Luckiest Girl Alive

Sometime in the spring of freshman year, when things finally settled enough to reveal what life would be like now that it had a big fat line drawn through it—before the slaughter, after—I received a letter from Mrs. Fi

Mom forbade me from writing her back, but I did anyway (“Thank you. I would never blame you for what he did. I don’t hate him. Even miss him sometimes”). I folded the piece of paper in half and slipped it under her door on an afternoon I noticed her car wasn’t in the driveway. I wasn’t strong enough for a tête-à-tête just yet, and I sensed Mrs. Fi

After I graduated college, Mrs. Fi

I smiled shyly. “Hi, Mrs. Fi

Mrs. Fi

The coffee table in the living room was piled high with photo albums and old newspapers. The choice placement of a coffee mug altered a headline in a yellowed copy of The Philadelphia Inquirer, POLICE THINK GUNMEN DID WORK ALONE. Mrs. Fi

“What can I get you to drink?” Mrs. Fi

“Yeah,” Arthur had said as I marveled at it. Green tea seemed very exotic to someone like me. Mom drank Folgers. “My mom is really anti-coffee.”

“Tea is fine,” I told her. I hate tea.

“Are you sure?” Mrs. Fi

“Maybe coffee then.” I laughed a little, and to my relief Mrs. Fi

“Gentlemen?” Mrs. Fi

“Please, Kathleen,” Aaron said. “Like I said, pretend we aren’t even here.”

For a moment I thought Mrs. Fi

Mrs. Fi

“Just milk!” I called back.

“What’s it like being here again?” Aaron asked.

I looked around the room, at the faded fleur-de-lis wallpaper and the harp hulking in the corner. Mrs. Fi

“Weird.” As soon as I said it, I remembered Aaron’s instructions from earlier. I should answer his questions in a complete sentence, since they would edit out his voice and what I said had to make sense on its own. “It’s very strange to be back here.”

“Here we go.” Mrs. Fi

Mrs. Fi

Aaron indicated the open seat beside me. “Kathleen, why don’t you sit next to Ani on the couch?”

Mrs. Fi

“It will help the shot if you can scooch in a little closer.” Aaron pinched his fingers together to show us what he meant.

I couldn’t look at Mrs. Fi

“Much better,” Aaron said.

The crew waited for us to say something, but the only sound was the hush of the dishwasher ru

“Maybe you could go through the photo albums?” Aaron suggested. “Talk about Arthur?”

“I’d love to see,” I tried.

As though programmed by the two of us, Mrs. Fi

The album creaked open on her lap, and Mrs. Fi

I smiled. “We used to go through ice cream by the carton here.”

“I know how he did it.” Mrs. Fi

“Oh, this.” Mrs. Fi

The cameraman moved behind us, his long lens closing in on the picture.

I reached out to hold the page down, to deflect the glare obscuring my view, but Mrs. Fi

What they say he is. A psychopath. Incapable of experiencing true human emotions, only mimicking those he observed in others: remorse, grief, compassion.

A lot of time and energy went into dismantling the dynamic between Arthur and Ben, identifying the leader of the pack. Understanding their motives would bring closure to the community, and the information could prevent a recurrence at another school. The country’s most renowned psychologists examined the evidence collected in the aftermath of the attack on Bradley—Ben’s and Arthur’s journals, their academic records, interviews with neighbors and friends of the family—and every single one arrived at the same conclusion: Arthur called it.

I arranged my face to signal sympathy, like Arthur had done for me so many times. “Do you know what I remember about him?”

Mrs. Fi