The days before she died was all the time that I really knew the real Anna Renee Joel. She was very sweet; always helpful and polite to me and that kindness made me feel threatened because whenever she talked to me my guard would come down and I was pretty much hypnotized. She could read the directions for soup from the back of a can and it would have sounded like poetry in motion.

Anna never seemed to have a dark side: everything was always sugar and rainbows—even down to her “Lisa Frank” notebook of a metallic unicorn. Perhaps it was a bit abnormal for a junior in high school to have the drive of a junior high school girl high on Skitttles and Dr. Pepper but, that’s how she was.

The following comes from what I learned about her. I tried to snip away the rumors and the damn lies that people who I will name said about her afterwards. Maybe I’ll go back and forth in time and maybe I’ll try to stay back in the past, a time that I still wish I could pause before that night occurred.

I had heard of William's sex drive. I wouldn't know by first person experience, but I heard about it as my high school was all about gossiping about everything on what passed as social media in the past: just flat out spewing out bold-face lies until one would grow legs and run. There was the clandestine powwow on the reservation which ended up with a car permanently left on the side of the river. The night at a party that had one too many ninth graders and, again, rumored, eight graders that got into a little more than a bottle or two of “Bartles and James Wild Berry”. Lastly the—supposedly desecration of the weight room. Rumor or not, I never touched any of the benches after hearing that.

The rumors died around the end of football season. We were tragically defeated by a team that no business of even being on the field with us, but William broke his ankle, putting him out of action and costing the team that chance at grid-iron glory. It was at that time when two new girls, juniors, enrolled at our school. The first girl was Susan Wilson. She only wore denim dresses and had her hair up in a ponytail almost every day. She may have been a part of some religious group or maybe she just liked to not brag about her looks.

She did have looks…the natural kind. Sure, every girl looked good, every single one of them had something going for them but, Susan was like au natural in her beauty. I assumed the words “Estee” and “Lauder” were not a part of her vocabulary. However, for as radiant as she was there was something about her attitude that ruined the beautiful mask she wore. She was very judgmental of everybody.

Yes, I understand how hypocritical I sound right now, but please allow me to elaborate. My judgement on others was decided after being treated like a dodgeball in a gym of nerds and I was given the title of king. It actually took a lot for me to mark someone down in my book of “not invited to my civil union” and Susan gave me a reason to write her name on her second day at school.

She was helping William to walk with his crutches when I walked out the door of a classroom and barely missed one of the crutches. In my defense, he was a bit too close to the right side of the hall so I could not see him. I tripped to the ground while William stumbled a little bit. Susan spun around to help William recover and then looked at me.
“Watch out, fag.”
Maybe she meant to say “hag” or “bag” or some other word but, there was a limited number of words she could have used that would have made any sense. She had said it loud enough for everyone in the immediate vicinity had heard it. I got up off of the floor and picked up book and binder that had fallen in opposite directions.

“Here, you dropped this,” a voice said as I turned my head to who was talking to me.
“Thank you,” I replied as she handed over my calculator.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine, just something that happens some times.”
“I think it was pretty rude,” she muttered, her voice just a bit shy of needing heard over the din of the students around us.
“Yeah, he can be.”
“I meant her.”
“I wasn’t expecting that from her,” I replied with a sigh.
“I have heard she never wear any make up.”
“You’re up to speed on the current news, then.”
“This is nothing compared to the school I used to go to. It was three stories tall and had so many students you could only walk one-way down the hall. These waves of students take ya’ down like a riptide.”
I heard a southern twang to her voice.
“You’re new here, aren’t you.”
“Second day. My name’s Anna.”
Anna had glowing red hair but, it her smile brilliantly outshined every hair on her head along with her crystal pendant earrings.
“Welcome to Reardan.”
“Thank you. I think you’re the first person, besides m’teachers to acknowledge me. It’s the accent, isn’t? People hear me and want to deduct sixty IQ points and assume I know how to shoot a gun.”
“Do you know how to shoot a gun?”
“I wouldn’t be from Alabama if I didn’t. Do you?”
“Only a Nintendo Zapper.”
“We got a few shotguns and some pistols. Dad’s not worried about the gov’nment or zombies. He just likes guns.”
I nodded.
“You should come over, meet the family.”
“Sure. Where do you live?”
“Down the highway, right before it makes that turn into the canyon. Sorry, I’ve been talkin’ too much, umm-
“Brian, but everyone calls me Bryce.”
“Nice to meet you, Bryce. Sorry it had to be like how it did.”
“It’s no problem,” I replied with the wave of my hand as the bell rang.
“Let’s talk later on. My locker’s 245. Have a good third period.”
“You too,” I’m sure I had a stupid grin on my face.