Yours to Savor by Scarlett Edwards

her that first week—from policemen, from detectives, from all types of authorities—was all met with a withdrawn silence.
    Her parents were the only ones who didn’t pressure her to say anything. They understood her pain. But, they also saw the way she had trouble sleeping. They heard her screams. When the screaming continued for weeks on end, they gently convinced her to come with them to see a psychologist. It took three different doctors for them to find one Sandra could trust. Only then did Sandra reveal what she’d seen inside the house.
    Sandra still remembered the look of shock on her parents’ faces when they heard her tale in the doctor’s office. For a long time, their reaction didn’t make any sense. What could be so shocking about what Sandra had told them? That question was forgotten as the caring doctor helped Sandra get over her screaming fits in just two more sessions.
    Yet afterwards, the question continued returning to her young mind, together with one more: If Chloe had heard the explosion, had heard the stampede to the door… why hadn’t she run out with everybody else?
    It was only years later that Sandra found the courage to look back on official reports and newspaper articles to try to find the answer. By then, she’d been in her teens—old enough to understand more about the world. What she found explained all her questions and revealed her sister in a whole new light.
    Chloe had had a dark side. Official reports said that eight bodies had been found in the wreckage. Two were in what remained of the bathroom—along with various drug-related paraphernalia that survived the fire.
    The implication was so horrible, Sandra didn’t want to believe it at first… but it was right there, staring her in the face. Her sister had gone to the bathroom to do drugs. She’d used too much, and had been unable to get out. Maybe she even passed out. That was why Chloe couldn’t— didn’t —get out.
    That little fact explained the shocked look on her parents’ faces. They understood, that day in the psychologist’s office, that one of those two bodies in the bathroom had belonged to their daughter.
    Sandra suspected that her parents did not tell her the truth because they’d been trying to shield her from it—trying to preserve Sandra’s innocent childhood memories of her sister.
    While Sandra understood her parents’ perspective, she sometimes wished that they had tried to explain things to her earlier. That way, Sandra wouldn’t have lived for so many years thinking her sister’s death had been her fault.
    The survivor guilt tore at her day-in and day-out long after her nighttime screaming stopped. In fact, Sandra had lived most of her childhood after the fire with that shadow of guilt hanging over her mind. It was reinforced every time the nightmare made her confront her failure to save her sister. Only when she understood Chloe’s secret, and realized that she couldn’t have saved her sister, did that guilt fade away.
    Of course, Sandra couldn’t blame her parents too deeply—or at all. She hid her own secrets from them. After the psychologist helped the screaming fits go away, Sandra smiled and told her parents the nightmares stopped as well.
    That had been a lie. The nightmares continued every single night. But the nine-year-old Sandra had been determined to look strong in the face of adversity—particularly in the eyes of her parents. When Sandra understood Chloe’s secret, it dispelled most of her guilt. Then, the nightmares stopped coming every night. However, that was the extent of their abatement.
    When Sandra entered high school, the nightmares and guilt still heavy on her mind each morning, she set out to become the woman her sister had wanted to be. Maybe Sandra hoped that Chloe could live vicariously through her if she did it. More importantly, Sandra wanted to honor her sister’s memory.
    Before the fire, Chloe’s life had seemed perfect. She’d been brilliant, getting