When the Alarm Rang, Our Teacher Said “Nice Try” and Locked Us In

The reporter called her reckless and negligent and showed dramatic reenactments of us trapped in the smoke-filled room. But they also interviewed Isaiah, who said that despite her terrible judgment, she’d ultimately tried to save us at the end and had gotten burned doing it.

The news played footage of her being loaded into the ambulance and I could see the guilty expression on her face even through the smoke and chaos. The internet had already decided she was a villain.

There were hashtags calling for her teaching license to be revoked and someone had started a petition to press criminal charges. Parents were giving interviews saying she should go to prison for endangering students.

But none of them had been there in that room. None of them had seen her face when she realized what she’d done.

None of them had watched her push students out the window before herself, even as the fire caught her jacket. My mom wanted me to give an interview to tell my side of the story, but I couldn’t.

What would I even say? That Mrs. Garrison made a horrible choice that almost killed us, but that she wasn’t actually a monster?

That she’d spent 19 years teaching and this one mistake was going to define her entire career? That I was angry at her but also felt bad for her?

None of that fit into a neat sound bite that would satisfy the internet’s hunger for villains. The school was closed for the rest of the semester while they investigated and assessed the damage.

We all had to take our finals remotely from home, which felt absurdly anticlimactic after everything that happened. I sat at my desk in my bedroom taking the chemistry final on my laptop and kept thinking about the original test paper disintegrating under the sprinklers.

I got a B on the makeup exam, which was better than I deserved given that I couldn’t focus on any of the questions. Three students died in the fire.

Two were in the chemistry lab where it started, killed instantly by the explosion. One more was in a bathroom on the third floor of the science wing, overcome by smoke before firefighters could reach them.

Mrs. Garrison’s door-locking decision hadn’t killed anyone directly, but it had put 27 students in serious danger. Several of us had injuries from the smoke or from jumping out the window.

The district placed her on administrative leave pending an investigation. Her teaching license was suspended and there were discussions about pressing criminal charges.

However, the district attorney said that would be difficult to prove given that she eventually tried to help us escape. I saw her one more time before the end of the school year.

She was at the grocery store with her arm in a sling from the burns, looking at tomatoes like they contained the answers to the universe. She saw me at the same moment I saw her and we both froze.

For a long moment we just stared at each other across the produce section. Then she walked over, moving slowly like she was approaching a dangerous animal.

“I’m sorry,” she said, and her voice was hoarse, probably from smoke damage. “I know that’s not enough and nothing I can say will make it better, but I need you to know I’m sorry and I think about what I did every single day.”

I didn’t know what to say back. Part of me wanted to scream at her to tell her that she’d traumatized 27 teenagers because she was paranoid about test cheating.

But looking at her standing there with her burns and her sling and her obvious guilt, I couldn’t find the anger anymore. I just felt tired.

“Okay,” I said finally. “I believe you’re sorry. But that doesn’t change what happened.”

She nodded like she’d expected that answer, maybe even hoped for it because it would be easier than forgiveness. We stood there for another awkward moment before she turned and walked away, leaving her shopping cart behind.

I never saw her again after that. The school district didn’t renew her contract, which was their way of firing her without actually firing her.

She moved out of town that summer and I heard from someone that she’d gotten a job in retail, completely leaving teaching behind. The school year ended remotely and graduation was a strange, subdued ceremony held in a parking lot.

Everyone wore masks and maintained distance. Our class had been planning for four years to celebrate together, but instead we received our diplomas one at a time while our families watched from their cars.

The principal gave a speech about resilience and overcoming tragedy, but it felt hollow. We hadn’t overcome anything; we’d just survived.

Daniela and Warren and I ended up going to the same college, not because we’d planned it, but because we couldn’t imagine being separated after what we’d been through. We had an unspoken understanding that nobody else would get what it was like to be trapped in that room.

We became the kind of friends who didn’t need to explain things, who could look at each other during a fire drill and know exactly what the other was thinking. The nightmares started about a month after the fire.

I’d dream that I was back in that classroom with the smoke rising and the door locked, but in the dreams the firefighters never came. I’d wake up gasping, my chest tight, convinced I could smell smoke even though my dorm room was perfectly safe.

My roommate freshman year was understanding at first, but after the third time I woke him up screaming, he requested a room change. I didn’t blame him.

I started seeing a therapist at the campus counseling center, a woman named Dr. Nina Reeves who specialized in trauma. She had me do these exercises where I’d visualize the classroom but change the ending, imagining myself calmly walking out through an unlocked door.

It helped sometimes, but other times the exercises just made me relive everything more vividly. She explained that I had PTSD and that it might take years to fully process what had happened.

The idea that I’d be dealing with this for years made me want to give up therapy entirely. But I kept going because the alternative was letting the fire define the rest of my life, and I refused to give it that power.

By sophomore year, the nightmares had decreased to maybe once a month instead of every week. I could sit through fire drills without panicking, though I always made sure I was near an exit and knew exactly how to get out.

I started taking education classes because I decided I wanted to be a teacher, specifically a chemistry teacher. Dr. Reeves said this was my way of reclaiming the narrative, of taking something traumatic and turning it into purpose.