"Littered by Mind and Memory" by Sara Rowlinson
It would start with a sentence, one that I uttered in a nuanced tone, but held far more truth
than anticipated.
I just know I’m not going to graduate from there.
This felt childish, to say the least, more of an insult or backhanded comment, rather than
the balance of my future being spoken in ten little words. I’ve heard time and time again from
people like my mother and relatives who know my story trying to relieve my conscience from
guilt by saying words like “it wasn’t your fault” or “you needed to leave”, instead of saying “it
must have been hard”, and “how are you feeling about it”. It’s never easy to leave things in your
past, especially when reminders of the very thing you’re running from are everywhere.
It was November 18th, 2021 the day the school rang with the screams of students and
teachers. The memory reflects like a mirror when I look back on it.
I was walking to my 7th-period class, not even a 15-foot gap between the difference of
the previous period. I made my way into the classroom and set down my backpack next to the
chair, kneeling to unzip the bag to get out my laptop. The metal exterior made a swift clunk as it
made contact with the desk. Familiar faces of my classmates echoed as the room filled. I stood
back up and leaned against the edge of the desk, waiting for class to start. The next thing I heard
was the low buzz of the intercom before a booming voice statically filled the room.
“GET IN YOUR CLASSROOMS NOW, THIS IS A LOCKDOWN”
My heart dropped.
I went numb.
I don’t remember how I made it to the corner of the room.
I sank slowly into the ground as the lights flicked off.
Another buzz.
“GET INTO YOUR CLASSROOMS NOW. RUN”
Her voice was strained, fearful.
My teacher poked his head out into the hallway.
“GET IN A CLASSROOM,” he yelled down the hall.
Across the school, I heard doors slamming, and shoes squeaking against the scuffed
linoleum of that school.
I waited for a gunshot, but none came.
I waited for a scream, but none came.
Time stood still for a brief moment as my eyes flicked across the dark room making eye
contact with every person in that room. No one was missing, I let out a small breath. I pulled out
my phone from the pocket of my sweatpants. The glow of my phone illuminated my face as I
opened my text messages.
Is everyone ok? (Sent to GroupChat)
We’re in a lockdown, I think it’s for real this time. (Sent to Mom)
I shifted my gaze upward toward the ceiling, it pained me to think of this. I shifted back
down to the delivered message, typing out a new one.
I love you (Sent to Mom)
I turned off my phone, laying it flat on my stomach as I thought about the words I just
sent. Would they be my last? I turned my head to the door, waiting for the moment someone
would break it down and end it all. Would my death be painful, a long prolonged fearful death? I
felt a tap on my shoulder and I turned to see one of my friends pointing their cellphone towards
me, an image of four cop cars reflected at me. I looked up from the image to her eyes, they were
darkened and glossy like she was about to cry. My heart ached with what little comfort I could
give her.
I tried to close my eyes, scrunching them together almost as a way to scrub anything from
my mind, but all that flooded my senses were thoughts of my friends, and how I knew they were
just as alone as I probably was. Scared of the unknown, and even more afraid of the truth.
Forty-five minutes passed before the intercom let out the all-too-familiar buzz again.
“We are out of lockdown and moving into restricted movement for the time being.”
The lights flicked back on, and I dizzyingly stood up from the corner of the room,
stretching my back out from the uncomfortable position it was subjected to.
“Are you ok?”
I turned to see my teacher standing in front of one of my classmates. His back was turned
away from me, I couldn’t see his facial expression, but I heard clear as day the words that he
dared to say.
“No, I almost just fucking died”
Once we were allowed to move to our next period, I entered the hallway to be greeted by
a police officer in a bulletproof vest. He had his hand on his gun, ready to draw. The small shine
of his handcuffs reflected off the overhead light. He had a grim expression on his face, like the
kind you see when someone is trying to cover up something.
I entered my study hall classroom, immediately sitting down to sink myself in my chair.
“It was a riot,” I overheard.
“My back hurts,” followed soon after that.
“I was stepped on”
“Are you ok?”
“God no”
The videos circulated the school, ones where students screamed amidst the crowd and
ones where students screamed “gun”. For which the retaliation only struck fear into dozens more
students who were trapped in the cluster of people. There were videos of students' necks being
stepped on, and the surrounding students being suffocated against the lockers. Several teachers
and students went out in ambulances.
Cases of violence were nothing new to me, toxicity in its rawest form had taken over and
plagued even the best of people in that school. I can name countless days that ambulances visited
our school, once again taking dozens of overdosed kids to be stitched back together only to fall
into the same cycle of addiction. These types of occurrences were so normal, so integrated into
our social life that talking about anything else was near impossible. Looking back at the situation
now, I think I was just trying to survive. There’s a difference between living in fear and being
controlled by it, a saying I think a lot of people in that place could relate to.
I was sitting in my math class at Downingtown West, struggling to focus and understand
the somewhat foreign concept of whatever we were learning that day. This was only about 3
months after I left my old school.
My teacher announced before we were able to pack up that the following day there would
be an intruder drill. My ears perked up at the sound of those words curving around the corner of
her lips. Just as quickly had the mood shifted in the room, the bell rang. I quickly shuffled
through the crowds of students filling and suffocating the hallways. I decided to keep on the
straight path towards the edge of the building instead of making the turn to go to the cafeteria for
my study hall period. The last bell rang to signal the start of the period and students made their
way into their classrooms, the halls becoming scarcely empty once again. My hands started to
shake, and my breathing spiraled out of control. I tried fidgeting with my fingers, rubbing the
inside of my pinky finger with my opposite thumb, a nervous tick that sometimes was able to
calm my mind down, but nothing helped. The sporadic separation of breaths got more
inconsistent and the fear of being stuck like this grew. I thought about going into the guidance
office to see if my counselor was free, but every time I passed by the room while continuously
making laps around the school, it became even harder to open that door. I felt like there was
nowhere else to go.
Since then, numerous of these drills have come and gone, and every one of them took me
back to what happened in that room. It’s been well over two years since I’ve been in that spot,
but I can still see the frightened faces of my classmates, and hear those words he said to my
teacher.
It’s like looking through glass, there is a barrier between me and them, but almost nothing
prevents the glass from shattering and the shards from reopening closed wounds. Somewhat
hazy, but still like it was yesterday.
I vividly remember sitting in my guidance counselor’s office fidgeting with the end of the
zipper of my jacket, the ends of my sleeves stained with black mascara and wet from tears. I had
gone into her office that day because it was the anniversary of the riot. Over that year I hadn’t
once made the time to grieve the loss of my previous life. Not once did I talk about it. As the
stuffy air filled my nostrils and the embarrassment of sitting there in shame, she said something
that struck me.
“You need to focus on the now, the present is all that matters”
There was something almost hurtful about those words, I can’t exactly put my tongue on
it, but it almost felt wrong to feel that way. Like moving on was an insult to everything I built
there, and everything I have now. I knew more than anyone that much of the guilt I felt about the
situation was my own doing. I had accumulated these feelings until it was way too much to
handle. When they did finally surface, it was far more painful than I thought it was going to be.
Out of all the things I hope to say in my life, let me start with this. I will never be
ungrateful for the things that have happened in my life. Most of all, I will never be ungrateful for
how blessed I have been. Those people I left behind, I will never forget. Not because of the guilt
of breaking off our relationships for the sake of moving forward, but because of the person they
made me today. It’s really hard to put such complicated feelings on paper, but there is one thing I
do know how to say. I hate that school because of the decisions it made me make, but I will
never regret the things it taught me.
I won’t lie to you and say that I have completely moved on from that point in my life.
There are days when I get stuck in slumps that make it difficult to focus on anything else but my
past. I know now that those types of things are inevitable and those memories will probably
never leave me. The difference between the person two years ago and now is that I know how to
take those feelings and validate them instead of putting them off. I know that this seems
unfinished as well, but in reality, there was so much that was encased in that situation that many
people have never heard me talk about, so many minor details that went into what finally pushed
me over the edge. I just want people to know more than anything, you are not defined by your
past, but the unwillingness to grow out of that into something new was the bane of my existence,
and the reason I struggled silently for so long.
I don’t pity the person I was, she was misguided and incredibly stubborn. Knowing the
difference between being strong and silently suffering is a fine line, one I thought I was partial
to. To me, it’s important that I know that difference, and most of all be present because right now
that’s all that matters.
