racheljoyscotts:

Lauren Beachem lay in bed Monday morning. The 17-year-old didn’t join her classmates for the first day back at Columbine High School. She didn’t turn on the television to see the Columbine rally. Instead, she thought of her best friend, Rachel Scott, who died in the April 20th school massacre. And she cried.

The junior won’t go back to Columbine, or any other high school for that matter. Much to her family’s dismay, Lauren insists on home-schooling herself. She says she just wants to be alone. “I just don’t enjoy people the way I used to,” she says. “I just don’t enjoy anything anymore. Every person who I’ve ever cared about has left me in one way or another.” Lauren’s deep blues contrast sharply with the upbeat, pompon-waving pep rally at Columbine before school on Monday. 

Her struggles show that not all Columbine students have been able to shake the memories of April 20th. Lauren was trapped in one of the science rooms that day.  When the SWAT team evacuated everyone,  she saw Rachel’s body on her way out of the school.  She didn’t want to believe it was Rachel. “I knew it was her, but I said, “There are 2,000 students in the school,’- ” Lauren says. “I didn’t want to jump to conclusions until it was confirmed.”

“If it was any of my other friends (who died), I would have been OK because Rachel would have helped me get through it,” Lauren says. “But no one could help me get past her.‘ 

Lauren hadn’t known Rachel for years, but the confident, happy-go-lucky junior had a profound impact on Lauren’s life. The two were on the forensics team last school year and were both in the spring play. They went for walks, talked for hours and hung out at bookstores. 

"She took my little popularity-obsessed world and made me realize there was so much more to life,” Lauren says. “She changed me. I didn’t realize I needed changing, but I did.” Now Lauren doesn’t look when she goes by the places where she and Rachel used to go. 

“They used to call me the social butterfly, but I don’t like to go out that much anymore.” Her other closest friend and she parted company this summer. They just couldn’t see eye to eye anymore. She resents it when people tell her how to feel. "For all the people who "moved on,’ congratulations,” she says. “But you have no right to tell anybody else where they should be. You never know what people lost.”

She tried to adopt the optimism of Columbine pep rallies, but it didn’t last. "Our school says it became so united, but less than two weeks later it was back to the old way. They are obsessed with sports, obsessed with popularity, and treat other people like crap.”

Her mom wants her to go to another high school – any one will do. But Lauren really wants to do a home-schooling program managed by Front Range High School. Lauren says she’s saving money from her hostessing job to pay for her books and course credits. The idea of finishing school on her own appeals to her. 

“I’ve just stopped trusting people,” she says. “So when people say, "I’ll always be here for you, I don’t believe them. I know it’s not true.”