The Girl You Thought Would Pull the Trigger

It wasn’t just a joke to me.

Photo by Yaoqi on Unsplash

I want to curl up into a ball whenever I hear of another mass shooting.

But it’s not for the reason you think — at least not all of it. I come away horrified from the news, always, though my reaction runs deeper than that.

One of my teachers once made it clear he thought I could be one of those shooters if the dominoes fell the way he thought.

I was in high school, perhaps senior year, but the edges blur a bit when it comes to all the finer details.

There had been a spike of gun-related events, so the discussion of safety in school was not uncommon.

However, I never expected a teacher — someone I liked and even trusted — would imply I was the most likely suspect when it came to “potential shooters.”

It started off as a joke.

“How do we know Jill isn’t going to waltz in here with a gun someday?”

Awkward laughter fluttered through the classroom — yes, he said it in front of my classmates — yet I saw the way his wife, a fellow teacher at the school, cut him a glare that spoke shut up, shut up, SHUT UP.

As my face flared with embarrassment, I remember not being able to look in the eyes of my…