Words elude me. My jaw aches from holding it shut.
I stare at them for a long while, unblinking. And I realize they do look older now. Tired. Smaller than I remember. Threads of silver vein their tawny brown hair, while flecks of gray reflect in their once-golden eyes.
“What are you doing here?” I manage.
“We weren’t sure if we should come,” my mother says, her voice shaky. “But when we saw the tour date…Vegas was close. Only a few hours.”
“We thought maybe it was time,” Dad adds quietly.
Time.
Like the clock mattered once she drowned.
I scrub a hand over my face, shake my head. “Fuck. I can’t do this.”
“Chase…” Mom’s hand finds my arm, curling around my bicep. “We don’t blame you anymore. We want to move forward. Find our way back to each other.”
“Blame me?” My brows arch, voice pitching with audacity. “Yeah. I don’t blame me either.”
That’s not entirely true.
But it’s easier to lie. To pretend I was a helpless bystander when I could have dragged Stella to my car and taken her to a hospital instead of a goddamn swim meet.
“We were angry,” she says, wiping at a tear, her eyes hazel and haunted. “Broken. Furious you turned your back on us after everything…” She pauses, regroups. “You just disappeared, Chase. No goodbye. No explanation. You even took the dog.”
Guilt slices through me, bitter and damning.
I shove it down, twist it into something uglier. Something I can control.
“You made her go,” I breathe out, the pain still fresh, still buried deep. “She was sick and begged to stay home. And you made her go anyway.”
“You say it like we knew,” Dad snaps, voice tight with emotion. “Like we actively signed her death warrant that day. Like we looked her in the eye and said, ‘Go die in that pool.’”
I swallow, closing my eyes, forcing back the black cloud of missteps and warning signs that went unread. “She didn’t even know if she wanted it anymore. Swimming. She told me. But you never listened. You just wanted ashining success story.”
“We never dreamed it wouldkillher,” Mom chokes. She takes a breath, tries to pull herself together. “I know this isn’t the place. But we didn’t know how else to reach you. We tried—we tried so hard—but you changed your number. You vanished, drove off to God knows where. And we were left with nothing but two empty rooms.”
Dad’s face crumples. “We lost both of our children that day. And we’ve been trying to find at least one ever since.”
My heart clenches as the ache behind my eyes spikes.
I blink hard, trying to clear the haze, but the courtyard lights are too bright, the crowd too loud, everything pressing in from all sides.
My breath shortens.
Not here. Not now.
I press my fingers to my temple, jaw clenched, trying to ride it out without giving anything away.
But Mom notices. “Chase?” Her voice is soft again, braided with concern. “Are you okay?”
I nod too quickly. “Fine. Just…the noise. It’s nothing.”
She steps closer, instinctively reaching for me like she used to when I was a kid with the flu. “Are you getting migraines?”
Her question lands like a dart.
My parents share a glance.
