'Scared everywhere': Apalachee survivors grapple with school shooting's toll

WINDER, Ga. − The vigil was over, the candles were blown out and the camera crews had left the Apalachee High School football stadium Sunday night, but Kayden Ballew couldn't move on.

Grief hung in the night air. Her school was a crime scene.

"I just get stuck... scared everywhere I go now," the 16-year-old sophomore told USA TODAY in front of the stadium bleachers after the evening vigil. "It's a lot to process."

Teenagers who escaped last week’s quadruple homicide at Apalachee High say they’re struggling to process the deaths of two teenagers and two teachers in the Wednesday attack. Student Colt Gray, 14, has been charged as an adult with four counts of murder. His father, Colin Gray, is also charged with murder, involuntary manslaughter and cruelty to children for allowing his son to have access to the AR-14-style rifle used in the slaughter.

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The Apalachee shooting was the 139th incident of gunfire on school grounds this year, according to gun control advocates Everytown for Gun Safety.

For students at Apalachee, the struggle right now is getting through the day.

Ballew said she'd had a warm relationship with Ricky Aspinwall, a 39-year-old math teacher and football coach killed in Wednesday's shooting. When she heard he was among those slain, "I was in shock" at the "traumatizing" news, she said. In addition to Aspinwall, the shooting claimed students Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, both 14, and math teacher Cristina Irimie, 53. Eight students and a teacher were injured.

Ballew, who grew up in the Winder area, said she found strength in the way her community had pulled together.

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Still, she avoids reminders of the shooting. "I distract myself because it's everywhere," she said. "If I see something about it, I just kind of go along because it just reminds me of it over and over again."

Like Ballew, Nicholas North, 17, an Apalachee senior, said he was glad to see how the school's students, teachers, and families had come together for Sunday's vigil. "It's just been a very emotional week," he said.

Still, he feels "shaken."

"It still hurts me," North said. "I still think about it. It's probably never going to go away."