I frown at her.

“I’m saying that you lost your sister, and nothing in this whole wide world is ever going to make that okay, but I want you to also think a little about the love that saved you. The love that was there for you on that night when you needed it most. You have all that love, sweet pea. All of it. Mabel’s love, your love for Mabel, but also that other love. And that’s nothing to sneeze at.”

She’s talking about Quinn. I curl my hands into fists.

“It’s been a long hard road, Corrie. And it’s going to keep being hard. But I also know that you’re going to keep being. That’s a gift, baby. That’s a gift, to keep being. I hope you see that. I hope you take that gift and run with it.” She kisses the palm of her hand and then places it on my forehead.

I sit on my bed for a while after Grams leaves. I think about Newton’s laws of motion. I think about Einstein’s theory of relativity. I think about how two things can both be right. And I think about all the things that are wrong.

I think about how theories are really only theories. How they’re imperfect guesses. How we never actually know anything for sure. One minute that makes me feel better. The next minute that makes me feel like garbage.

Time feels sticky and slow. I step out into the hallway. The sight of the boxes makes my heart sink deeper into my stomach. But I reach down and pick one up. I carry it into my room.

I grab a couple of Mabel’s shirts out of her dresser. I run my fingers over the seams. I wonder about the last time she wore each shirt. What she was thinking when she wore it. I hate that I can’t even remember her wearing some of the shirts. I tap my temples, but it doesn’t jog my memory.

When my eyes land on the tubes of lip gloss, I feel my throat tighten all over again. I start to pack them up, but at the last moment, I slide one tube into my pocket. It’s the one I brought with me to the giant oak tree. The shade she wore on the last morning she was alive.

I walk over to the small mirror that’s on her side of the room. Slowly, I put on the lip gloss.

“I miss you so much,” I whisper to the empty room.

I look at my reflection again. Seeing that plum color on my lips makes me feel like a part of my sister is still with me. I’m not packing up this lip gloss.

I carry the rest of the boxes into my room. There is so much stuff. Waddle, Mabel’s stuffed penguin, stares at me from her bed.

I feel overwhelmed and very alone. I close my eyes. I hear Grams’s words in my head and reach for the phone.