The fact that Adeline Huang had become one of my closest friends was a true miracle: we were complete opposites and didn’t start on very good terms. Adeline was one of the smartest kids in our class, and she’d moved to the small town of Riverview with her mom after her parents had divorced. Quickly moving to the top of our grade, she earned the disgust of many students for being too nerdy, way too competitive in all sports (except football, of course), and too quiet. Often, I would walk by and see her seated in the silent corner of the library, reading a book that, in many cases, would be considered above her grade level. But I knew not to get on her bad side. Even though many people knew who she was, and how fierce she would be if faced with negativity, students in my grade weren’t afraid to tease her. And frequently, that didn’t end very well. One of my friends, Hana, had been peer pressured into bullying Adeline for being way too intellectual (mainly because they were jealous about how she’d earned the favor of our teachers, who were famous for their intensive and often brutal teaching). Everybody can imagine what happened next. I wasn’t there when Hana bullied her, but somebody later told me that Adeline had gotten quite mad and got into a huge fight that resulted in several administrative figures having to break it up. Somehow — surprisingly — Adeline wasn’t the one to be mean to me. And I definitely wasn’t the type of person who would purposely be mean to somebody, even if they sort of deserved it. It was how I had been raised; with the belief that everybody, no matter who they are, should be treated with respect.
But something happened that changed both of our lives. Several months into the school year, sounds of gunshots echoed across campus, provoking many screams of terror and forcing students and teachers to hide or flee campus. I had no other choice but to follow Adeline to a spot that she’d repeatedly said would be a location where nobody could find us. I later learned from her mom that she had frequently explored the campus after school was dismissed, in order to get a better feel of where to escape to when an emergency, like a shooting, occurred. I rubbed my head, feeling anxiety for the people I’d left in my math class. At that moment, I just wished that Adeline and I hadn’t escaped on our own, but rather brought other people with us. We later escaped campus safely, after staff from our school had signaled the “all okay” — when the gunman had fled from school grounds.
News reports started emerging and I scanned the titles, which repeated phrases such as “shocked,” “deaths,” and “miracle that it wasn’t a mass shooting.” I didn’t think that I would recover from the shock and trauma I had experienced from the shooting but surprisingly, with the accompaniment of Adeline, I did. After the shooting happened, Adeline and I found time to connect with each other through the grief groups that the school offered, and that’s when our bond really locked into place. Maybe it didn’t help me heal completely, but it sure was worth it.
However, the following year, for some unspecified reason, Adeline moved to a town an hour from Riverside. I knew that she had some reason for doing so, but couldn’t help longing for her presence. But the following day, when I walked into my AP US History class, my teacher handed me a note from Adeline that said, “As long as the stars are shining above us, and the sand still sweeps across the sea, we will meet again.” And I knew that she would keep that promise.
But something happened that changed both of our lives. Several months into the school year, sounds of gunshots echoed across campus, provoking many screams of terror and forcing students and teachers to hide or flee campus. I had no other choice but to follow Adeline to a spot that she’d repeatedly said would be a location where nobody could find us. I later learned from her mom that she had frequently explored the campus after school was dismissed, in order to get a better feel of where to escape to when an emergency, like a shooting, occurred. I rubbed my head, feeling anxiety for the people I’d left in my math class. At that moment, I just wished that Adeline and I hadn’t escaped on our own, but rather brought other people with us. We later escaped campus safely, after staff from our school had signaled the “all okay” — when the gunman had fled from school grounds.
News reports started emerging and I scanned the titles, which repeated phrases such as “shocked,” “deaths,” and “miracle that it wasn’t a mass shooting.” I didn’t think that I would recover from the shock and trauma I had experienced from the shooting but surprisingly, with the accompaniment of Adeline, I did. After the shooting happened, Adeline and I found time to connect with each other through the grief groups that the school offered, and that’s when our bond really locked into place. Maybe it didn’t help me heal completely, but it sure was worth it.
However, the following year, for some unspecified reason, Adeline moved to a town an hour from Riverside. I knew that she had some reason for doing so, but couldn’t help longing for her presence. But the following day, when I walked into my AP US History class, my teacher handed me a note from Adeline that said, “As long as the stars are shining above us, and the sand still sweeps across the sea, we will meet again.” And I knew that she would keep that promise.