The Beginning of After

I’m so sorry , I kept saying to myself. That wasn’t supposed to happen. A gust of regret and cringing shame pushed me faster down the stairs.
    When I reached the ground floor, I pushed open the stairway door and tried to figure out where I was. I looked right and saw the peach glow of the lobby at the end of the hall. I looked left, and saw a big wooden door, different from all the other doors in the building.
    A small sign on it said CHAPEL .
    In seconds I was through it, and shut it behind me. It took a few moments for my eyes to adjust to the dark.
    The room was only large enough to hold two wooden benches and a stone pedestal with some flowers on it, set in front of a stained-glass window. In the glass, a woman dressed in white knelt on a patchwork bed of grass and roses before a large black cross.
    I collapsed onto the rear bench, pushing the heels of my hands into my eye sockets, and screamed silently. Maybe that would be enough to make me feel human again before anyone came to find me.
    But I needed the sound that wanted to come out. In the past, this kind of thing always took me over, breaking free of some holding pen down in my gut and raging wild until I could tame it again.
    Here, now, I called it up. Let it loose, almost begging for the damage I knew it could do.
    I put my hands on the back of the bench in front of me and gripped hard, let my head drop as if my neck was finally tired of holding me up. Then, the low, guttural wails burst and the tears rushed. My right hand crunched into a fist and started banging on the wood.
    I want. I want. I want. It stuck in a single stubborn loop, like a toddler throwing a wicked temper tantrum.
    There was so much I wanted, but could never have. It came tumbling out of me, the smallest things first. My mom smiling at me, my dad putting his arm around my shoulders. My brother laughing at one of our inside jokes, like how he always let me know I had food on my chin by saying, “Hey, Laurel. Keepin’ it real!”
    Then the bigger ones. Like having three people in the world who would always know me and love me.
    I also wanted there to be a reason why I was here. If there couldn’t be a reason why my family died, maybe I could at least have that much.
    Or perhaps just a future that wasn’t so complicated, filled with holes and what-ifs, everything colored a few shades darker than normal.
    And then, finally, I just wanted to be Laurel. Not a tragedy. Not a survivor. Just me. Who would ever let me be that?
    Someone knocked on the chapel door, and I sucked in a sob.
    “Laurel?” David’s voice. Worried.
    “Yeah.”
    He opened the door and saw my face, covered in tears and snot, and the set of his mouth changed. Without a word, he let the door close and slid onto the bench, circling his arms around me in such a smooth motion I didn’t even see it happen. I just felt them, warm and sturdy and confident.
    David said nothing. He didn’t ask what was wrong or even say shhhhh the way some people do by instinct. He just tucked his chin over the top of my head as I curled into him. I was crying softly now, but easily. It was like a language that only he understood, because we were the same species.
    David saw me, my house, my life, as a refuge somehow. Here, in his arms, I realized he could offer the same to me.
    Finally, when my crying had disintegrated into just sniffles, I raised my face to his.
    “Is he okay? Your dad?”
    David looked at me tenderly, protectively. An expression I’d never seen on him before.
    “Yes. My grandma’s up there with him now.” He paused, and the expression faded. I knew what was coming. “What happened?”
    I didn’t want this to end yet, so in place of the truth I just said, “I’m sorry.”
    But it ruined the moment anyway. David leaned away from me to get a better look at my face, his brow furrowing.
    “For what ?”
    I bit my lip hard. “I told him . . . about my parents and Toby.”
    Now he stood up, sliding out of my arms so that they fell, limp, against the wood of the bench.
    “WHAT?”
    “When I realized that he didn’t know yet, I lost it. . . .”
    David took a deep breath, steadying himself.
    “I asked you not to mention the accident.”
    “He wanted to know why I was there. . . .” I knew it was a weak excuse.
    “The doctors told us not to talk to him about the accident yet. They wanted to wait until he was more stable. . . .” His voice rose with every word.
    “I was wrong, I know. I’m