The Truth About Us

This memory would haunt me...

THE MOMENT ABBY STEPPED inside the heavy double doors of Kennedy High, she wanted to turn back around again. Her lack of sleep over the weekend hadn’t helped clear the overwhelming fog from her brain. As she made her way to her locker on what felt more like cinder blocks than feet, she wondered how she’d get through an entire day. Her head was on another planet.

She grabbed the books she needed for her first two periods. With a sharp thwack, she shut her locker door and pressed her forehead against the cold metal. Closing her eyes, she wished for bed. After her discovery of the private investigator’s death, she spent the better part of the evening scouring through pages of the journal. Even now, the presence of it beckoned her from within her backpack. Only a few entries away from finishing it, she had to find a clue of its relevancy in all this. The fact her grandfather spent time in Auschwitz was no secret. So, what answers could it possibly hold, other than serving as a distraction from her grief?

Distraction or not, she wasn’t even sure the journal was helping. Sure, it kept her mind off GG’s physical absence, but she couldn’t help but feel herself falling down the rabbit hole of depression. The journal wasn’t exactly a light read. Ful

l of horrific stories, the appalling accounts of what the Jews went through wasn’t helping her already fragile state-of-mind. And the more she read, the more painful and difficult it became to wrap her head around the fact the author was her own grandfather—her flesh and blood—and not a work of fiction.

Regardless, she’d finish it, then re-read it slowly if she had to. There had to be something she was missing. After all, GG said the answers were in the details, and with her level of exhaustion, she was lucky she could read at all, let alone find some sort of cryptic clues in the text.

“Hello! Earth to Abby...”

Abby opened her eyes and turned to face Cammie. “Hey,” she said, lifting her forehead from her locker.

“Welcome back.” Cammie smiled at her, her raven hair shining under the harsh fluorescent light.

Abby answered with a grunt and joined her as they walked to their first class.

“You want to go to the baseball game tonight?” Cammie asked.

“Um, I don’t think so. Not much of a baseball fan,” Abby said, distracted, her mind still on the journal.

“Cute boys in tight pants. Biceps. Baseball caps. What’s not to like?”

“I know. I just...” They paused as they reached their classroom, and Cammie moved in front of Abby, forcing her to finish.

“What?” Cammie crossed her arms over her chest. “You can’t just stay home crying every night. You need to go out. Get some fresh air. Talk to boys and have fun. Come and get your mind off things,” she said, reaching out. “You hardly ever hang out with us.”

Abby bit the inside of her cheek. Of course she thought she’d been sitting at home doing nothing but crying since Wednesday night. And she would’ve been, if it weren’t for GG’s letters.

Abby sighed. “You sound like my mom.”

“Well, the lady has a point.” Cammie grinned, then stepped aside as they entered their class. “Will you at least think about it?”

Abby nodded and tried her best to look as though she might consider the offer, even though she knew deep down she’d do nothing of the sort. Not when the truth hung in the air in front of her like the proverbial dangling carrot. She could think of nothing else and knew if she went, she’d be no fun. Her mind would be preoccupied the entire night.

As if to prove her point, over the next twenty minutes, she tried to focus on the nuanced romance of Romeo and Juliet in her literature class. She really did, but she found nothing more mundane than the tale of the two star-crossed lovers who foolishly lost their lives for each other. I mean, how lame was that? Hadn’t they ever heard of self-perseverance?

After raising her hand and excusing herself to the restroom, she retrieved her purse from her bookbag and hurried into the ladies’ room and locked the stall door behind her. Pulling out the journal, she stooped on the toilet like a bird and opened it to the last entry she had read in full.

The worst part of Auschwitz was not the beatings, nor the hunger pangs, lice, the humiliation, nudity, or pain. Nor the constant fear. It was being forced to aid in the killing and disposal of your own people, but what choice did we have? Refuse and you were killed. Another Jewish prisoner would be there instantly to take your place. We were disposable. There were so many of us, and so there was no point in refusing. Either I do as I was told or someone else would have to. And so began my involvement as a Sonderkommando...

Abby finished only half of the passage before pausing. Bile rose in the back of her throat. She pressed a hand to her stomach, trying to quell the rising nausea.

This was the reason she skimmed through these entries. They were unimaginable, excruciating to read.

“What exactly are you doing?”

Abby jumped, practically falling off the side of the toilet as she lost her balance. Glancing up at the sound of the voice, Cammie peered over the next stall, her gaze focused on the journal in Abby’s hands.

Snapping it shut, she stood and moved the book behind her body. “Me? What are you doing?”

A resounding thud echoed in the stall next to her as Cammie disappeared from sight and dropped to her feet, then banged on Abby’s door. When she opened it, Cammie stood there, rigid, cheeks pink with anger. “Why are you hiding in here? And what are you reading?”

“Nothing.” Abby tried to sidestep her but had nowhere to go, cornered in the tiny stall. “Why are you in here checking up on me?”

“Um, because you’ve been in the bathroom for over twenty minutes. Class is almost over.”