK and not doing anything. But your so sensitive to everything, so in tune with everything, that you heard them anyways.
  But you don't especially care that they are worried. You just need time to keep processing everything. The relief you felt earlier, that gratitude that your family hasn't forgotten, that they still cared, was gone. Now all you wanted was to be left with your misery.
  You can feel them. They are watching you, trying to figure out how damaged you are. That's all you are now. Damaged goods. But your OK with that.
  You turn to your parents, surprising them once again. When you speak your voice is hoarse and deeper than it should be. Which seems to be happening a lot recently.
  "I am fine. Don't worry. I just have a lot to.. Process. But I'll be OK. I promise." You finish with another forced, brittle smile.  They see straight through your lies and seem to just accept the fact your grieving. They give each other a look and seem to agree on something.
  "Jake?" Your mom begins hesitantly, obviously nervous about what she was about to say.
You turn to face her fully, raising an eyebrow and boring questioningly. She smiles a little.
  " The police called me, they wanted to talk to you.. But you were busy.." Throwing shoes at walls. You fill in the gap in her sentence.
You nod again, urging her to continue. She takes a deep breath and smiles again. A real smile.
  You realize you never really noticed how truly beautiful your mom is, you just sort of took her for granted. Like a lot of other things..
  You tune in to what your mom was saying and feel your heart speed up dramatically.
  "The police wanted to let you know that the girl you saved..? I think her name was Amy?"
Was.
Was.
  You feel the tears start up again. Dammit. Why was your mom smiling so hard? Was she heartless? Your mom trails off as she sees the tears fall from your eyes. She rushes forward and falls to her knees, taking you hand with one hand and wiping your tears with the other. 
  "No sweetie! No. She didn't die. I'm sorry, I should have paid more attention to what I was saying. She's OK! She wanted to see you actually.."
  That was all it took. You leapt to your feet and shot downstairs. Shoes didn't matter, clothes didn't either. You ran to the car and sat in the seat, waiting for your mom. She took about half a minute more than you but it felt like hours..
  The ride to Broward Hospital felt like a few seconds instead of the 15 minutes. When your mom slowed down in front of the parking lot, she wasn't moving fast enough.
  You shot out of the car and ran inside. The lady at the front desk asked who you were looking for. What is Amy's last name? How did you not know this?
  Shaking your head in frustration, you tell her your looking for Amy who was the school shooting survivor. The nurse smiled sympathetically and gave you the room number.
105.
You raced through the halls until you came upon the room. You froze. Your heart was beating wildly, whether it was from exertion or excitement or fear. You couldn't tell.
  You take a deep breath and raise your hand to knock. Its shaking again. You clench it into a fist so tight your knuckles turn white and your veins stand out. Ever so lightly, you tap the door.
Her voice is one you never really paid attention to, but now it was the most beautiful thing you ever heard.
"Come in."

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OK I want to make something clear. The people in this story are not real. The events are. The shooting happened and the hospital and school are the same. But none of the characters exist. This story is to raise awareness of what a shooting is like. What I believe its like. This is to share my views with the world. I will wrote more story's like this in the future, but this is my start. Most of the story's I'm planning on writing are on problems in the real world and what it's like for the survivors. Thank you for reading, please leave opinions and comments. Let me know what you are thinking.