It Goes Without a Trace

The ride wasn’t long, but every bump or pothole set another wave of pain through my body. It was too much to bear. I lapsed between consciousness as I was wheeled into the hospital. No matter how hard I tried to stay awake, I finally let go. And I was gone in an instant.

Seven days later, on my seventeenth birthday, after not waking up, they pulled the plug on my life support. Of course, mentally I was already gone, off to a beautiful horizon. If only my parents knew they really hadn’t killed me. I was as good as dead the moment that single bullet ripped through my lung.

Sure, it grieved my parents to know I was gone, but my brother and friends took it much worse. Mikey started popping pills, and became a raging alcoholic. Jepha used the very weapon that killed me to take his own life. Frank dropped out of school. Many are in therapy.

But the tragic shooting has also brought people together. Quinn and Lindsey were married not long after graduation. They now live in sunny Florida, taking care of their new baby boy, Gerard Devlynn Allman, named for me, the friend they lost so many years ago.

The community never fully recovered. Of the student body and staff, only 319 of the previous 551 students and staff members survived. There were many casualties among the staff, as many risked their lives to save the students.

Our lives ended in a day that lives in infamy in New Jersey. And to think… it all could have been avoided if a stubborn teenager deserted his pride.