Corinne Parker is a fictional high school senior and the main character in Nita Tyndall’s 2020 debut novel Who I Was with Her, a sapphic YA story published by Harper Teen.
At the start of the novel, Corinne receives the worst news of her life via a rumor: In the locker room one day, her cross-country team is discussing a runner from another school, who has died. There are many other runners and many other schools, but Corinne immediately panics because her girlfriend Maggie, who does run for another school, hasn’t answered Corinne’s texts. Her teammates confirm the worst: Maggie is dead.
Even worse, Maggie and Corinne’s relationship was a secret. No one even knows that they knew each other, let alone that they were dating. Unless she’s ready to come out as bi, which she most certainly is not, Corinne must grieve by herself, without any support from her friends and family, all of whom are going about their lives like nothing has changed with Maggie’s death.
In an attempt to honor Maggie’s memory, Corinne decides to take running more seriously for her final high school season. She’ll train as hard as she needs to to make it to States, which Maggie desperately wanted to win so that Corinne could win it on her behalf. Maybe she’ll even go to Villanova in the fall, like she and Maggie planned, and run in her honor there as well.
Corinne also tries to honor Maggie’s memory in another way: She begins talking to Elissa, Maggie’s ex who shows up at the funeral. She’s the only person who understands what Corinne is going through, and one of the only people who knows about Corinne and Maggie’s relationship. Never mind that they start on the wrong foot and that things are soon messy between them — Corinne can be real with Elissa, and she holds on tightly to these moments of truth.
Throughout the novel, Corinne explores her sexuality and grief and begins to think about who she wants to be now that Maggie is gone. This leaves Corinne asking larger questions about grief and the process of change, wondering how she’s supposed to figure out what she wants (as opposed to what other people want for her): What does growth look like? What if Corinne doesn’t want the same things that everyone else wants? What if Corinne isn’t sure what she wants at all?
Who I Was with Her is a coming-out novel, and Corinne spends much of the story deciding if she should, or should not, come out to her friends and family. The novel explores experiences of biphobia (including a comment made by a teacher) and how these microaggressions leave Corinne reeling and uncertain of who she can trust with the truth of her sexuality. Much of her character arc involves learning to trust other people, some of whom have Corinne’s best interests at heart, as well as her intuition, which has been giving Corinne hints about what she wants all along, even if she wasn’t sure how to hear them.
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