What Happened After

Chapter 6

"We're so sorry for your loss, but it really should have been you." 

Chapter 6.

     “Wait. What?” I breathed out. This wasn’t happening. “The Andersons?! Why the hell would you do that, you know I can’t talk to them!”

     “I know, sweetie,” my mom comforted. “It’s just—we saw the two of them at the grocery store a few days ago and they just seemed so miserable. Their first Thanksgiving without their only son. You have to understand how they must be feeling, especially around the holidays. Nobody deserves to be sad during this season.”

     “It’s my first Thanksgiving without him too! I lost him too! He was MY only boyfriend!” I practically screamed. “This is ridiculous. You just invite people over to our house for the holidays and you don’t even think to ask me first? What, do I not get a say anymore because I went to college? You wanted that!”

     “Rainbow—“

     “Don’t call me that!” I yelled, rushing up the stairs. Just great. My first hour home and I already knew I’d be spending the rest of the day alone in my room. What would make my parents believe that was okay? Inviting my dead boyfriend’s parents over to my house where I’ll be expected to actually converse with them? What on earth would we talk about? What would I say? ‘Hey, good afternoon. Great weather we’re having today. I’m sorry your son’s body was practically mashed to bits and mine wasn’t. Happy Thanksgiving?” That probably wouldn’t fly as well as I would like.

     “Rayn…” I heard a quiet knock on my bedroom door. It was then that I looked around and noticed what had been done to my room. The walls had been painted bright yellow—a color way too happy for my taste—and the carpeting had been redone to match the rest of the house. My pictures had been taken off the wall and were probably in storage somewhere, and my tv was gone. My mom had gone out and bought new sheets for my bed. Instead of the plain white sheets and down comforter I had on it before, a new yellow, orange, and blue striped bedding set had been put on. The whole thing was way too cheerful, and as soon as I took all of this in, I wanted right back out of the room, forgetting why I had come up in the first place. There was another knock.

     “What?” I called through the door.

     “Rayn, can we talk about this?” my mom responded. “I know you’re upset, but just think about the Andersons. They were so grateful that we invited them, you should have seen the looks on their faces—“

     “Yeah, well I’m happy I didn’t.”

     “Oh, come on.” I went over to the door and opened it so my mom and I would be face-to-face.

     “No, mom, you come on. You don’t understand how I feel. How can they look at me and not hate every fiber of my being? Their son died, mom, and I didn’t. I very well could have, and I didn’t. You know that throughout the whole dinner, they’re just gonna be staring at me with that same expression they had at the funeral. The one that says, ‘We’re so sorry for your loss, but it really should have been you.’”

     “That is not how the Andersons feel and you know it,” my mom scolded.

     “It is, mom! And they’re absolutely right! Kale had so much going for him. He was supposed to be valedictorian. I wasn’t. He was captain of the football team. I wasn’t! You can’t even give me one good reason why he deserved to die over me. It’s a sick joke.”

     “Rayn Elizabeth Wallis, you look at me right now.” Crap. “You did not deserve to die. Kaleb did not deserve to die, and Lauren did not deserve to die. But they did, and you didn’t. Now I don’t know why, and neither does anyone else, but the fact of the matter is, you are still alive, and we’re all so incredibly grateful for that. So grateful that you couldn’t possibly understand it. The Andersons are incredible people who love you like their own daughter. There is no way, and I mean no way, that they think any less of you because you are still alive while Kaleb is not. The fact that you’re still with us means something. It means that you were meant to do incredible, amazing things, and we’re so thankful that we get to see those things happen. Your father and I are proud of you, the Andersons are proud of you, and Kaleb and Lauren are proud of you. You have to keep it together, for all of us.”