“Do I get a choice?” I ask. It’s not that I’m opposed to the idea of therapy, but I am opposed to seeing a therapist handpicked by my parents.

“You’ve got a lot of choices, honey,” my dad says. “And it’s our job to make sure you stop picking the bad ones.”

I have more to say, but there’s no more time left for a debate. My dad opens his laptop and looks for the Zoom link in his email. We are all going to sit together as a family to attend Andrew’s memorial. My frustration at my parents instantly dissipates when we log in and see the Nanakas’ broken faces staring back at us. My parents are right. We are all here because, technically, Andrew made a bad choice. But who of us could really fault him? He’s a teenager who wanted to have a fun night. He wanted to see his girlfriend and get a little tipsy. He wanted to feel normal. As I scan all the somber expressions staring back at me, I realize that living through a pandemic means that all the good choices are bad choices, too.

GABRIELA

I scroll through the faces on my Zoom screen until I land on Parisa, crammed in between her parents. I can already tell from the redness of her eyes that she’s been crying, but I’m glad to see her face has healed since the selfie she sent me. The car wreck left behind a few faint traces of cuts and bruises, but hopefully they won’t leave any literal or figurative scars. It’s hard not to feel like the accident was my fault, but Parisa never made me feel guilty for inviting her to come to my house. Instead, she apologized for not making it over.

I feel like my anxiety keeps ruining our fun, she texted me.

Sometimes I don’t think I deserve her friendship. It’s so unfair that we can’t comfort each other in person right now. Andrew was one of our best friends, and now he’s gone. None of us will ever see him again, and I find that fact incredibly overwhelming. Wes has already experienced death, which has made him incapable of discussing Andrew. He wasn’t even sure he’d be able to attend the memorial, but he’s here, with his dad at his side.

The memorial starts with a slideshow of Andrew’s life set to the song “Memories” by Maroon 5. How is this real? I think to myself. How is someone my age just gone—only to be kept alive through videos and photographs?