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“I love you.”

That night Chelsea stayed with me at the hospital. Typically, the hospital did not allow for overnight stay and limited ICU visitors to two people at a time for safety reasons. However, because my mom was receiving palliative care, there was no expectation of emergency interventions that would require nurses to rush in or need additional space in the room. The nurses were kind enough to bring us an extra cot for Chelsea to sleep on. It was a snug fit and not at all ideal for rest.

Usually, Chelsea was the definition of a prima donna, but tonight she had no complaints. I knew she wouldn’t be comfortable, and I knew the blanket wouldn’t be warm enough, but she didn’t mention anything.

She brought the brochure back from the funeral home and started helping me make the hardest decisions of my life.

“I like the double heart stone,” she finally said, a slight quiver in her tone. “And I know you may not want to think about this negatively, but I think it’s best we select that…just in case.”

I nodded. I knew.

“Flowers?” she asked.

“Just one set,” I croaked out. My throat was dry. “Just for my mom. For my dad, I want to get him this metal cross.”

I flipped the pages in the brochure to show her.

“Oh. Yes, Delane. He’d love that.”

We sat in the silence of that for a moment.

“I am glad you came,” I told her finally.

“Me too,” she added, swinging her arm around my shoulder and pulling me into a hug.

Feeling present in this moment was a chore. I couldn’t really find the right words, but Chelsea being here, helped me feel even the smallest bit of normalcy. I was grateful for it in this foreign world. I was so used to being alone, working alone, learning how to process my emotions alone. This was a welcomed change that I hadn’t expected.

I stared at the prices of headstone fonts, wishing I could go back to the moments before my parents left on their business. Back when I woke up to the smell of my mom frying bacon in the kitchen, and my dad already poking fun at her—typical jokester that he was. I missed rolling my eyes at their playful chats. Witnessing the love they showed one another.

“Have you texted Noah?”

Noah’s name dragged me out of my fog quicker than I could have imagined. I hadn’t realized how disassociated I had become, but hearing the sound of his name sharpened my gaze, almost like I was exiting a long tunnel. I focused on Chelsea’s eyes. They were looking back at me, expectantly.

“I don’t think…” I fumbled with my cell phone in my pocket. “I don’t think I’ve even looked at my phone since we got here.”

Sure enough, my phone flashed back “Missed Calls” and “Unread Messages” from Noah.

“I was just curious, since the chaos of his party, you know? It was the last time he talked with you.”

I considered Chelsea’s words, realizing in that moment that I hadn’t told her about…after the party. I hadn’t told her about the hospital, or the police report…or the kiss.

Or the almost…more…than just a kiss on his car.

Part of me wanted to open his message, but another part of me felt unbearably drained. I was barely surviving this loss myself, and the thought of having to explain it to someone else, to relive the accident, the hospital, the decisions about the burial—felt impossible. I would have to run mental miles just to reach the point where I could even begin.

I was too tired to even try. I couldn’t possibly drag him into this grief. Not with what he was currently dealing with.

Beneath this exhaustion, there was anger. Not at Noah, not really, but at what he represented. I met him right after my parents left, and somehow that connection became tied to the last time I had seen them as they were, alive and healthy. We had been an ordinary family then.

Life after Noah meant life without my parents. I was not ready to accept that. The idea that he would never meet them, not that he necessarily would have wanted to, but that he would never even have the chance, made the loss feel even more final.

“I can hear your stomach from here,” Chelsea said, eyeing me. “When was the last time you ate something? Or had water? Your throat sounds terrible.”

Instinctually, I swallowed to clear my throat. Dry was an understatement. Between the crying and conversations with the funeral director, my aunt, the nurses and now Chelsea, my throat was literal sandpaper.

“I am not sure,” I said with a little shake of my head.