“God, Kenz, this is crazy. We all thought you guys were the real deal. Like, house, kids, dogs. The forever kind of thing.”
“I know.” Everything she said was everything I’d tried to give Cory. I’d wanted him to have whatever he wanted, even if I couldn’t love him the way he loved me. I’d have done anything for him. “If he hadn’t died, that’s what would have happened, Becca. I would have been with him forever. Half of me thinks I would have been okay with that. But now, the other part of me who realizes fully what was going on, the terrible part of my brain, is actually thankful he died.” I let out a cry as more sobs broke free. I hadn’t cried this hard since the first night we lost him.
“Oh, Kenzie,” Holly said, wrapping her arm around me and putting her mouth right next to my ear. “You’re not thankful he died, that’s ridiculous. You’re thankful that you don’t have to force yourself to live a lie anymore, and that’s understandable. You loved Cory, we all know that. No one could deny that. But just because you can imagine a life without him doesn’t mean you’re glad he’s gone.”
“I’m not glad he’s gone,” I said quietly, knowing it was the truth. But I couldn’t help but question whether I wanted to go back to how it was before. Knowing what life could be like with Hayes, what just a glance from him could make me feel, I wasn’t sure I could have gone back to the life I had with Cory. I was also glad, in a terrible, terrible way, that I didn’t have that choice. I didn’t have to choose between Cory and Hayes and I would probably forever be grateful for that.
Chapter Fifteen
Hayes
The meeting with my cohorts was exactly as I expected, and was very similar to all the meetings we’d had since the beginning of the program. The only difference was, this was the first one I’d been able to attend since Cory and my father were killed. I’d missed a couple and thankfully my advisor was very accommodating, but it was nice to have something to do back in Bellingham, nice to go back to a physical place that didn’t hold any bad or confusing memories.
As I’d expected, my advisor, Donna Hunter, had explained my situation to the other cohorts, so when I approached the table at the café we always met at, I was received with a lot of sympathetic expressions. Everyone expressed their condolences, and once they were convinced I wasn’t going to break down and cry, the meeting moved along as all the others had before it.
Aside from Donna, there were five other students in my group, all of us at the same point in the process of obtaining our master’s in education and our teaching license. The meetings served as a way for us students to talk about our in-classroom experiences, bounce ideas off each other, and decompress if needed. I’d been pretty lucky to be grouped with five pretty awesome students, and Donna was probably the best advisor I could have asked for.
After the official meeting was over, Donna asked me to stay behind. I said good-bye to all my fellow students and waited for Donna to dive into whatever she wanted to discuss.
“I hope you didn’t mind me telling the others about your situation.” Her words were compassionate and worried.
“It’s fine. I’m sure everyone was wondering why I’d been gone for so long, missed so many meetings.”
She nodded. “They were. But they were also glad when I told them you wanted to continue with the program despite the tragedy. How is your classroom going? Are you handling everything all right?”
I shrugged. “I think it’s going well. Mr. White has been really helpful, a great resource, the class is great, and I’ve been able to adopt the curriculum to work with my thesis topic.”
“That’s great,” she said, but the tone of her voice indicated she wasn’t convinced. “What about the emotional aspect of the assignment? How are you faring working in the same class your brother used to attend? That must be difficult.”
“I guess I’m really lucky that Cory and I were four years apart. I never went to high school when he was there, so I don’t really have that connotation. When I go in that building it feels weird, but only because it’s where I went, not because Cory was there.”
“Well, that’s a good thing, I suppose.”
“I think so.”
“I know Mrs. Anderson and Mr. White already explained this to you, but I wanted to reiterate: If this assignment proves to be too difficult, or you realize, at any point, that it is not in your best interest to be at that school, in that classroom, the university and I are willing to let you take an incomplete. You can come back at any point and pick up right where you left off. There will be no detriment to your GPA, or your licensure status.”