Zach Cartaya (ZC) and Lauren Cartaya (LC)

ZC: When you pile 60 seventeen-year-olds together in a small space, you’re going to go through what everybody would expect: fear and tears and prayers. But as the minutes drag into hours, you start to become a seventeen-year-old again whether you like it or not. One of my friends was laughing and scared that she was going to die a virgin. A girl peed in Mr. Andres’ Thermos and we never told him about it. We popped the ceiling tiles off and we signed it in case we die. There was so much going on. I don’t remember a lot of getting home.

LC: I remember standing outside, waiting for you. You walked right by me like I was a ghost.

ZC: I was a ghost. I was just in a state of shock.

LC: That summer after Columbine happened, I played softball nonstop and I was so angry I chewed so much bubblegum. I had ten cavities.

ZC: There’s no real good way to express your anger…and it comes out in the weirdest places. I remember we would smoke cigarettes and pot in the men’s room and a Jefferson County police officer walked in and he’s like, “Are you smoking pot?” and we looked at him dead-eyed and said, “What the fuck are you going to do about it?” And he pivoted and walked out the door.

LC: Yeah. You know, after the shooting, I definitely blocked out a lot of life before that.

ZC: It eliminated most of that year for me – that academic year.

LC: Yeah. I remember my sixteenth birthday, like going and getting my driver’s license…but that’s it. I can’t tell you anything that happened up until the time that I sat down and I started taking a test and heard people screaming. And this year it’s just…I have these dreams that are so vivid of me, you know, having to tell parents that their kids aren’t coming out while I’m holding mine.

ZC: It never goes away.

LC: Never.

ZC: But recovery is a marathon and not a race, and you just have to keep running it. So over 20 years, I had to let my anger go. Because if you don’t let that anger go, it’s going to consume you. And it’s consumed way too many of us.

LC: Yeah. And…it’s always good to have a brother that can relate. You definitely have given me strength to heal.