That's Not What Happened

Content Warning: This section includes discussion of school shootings, death by gun violence, trauma, mental and emotional health, substance use disorder, and grief.

Starting a letter headed “Dear Reader,” Leanne “Lee” Bauer explains that much of what people think they know about the Virgil County High School shooting three years ago is inaccurate. She takes responsibility for the false narrative regarding her best friend, Sarah McHale, a victim known as “the Girl with the Cross Necklace” (1). Lee has four first-person letters from the survivors that offer a truer account of the tragedy, but she now doubts her original intention to release the letters publicly: “Maybe some truths are better left buried” (2). She hopes writing her own letter will guide her.

Each subsequent chapter is a continuation of Lee’s letter to the reader.

Lee begins with the third anniversary of the shooting. She spends this difficult day—March 15, the “Ides of March”—with fellow survivors Miles Mason and Denny Lucas. They, along with Ashley Chambers, Eden Martinez, and Kellie Gaynor, witnessed the shooting and survived. Ashley now has a daughter and cannot join them, but she checks on the rest of them, except Kellie, via text.