Thou Shalt Not(22)

He was shaking his head while he spoke, as if he was in disbelief too. His eyes had tears in them.

“Well, is she okay?” I asked, much louder than I had intended. It sounded like I had yelled at him.

“Luke, she died.” His voice trailed off and he collapsed into one of the desks.

I fell back into the chair at my desk, my head swimming.

“What, what do you mean? What do you mean she’s dead?”

I asked it out loud, but I kept asking it in my head too. West just sat there at the desk, tears in his eyes, staring off into space.

How could she be dead? I just saw her. She was fine. This has to be a misunderstanding. She’s too young for a heart attack.

“This is bullshit,” I said without thinking. Normally, that kind of language could get me fired, or severely reprimanded, but he didn’t even seem to hear it, or it didn’t register.

I stood up and pushed the stack of papers that were on my desk onto the floor. I didn’t want to believe it. I refused to believe it. This wasn’t happening. Not to Robin. Not to Walt. And sure as hell not to me, not again.

There were tears in my eyes as I ran down the hallway. I was going to go to the hospital. No thought went to my upcoming classes, to the quiz I had been preparing to administer. I didn’t care about any of it. I was going to see her. She was going to be fine. I went down the elevator and sprinted to my car. As I was about to open the driver’s side door, I felt my phone vibrate. I looked at the screen, and the name “Walt” flashed across it. In tears he told me the same thing West had said. He sounded a million miles away. I hung up and got into my car. I pounded on my steering wheel, hitting it as hard as I could with both hands. Tears poured down my face. The inside of my car was burning up, but I paid no attention to it. I felt like screaming at the top of my lungs, but somehow I refrained. I threw my phone down onto the floor in front of the passenger’s seat and cried some more. I sat there until one of the groundskeepers spotted me and alerted the office. The superintendent, Carl Wilson, came out, and told me that I should probably go home for the rest of the day, and that my classes would be covered.

I drove back to my house with tears streaming down my face. I was still pounding the steering wheel. I couldn’t remember having felt that angry in a long time.

Holly wasn’t at the house when I got there. I wasn’t sure where she was, but I hoped she would be awhile. As soon as I walked into the house I collapsed on the floor and began bawling. They were the same tears I had cried when I found out Carrie had cancer, the same tears I cried when we found out she had two weeks left, the same tears I cried for months after she died. They were angry tears. And they hurt, deeply.

My mind took me back to the waiting room, praying with Walt. I knew I had no business praying for her. Everything I pray for falls to pieces. If there was a God, which I wasn’t so sure about anymore, He had taken great lengths to avoid listening to me.

I had one Bible in the house. It was in the bookshelf by my television. I pulled it from the shelf for the first time in years and launched it across the room. It knocked something over in the kitchen, but I didn’t know what. I guess I figured if God didn’t know I was mad at Him, He would now.

“Why? Why her?” I yell. “Of all the people...of all the people...OF ALL THE PEOPLE! How could You do this? How could You let this happen?”

I buried my head in my hands, and cried harder than I think I have ever cried before. And the only words coming out of my mouth were “Why?”





Six Years Earlier

Carrie’s funeral was beautiful. It was held at Lakefront Community Church, the church through which the school was affiliated. The pastor of Lakefront, Paul Mitchell (no, not the salon guy—this Paul was bald) spoke, as well as a few other people, including Linda. I had been asked if I was going to want to speak, but that absolutely was not going to happen.

There was a good-sized turnout. Everywhere Carrie went, she had an impact on someone. The whole floor of nurses who had taken care of her at the hospital had shown up, along with most of the students in my classes. Friends from college and high school paid their respects, family of hers from around the country. Someone had mentioned to me that there was even a newspaper writer there, who had heard Carrie’s story and wanted to write a piece about her. I never saw the writer, or saw any story later.

People spoke, and I fought back tears the whole time. It’s strange how you can be prepared for something so completely, have so much warning ahead of time, and then be completely shocked and unprepared when it actually did happen. I had experienced death before, a few times, but this one hurt the most. I knew it would hurt for a long time.