Page 25 of What Comes After

I was here.

I’d made it.

But my heart wasn’t in it.

Sadly, there was something about having your parents die that changed your life in an unimaginable way.

For the first two weeks following their death, I didn’t do anything. I didn’t go to school, and I only ate the bare minimum.

My parents, at some point before their death, had done something I wasn’t even aware of. They’d had their will drawn up, and in a twist that nobody but the other two individuals involved had been aware of, Scott and Mary became my legal guardians.

I had family, but they didn’t live in this town. I had to suspect that my parents didn’t want me having to leave my school and my friends if something had ever happened to them.

And Mary and Scott had been gracious enough to fulfill the promise they’d made to my parents.

For those first two weeks, they’d all taken turns staying in the house with me. I didn’t want to leave, and they didn’t want me to be alone. So, they rotated. One night it was Scott, and the next it was Mary. I loved them for it, but I felt the best when Theo stayed the night with me.

Instead of me feeling the need to climb into my own bed where I wouldn’t get any sleep anyway, I stayed in the living room, on the couch, and Theo stayed awake with me. He’d talk to me for hours about anything I wanted to talk about. And if I just wanted to sit there in silence, he’d stay right by my side.

They fed me.

They looked after me.

And there was no question I wouldn’t have survived if it hadn’t been for the three of them.

But there eventually came a point when I realized I couldn’t continue to disrupt their lives the way that I was. Granted, I knew this was a promise they’d made to my parents, something they’d discussed at length, but I still felt like a burden.

So, I took a long, hard look at things and realized I only had months left until I would be considered an adult. I was going to have to start looking after myself eventually.

And while Mary, Scott, and especially Theo, never stopped being there for me, they didn’t need to be with me for twenty-four hours a day.

Somehow, I managed to push the devastation and heartache I felt over losing my parents into the deepest, darkest recesses of my heart and mind. Then I pushed forward with what I had to do.

By some miracle, I’d managed to make it to the end of my senior year. And now I was here at my graduation ceremony.

But it felt awful.

While I knew that Scott and Mary were there for me just as much as they were there for Theo, it wasn’t the same as it would have been if my parents had been there. Even having blood relatives—my aunt, uncle, and grandparents—didn’t ease the pain.

My parents were dead.

And I’d convinced myself that no matter what I managed to accomplish in my life, it would always have very little meaning to me.

Now, when everyone at school was preparing for their futures, excited about college and their potential careers, I felt nothing but dead inside.

I had no choice but to give up on the plans I’d had to go to culinary school, because I had to work. While my parents’ estate was left to me, obviously being looked after by Mary, Scott, and my parents’ attorney until I turned eighteen, the reality was that my parents weren’t millionaires. They had debt like everyone else.

Car loans.

Mortgage payments.

Credit card debt.

Insurance.

Electricity.

Groceries.

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