Walking these halls are hard. I won’t lie. It’s hard to think, “this is where I would always see Gina” or “this is where that infamous video of Joaquin was taken,” but in order to get to third period, I have to pass those spots around school and my brain has convinced itself that I need the daily reminder of what used to be there.

Walking with friends makes the commute more bearable but, walking alone to the bathroom, alone to other teachers classes, delivering Newspapers alone and especially going out for interviews with only me, myself and I, allows my brain to venture into this little dark corner that has formed around the idea that: it could happen again.

The media has left, but the memories are still here, fresh. We have spent every single school day inside this school, beside the place where 17 lives were unjustly taken, walking the halls they used to walk. While the news-trucks have driven off to cover other tragedies, we are still here, aching, yet pushing through the pain until we reach graduation. Class after class will finally be freed from the halls of this campus, and while we’re gone, our teachers need to stay, year after year, day after day, going through what we have finally escaped.