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to make good choices every once in a while, which Lily never did. It baffled her.
    “Where should I take you?” Seth asked, his voice even and calm, although Bash could sense his underlying tension.
    “Take me...” Lily started.
    “Take her back to my place,” Bash tiredly interrupted her. She could almost feel the anger emanating from the backseat. It gave her an instant headache just to think about it. Lily would have wanted to go back to her apartment, but it was Saturday, and regardless of any hangover, Lily knew what that meant. “Lily and I are going to go see Mom.”
     
    *****
     
    Bash still felt guilty over it.
    It was a little over seven years ago that their family’s lives changed forever. Bash and Lily were still in high school and were better friends at that time than at any other point in their lives. At sixteen, they were just discovering who they were and getting into a bit of trouble. Lily was the more troublesome twin: she’d sneak out, come home drunk, and do far worse—anything to get attention. While Bash was the more sensible one, she still managed to get dragged along on a good number of Lily’s shenanigans.
    It was one of those Saturday nights where Lily had convinced her to sneak out and go to a party with college kids. Bash hadn’t wanted to go because it was final exam week, but Lily’s insistence wore her down and she relented.
    At the party, Lily kept encouraging her to do shots, and backing her up when she was talking to a cute guy. That had made Bash feel desirable in a way she’d never felt before.
    They came home the next morning. Time had slipped by, and the girls had completely missed the point when they ought to have left. Lily had somehow lost both of their cellphones, and Bash seemed to remember not caring. She was having too much fun. They returned around ten-thirty that next dreary, raining morning, to find both parents waiting for them in the living room, angry and nearly out of their minds with worry for their daughters.
    Their mom, in particular, put the blame solely on Lily, who she obviously viewed as the instigator. Even though it was true, Bash couldn’t stand to hear her mother grill Lily and blame her for the bad influence. Lily wasn’t really defending herself, she was just denying everything their mother said. Their father watched the events, adding his tidbits when Cheryl asked him to chime in.
    It wasn’t fair to Lily.
    In her still-drunken haze, Bash decided to stand up for her twin.
    “Shut up, Mom!” she yelled at her. “Just shut up! We both went together, ‘kay? It’s both our faults.”
    “I haven’t even started on you, young lady,” Cheryl answered, so angry her voice was cracking. And she continued yelling at Lily, who continued taking it stoically.
    Bash’s headache escalated until she couldn’t stand it anymore, lost in her own dark world of pain. If only she could get rid of the shouting, she’d be able to pass out in her bed and sleep it off. She opened her mouth and would forever regret the next thing she said.
    “Just go!” she screamed. “Don’t you two need to be at church soon?” Her mother stared at her in cold silence. “Leave! We don’t want to talk to you right now.”
    In a furious display, their parents grabbed their things and left, slamming the door so loudly, Bash winced in agony. She found her way to her bed, crashing as soon as she hit the sheets.
    She didn’t know then that she would never see her father again and that her mother would never be the same.
    She woke up to the peal of the doorbell a few hours later. The policeman said that their mother had a stroke while driving to church and wrecked the car in the rain. Their father died at the scene and their mother was in the ICU.
    Their grandparents were called to take care of the girls while they assessed their mother’s health. The left side of Cheryl’s body was paralyzed and her memories were spotty. After trying to handle her condition by themselves,