This Is Where It Ends

by Marieke Nijkamp

“He says music should have heartbreak and happiness, storm clouds and stars, as long as there’s emotion. I think that’s true for dance too.”

The shooter. Two words that taste sour and foreign. My brother.

Chris’s voice trembles when he says, “Claire, I don’t think anything happened to Tyler. I think Tyler is happening to us.”

Fear and survival are two sides of the same coin. Dad taught me that. These last two years, he proved it again and again and again. Terror is our strongest force because we’re only afraid when we have something to lose—our lives, our loves…our dignity.

“He’ll catch his death,” he said. “He goes running toward it like an old friend, and it will embrace him before he knows.” Tomás always shrugged off these comments. “I’m running with the wind,” he’d say. “And no one will ever catch me. Not even death.” I sag against the wall, and another bang shakes my memories. I tell myself that was all it was—thunder. A storm come to sweep him off his feet. Come to make him fly.

“For the first few weeks after we came here, my father would tell me the same thing every night: You can’t always keep your loved ones with you. You can’t always settle your life in one place. The world was made to change. But as long as you cherish the memories and make new ones along on the way, no matter where you are, you’ll always be at home.”

All of us. Students and teachers. Opportunity. But we aren’t complete. When we reach out to join hands, we’re all aware of the thirty-nine dead. Of the twenty-five in the hospital.

“We are not better because we survived. We are not brighter or more deserving. We are not stronger. But we are here. We are here, and this day will never leave us. Nor should it. We will remember the wounded. We will remember the lost.”