This is a day.
School was fucking horrible.
I walked into the student lobby and it was dead, dead silence. Everyone had this empty look in their eyes. I saw some of my friends crying. I couldn't take it. I'd told myself over and over, I won't cry, I won't cry. I just went for the band room. Was hiccuping by the time I got there. I walked in to find about twenty of us sitting around and crying. I started crying, and Erin - a friend, not a close one, but a friend - just scooted over on her chair and let me sit with her, and we sat there and cried. Everyone stayed so close; there were no "personal bubbles" around anyone - we were never more than an inch or two away from the people we were with.
They tried to keep some semblance of normality going, but it didn't work. Almost nobody went out and marched, nobody went to class. Me, Erin, and Allison (a flute) ended up going to the auditorium - it was open for everyone. Everyone was crying, the guys, the teachers. We went to the art room too. Cried. There was a "moment of silence" for Ja'Lisa right as the first bell rang, and it really hit then. Gone.
I talked to my friend Dana on the way back to the band room. Cried. Sat outside the band room with Leah and Allison and Miss B., who just listened to us. Spent second hour and lunch in her office with Allison, Leah, and Tim, a bass drum; we talked about some unrelated happy things and laughed, and a little about Ja'Lisa and everything else. The principal forced us all to go to third hour, but none of the teachers assigned work; they just marked us there and let us go. In fourth hour band, we were OK - I'll tell you about our project later. Spent fifth hour and "study hall" (fifteen minutes long) talking with Tricia and Brock about things. I talked to a girl that was at the Catholic school with Ja'Lisa too; I haven't spoken to her in years, but it felt like the right thing.
Preston saved me again after school. Gave me a huge hug (hugs were everywhere today, everyone (me too) telling their friends they loved them) and helped me look for my lost keys. He told me he'd never seen my eyes that empty, which scared me, because I didn't think they were. Cheered me up and made me laugh; wouldn't let me go anywhere alone. I don't know what I'd do without that boy.
There is a hole in my wall where I punched it. My parents asked me how the day went and I almost hit them. I keep remembering things about Ja'Lisa that I'd forgotten. We're planning a memorial for her on the school track, because she was such an amazing runner. Elvis P. is all right, but still in the hospital; his brother Jason lost his eye and has over four hundred stitches and staples.
We just can't stop crying.