I left.
Sia drove me to my parents’ house, a few hours away. When the door opened and my dad appeared, wearing his usual blue plaid flannel pajamas, I couldn’t hold the tears back any longer.
This was when I raged, when I threw things, when I screamed, when I let everything out. But when it was over, the next week, I wasn’t sure who I was grieving: Liam or Cole.
My parents were speechless when they first saw me, but I ignored their reactions. I didn’t have the words to explain, so Sia did once my dad had carried me inside. I heard their soft conversation on the porch as I waited in the kitchen, tears pooling on the table. And that night, when they came back in and after Sia asked for the seventh time if she should stay and I told her no again and walked her out to her car, my dad pulled
