Total pages in book: 185
Estimated words: 180510 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 903(@200wpm)___ 722(@250wpm)___ 602(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 180510 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 903(@200wpm)___ 722(@250wpm)___ 602(@300wpm)
“It’s amazing, until it’s catastrophically heartbreaking.”
Dr. Byrd gives me a slow nod. He’s clueless. I don’t mean it disrespectfully. I’m his “undetermined.” Undetermined sucks.
We wind up our session with me feeling none the better. If I’m not going to let him medicate me, he’s helpless. I don’t think patients with near-death experiences comprise a large percentage of his clientele.
When I get home, I scroll through my emails to find the parapsychologist in Berkeley. I missed my appointment. It’s time to reschedule.
CHAPTER TWO
Two students dressed in trench coats went on a shooting spree at Columbine High in Littleton, Colorado.
Colten’s mom refused to let him watch the news. She wanted to protect him and his brother from such evil. We were twelve, so it wasn’t out of line with good parenting.
“Let’s talk about this,” Dad said to me a few nights after the horrific massacre. He and Mom sat me down at the kitchen table, and we discussed the events. It’s not that my parents weren’t “good” parents; they just had a different definition of good parenting.
“We don’t want you to be afraid to go to school,” Mom said, setting a plate of cookies and a glass of milk next to me.
“I’m not.”
“That’s good, but if you have questions—”
“Someone said they were bullied in school, and that’s why they did it,” I said.
“Well, we might never know since they’re no longer alive.” Dad leaned back a fraction and crossed his thick arms.
“What if they weren’t bullied?”
“What do you mean?” he asks.
“What if they just wanted to kill people because … they liked it?”
Rarely were my parents speechless, but that night, they had nothing. Not one word.
Finally, Mom cleared her throat. “Why do you think anyone would kill other humans for … fun?”
I shrugged. “I overheard one of my teachers talking to another teacher in the hallway. She said the boys were psychopaths. So I stopped by the library on my way home from school and looked up psychopath.”
“Um … Jo, you’re twelve. I don’t think it’s a good idea for a twelve-year-old to study psychopaths.” Dad’s face wrinkled. “It’s a lot for your immature brain.”
“Nothing is wrong with my brain. You’ve always said I’m too smart for my own good.”
They laughed, but it was an uneasy laugh.
“If they were bullied, it would mean they hated the kids they killed. But psychopaths don’t have feelings like that. They think they are better than everyone else. They don’t feel bad about the things they do. They don’t think about what other people are feeling when they do bad things to them. They don’t have any regrets. Can you imagine doing bad things and not feeling guilty? You don’t feel guilty when you shoot a deer, do you, Dad? Or if you have to shoot a bank robber, right?”
Dad coughed, bringing his fist to his mouth and easing his head side to side. “That’s … that’s different, Jo. I’m not a psychopath. I would never hurt innocent people, and if I did by accident, I would feel terrible. Remorseful. Pained.”
I roll my eyes. “I wasn’t calling you a psychopath. I’m just saying, maybe those two boys had something wrong with them that made them not feel bad about killing other humans the way you don’t feel bad about the deer. Dustin Santi told me people eat dogs in other countries the way we eat cows or chickens here. So what I think is kinda weird and gross is not weird and gross to other people. I bet those two boys who killed those kids would have eaten dogs. Don’t you think?”
For the second time that night, I left my parents speechless.
While other kids at my school were lined up at the door to the guidance counselor’s office to discuss how scared they were by the Columbine shooting, I was eating cookies and milk with my parents while discussing psychopaths and other cultures eating puppy dogs.
“Listen, sweetie, maybe don’t talk about this with other kids … or even other adults for that matter,” Mom said.
“About psychopaths or about eating puppy dogs?” I dipped my last bite of cookie into the milk.
My parents shared a look. “Both,” Mom said.
“Why?”
“Because it’s not just kids who are in shock and scared; it’s adults too. Parents are having a hard time sending their kids to school because they’re worried it could happen to them.”
“I’ve been going to school. Are you worried about me?”
“We love you. And of course we’d be devastated if anything happened to you, but the chances of it happening to you at your school are really, really slim. You have a better chance of dying in a car accident,” Mom said.
“Or getting hit by lightning,” Dad added.
Mom shot him a scowl.
He lifted a shoulder. “What? It’s true.”
“I’m going to Colten’s.” I stood, taking my glass to the sink.