I had never asked.
Because I was so busy trying to find out who I was, and I hadn’t taken a step back to realize that I didn’t know who my parents were as adults either.
Maybe I wasn’t supposed to know those things. Perhaps children never did. But Corinne’s parents would never be able to see how their daughter grew up. And Corinne wouldn’t be able to question why her parents had made the choices they had—both good and bad.
I hated that.
I swallowed hard, tears falling freely now. My mother sat next to me on the couch, looking through the window at the trees.
“I’m not hungry, but I’ll eat dinner. I promise. I’ll take care of myself. But I don’t think I can stomach anything right now.”
My mother nodded and squeezed my hand. I squeezed back, afraid of what I’d do if she let go.
“We don’t know what to do for you, honey. We want to help, but we don’t know what to do.”
My dad cleared his throat and moved to stand next to the edge of the bay window so he was in our line of vision but not too close. There wasn’t room for him on the couch, but he was still there. My throat tightened, and I held back more tears.
“We want to talk to you about what happened,” my dad said, and I stiffened. “If you can’t talk to us, talk to your friends. To Dillon. Anyone.”
“Dillon and I are over,” I said, wondering why that was the first thing that came out of my mouth.
My dad’s mouth tightened into a thin line, and he nodded. “I’m sorry to hear that. We only know his name because of your roommate. Nessa mentioned him in passing. I didn’t mean to pry, even though that’s what we do so often. I’m sorry.”
I didn’t understand these people in front of me. They weren’t acting like my parents at all. But then again, I wasn’t acting like myself. And yet I couldn’t find the energy to act like anyone other than who I was in that moment.
Corinne wasn’t here. If she was, everything would make more sense. I would be able to breathe again. Things would go back to normal. I’d be able to stress out over my major and what my parents thought I needed to do with my accomplishments. I’d be able to freak out over a boy and wonder if I loved him or not. But instead, I was sitting with my parents, wearing black and wondering why my best friend had to die.
She was only twenty years old. You weren’t supposed to die when you were twenty. You were supposed to live forever. She hadn’t even had her first legal drink. She’d never had sex. My best friend had died a virgin. She’d never been in love and had died alone. I hadn’t been there.
“Please, talk to us,” my mother whispered. “Please, Elise. We don’t know what to do.”
“I don’t know what to do either. She’s gone, mom. Corinne is gone.
My mother swallowed hard and squeezed my hand again. “We know, honey. I’m so sorry. She was such a sweet girl.”
I gasped. “You hated her.”
My mother sat back, her eyes wide, the look on her face one of shock. “No, we didn’t.”
“You always said that I needed to make new friends. That she wasn’t making the right choices.”
My mother shook her head. “No, the two of you were joined at the hip for so long that you pushed others away when you were younger. And maybe we were meddling, but we loved Corinne. We may not have understood her because she was so vivacious and loud in her choices. But that was because, well…your dad and I are shy.”
I snorted. “What?
Dad sighed. “We’re not shy with you, but with others? It’s taken a while to make the people you see today. We were raised not to speak out, not to do anything but stay in our lane and not make waves. We made waves in our careers, but not in anything else. You were always brighter than the sun when you were with Corinne, and she was your focal point, the star in the sky that shone against everyone. We may not have known Corinne as well as we should have, and that’s on us, but I will forever be glad that she was in your life.”
I swallowed hard, not understanding. “What are you guys talking about?”
My mother sighed. “It took so long to get pregnant with you,” my mother said.
I frowned. “What?
“It took us so long. So many treatments. We lost three babies before you. You were our rainbow baby, as they call it. And yet the three before you? We didn’t get to name them. We didn’t get to hold them in our hands and in our arms and say goodbye. You were it for us. And somehow along the way, we wanted to make sure that you had everything, and we twisted that. And now, Corinne’s parents will never be able to watch their child grow up. Never watch her fall in love or get married or find her happiness. Their memories of their daughter will be frozen in time only to fade away if they’re not careful. But I know them, darling. They will keep her memory bright, but I don’t know how they’ll move on. We never moved on after losing our first three children, and I would break if I lost you,” my mother
