That's Not What Happened

The novel's narrative patterns are strongly established in this section, including flashbacks, victim portraits, and the choice to refrain from naming the shooter. These narrative choices speak to The Complexities of Truth and Perspective, as they allow for examination of each character’s personal truth and subsequent perception of the events of the shooting.

Lee continues using flashback-style chapters to reveal exposition, such as how she and Eden became friends. This background information regarding Eden helps to explain Lee’s visit to her college and demonstrates that Eden’s emotional struggles, manifesting now in the use of alcohol, began in the aftermath of the shooting. This highlights another approach to grief; where Ashley is angry at Kellie, Eden has developed a substance use disorder to feel less anxiety. Each survivor represents a different kind of grief, highlighting how personal loss and trauma are, highlighting The Impact of Trauma on Individual Identity. The more crucial flashback in this section regards Lee’s learning how others are reacting to Sarah’s supposed last actions. In another nod to the theme of The Impact of Trauma on Individual Identity, those who never knew Sarah are elevating her into an inspirational figure. Too shocked and upset to tell her mother the truth, this moment incites Lee’s secret-keeping, which will cause guilt and remorse to build over the next three years. Ironically, at the time, Lee has no idea of the repercussions to come: “That day, I wasn’t thinking about how the story must’ve got started. Or where it had come from. Kellie Gaynor didn’t even cross my mind” (203). With this and other flashbacks in the novel, the chronological timeline of events is revealed in a way that allows for more sensitivity to the ironies of the story. Each survivor grapples with their own truth and experience, and even those who were in the same room, like Miles and Ashley, have completely different mindsets regarding the effect of these events. Miles, for example, feels he has incorrectly painted a hero, while Ashley uses the story that she incorrectly ascribes to Sarah to motivate herself. Additionally, without Sarah’s true story, Lee is rendered defenseless against people like Ashley who will resent her readiness to challenge their view of Sarah. Brother Lloyd, for example, believes that Sarah’s story of martyrdom has led to a greater embracement of teenage Christianity, demonstrating how Sarah’s story has become more about others than herself, highlighting the danger of The Role of Stereotyping in Shaping Narrative.

Like the previous sections of the novel, this section includes victim portraits. These passages serve as brief memorials to the victims and offer anecdotal but insightful details about their connection to the author of the portrait. Brenna’s portrait contrasts with Sarah’s, as Lee knew Brenna only as an acquaintance. Lee’s portrait of Brenna, though, identifies Brenna by her actions, talents, and words instead of her label as a shooting victim. This common purpose is met with each victim portrait in the novel, and it speaks to one of the novel’s goals in amplifying the voices of victims and survivors rather than that of the shooter, who remains nameless in the text. This stylistic choice holds meaning beyond language alone, much like the structure of the text speaks to the precarious nature of truths versus lies, gradually revealing layers of the truth before exploring Kellie’s story.

Sarah’s victim portrait, however, also offers personal details about her. Significantly, Lee returns to a common thread she touched on with Richie McMullen’s portrait: Sarah had a tendency to protect Lee, who appears to others as shier and quieter than Sarah, from bullies. For example, Sarah boldly addressed the boy, Evan Samuels, who rudely stated that “Lee’s lucky Sarah is a good Christian […] because clearly that’s just charity” (149), referring to Lee and Sarah’s friendship. Lee also reveals that Sarah, more outgoing and vivacious, sought to help Lee along in social interactions. These protective gestures compile as the novel proceeds. Sarah’s shielding of Lee in the victim portrait, though, juxtaposes ironically with Lee and Sarah’s last moments together, when Lee can offer no such protection to Sarah against the shooter. Lee’s guilt over keeping the truth to herself for so long is compounded by the guilt she feels in not protecting Sarah. Though she could not have stopped the shooter, the bullets meant for her and Sarah only hit Sarah as they hid together in the bathroom stall. Lee’s guilt intersects with her grief, as she watched her best friend die but lives with a false public version of Sarah, preventing Lee from fully grieving.

Lee never names the shooter, and in others’ letters and portraits, the name is redacted. Further, Lee, as the compiler of the letters, portraits, and flashbacks, never comments on the reason for omitting the shooter’s name. Similarly, the pieces of writing do not address the suspected reasons for the shooter’s actions or his background. Lee describes the community’s choice to leave his name off the memorial in the cafeteria early in the novel, and in like form, Lee does not include a victim portrait of him. The result is a narrative focused on survivors, victims, and the aftermath, which speaks to the values instilled in the novel. The shooter is unacknowledged because the lives of those he took are the focus of the text, and narratives like Sarah’s, which relies heavily on stereotypes, approach the idea that even with victims and survivors, some lives are made more worthy of remembering. Sarah is made into a martyr that she very likely did not want to be rather than remembered and appreciated for who she truly was, while Kellie has essentially lived in exile ever since trying to claim the cross necklace that did indeed belong to her. Here, the danger of The Role of Stereotyping in Shaping Narrative reappears, as it makes Sarah one-dimensional and effectively erases Kellie from the community and the tight-knit group of survivors.

Lee faces new trials, conflicts, and complications in this section. For example, Lee worries about Eden’s actions when she visits Eden at college, and she feels some additional guilt sneaking Kellie’s contact information while Eden is sleeping. This visit, however, has additional and deeper repercussions for Lee’s character development. Eden’s substance use disorder shows Lee that even when a survivor of trauma appears to move on, as Eden does at college with her public speaking, they may not “be okay”; for Lee, this increases her motivation to pursue and express the true narratives regarding the shooting. Her objective is strengthened, in fact, just in time for the community’s growing animosity against Lee, which sets the stage for increased external conflict, important choices, and coming-of-age growth in her character in the last sections.