“Run, Hide, Fight.”
Those were the words I read on my phone as I heard pop after pop coming from two buildings away. All at once, it clicked in my brain what was happening — that I was a part of a school shooting.
My first instinct was to call my mom. Being an out-of-state student at Michigan State University, the phone was the only real comfort I had. For four hours I cried in my closet, clutching my pepper spray and hoping my walls were thick enough to stop any bullets coming my way.
I still can’t go in that closet because any time I do, I remember how I thought my sister may hear me dying on the phone. I thought I would never see my friends again as building after building was called out on the police scanner.
I spent my entire childhood telling myself it wouldn’t happen to me. We practiced drill after drill in the wake of Sandy Hook and Parkland. Now, the only way I sleep at night is by telling myself it won’t happen to my sister, because I can’t say that about myself anymore.