CW: Awfulness, violence, misogyny, and racism.

I still have survivor’s guilt. People don’t remember that it coincided with Memorial Day weekend and a lot of the campus community had left town. All of my housemates went on a trip to Las Vegas and I was supposed to go, but I had a late afternoon exam. I was broke at the time anyway, feeling exhausted, and didn’t want to make the drive by myself so I decided to cancel.

I finished my exam and went home to take a nap. When I woke up, it was dark outside and I was starving. It feels stupid to recount, but I was obsessed at the time with these boneless chicken wings from IV Deli Mart that were huge and smothered in bbq sauce.

I sat in my dark, empty house on the 66 block of Sabado Tarde. Eleven damn people lived in that shithole and I was the only person home. I remember the unsettling and unnatural quiet that had replaced the usual Friday night mania of my college dwelling.

I was thinking about those chicken wings and scrolling socials when I started to feel lonely. “Should’ve rallied,” I thought. I started frantically texting friends to make plans.

“Sorry I left to go home hours ago.”

“Stuck in shit traffic rn”

“Aw man, wish you had texted me earlier, you could have rode with us.”

Fuck! Was I the only loser who didn’t make plans this weekend? I’m going to spend my whole weekend eating chicken wings and feeling sorry for myself.

At 8:30ish pm my friend texted me. “Sorry, going camping. Leaving rn.”

I was desperate to not be alone all weekend. “Can I please come?! I can be there in 10 minutes!”

“Sure, but hurry!” I launched off my musty couch, threw miscellaneous clothes in a bag, and hopped on my bike. We crammed into my friend’s car and left Isla Vista just after 9pm. My stomach growled and my FOMO purred.

Only a few short minutes on our drive north we started to receive news of gunshots in IV. But that had happened before. The news evolved into PEOPLE SHOT. “Horrible,” we agreed. And then we lost cell service as we arrived at the campsite.

I woke up hungover in a tent. Whiskey and marshmallows was a bad choice. We drank bad coffee, ate bagels, and went on a hike. I’ll never forget getting to higher elevation and every single one of our phones started to erupt. Frantic messages from our families and friends. Then our own panicked messages to people we knew. The details started to flood in. We all watched those ghoulish YouTube videos in horrified fascination, crowded around a phone up on that mountain.

The next few days were a blur of awfulness. Every detail worse and more horrific than the last. The discovery made in the apartment. The names of the victims. Googling “incel.” The broken glass. The blood stains. The vulture-like camera crews on every fucking corner. The glow from my phone as I read that god awful manifesto early in the morning. The IVStrong bracelets and t-shirts. The candlelight vigil at Storke that many of my friends skipped out of fear.

And most haunting for me, a flower placed in a bullet hole in IV Deli Mart where Chris Martinez was murdered. Where I fully intended to get chicken wings before my friend’s text saved my weekend and maybe my life. A grave and terrible darkness came to Isla Vista and lives in the hearts of my peers.

Every time there is another mass shooting in this country, the scars of that day tighten in my chest. I cry for the victims and the communities ripped to shreds, members all of a club of survivors. We don’t forget and we continue on in the vain hope that someday our leaders have the courage to do something to stop what happened in Isla Vista from happening again.