She was a few years from
retiring and had a remarkable teaching record -- Justin still came
across her old students in his class who remembered her fondly.
He asked her if anything was wrong, which surprised her again, but she
said no. He offered to help with some last minute cleaning, but she
declined, visibly becoming more nervous. Instead of explaining
anything, which he thought (knew) would make things worse, he decided
to invite Mrs. Nolla and her husband to a non-existent faculty dinner
on Saturday. She thanked him, and he left, wondering how quickly he
could throw together a faculty dinner on Saturday if they decided to
RSVP.
The dinner never happened, because while Justin sat in his third period
Physics course, Mr. Nolla entered his wife's class and shot her dead in
front of her twenty-six students. When he shot himself a few moments
later, he had the decency to do it outside.
Justin tried to live with the guilt, but it kept growing inside him
like a child, or like cancer. He sought ought a psychologist, who kept
harranging that it wasn't his fault, a fact Justin knew in his head.
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