Anna Crean ,16

Now a sophomore, she was inside the building where the shooting took place. Her lab partner, Alyssa Alhadeff, was killed. So were two of her creative-writing classmates. During the interview, squawks from birds flying overhead made her jumpy.

When I was in seventh grade, a teacher told us Parkland was a bubble. She said, “Someday, something bad’s going to happen here, and the bubble’s going to burst.” I remember I kept thinking about that afterward. Like, wow, she was right. I don’t feel safe anywhere anymore.

I have PTSD. The hardest part are sudden noises. Fourth of July, I was at camp, and I wasn’t expecting fireworks to go off, but they did. I had a panic attack. In school, a few freshmen have tried to pull pranks on us. They drop textbooks and film our reactions. We have monthly code-red drills. I’ve skipped probably three of them. It’s a constant reminder, every time, of the shooting.

Me and my three best friends, we’re the only ones that understand each other. One day they released a bunch of video footage from the shooting. We watched it together. Every time something gets put out there, people get very upset, but people need to see it.

The March for Our Lives in Washington was probably one of the coolest experiences of my life. We met Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi. I got to make a bunch of new friends. I wish I had never had those opportunities, though.

We’re not all loud activists. A lot of us want to go back and finish our high school career the best we can. For college, I want to go to Ireland, where my parents are from, because I just don’t want to do four more years of schooling here. I really don’t like how divided this country is. In Ireland, there’s no guns.

Anna Crean has PTSD. “The hardest part are sudden noises … In school, a few freshmen have tried to pull pranks on us. They drop textbooks and film our reactions.”