Chasing William by Therese McFadden Read Free Book Online Page B

for a change. Why couldn’t that be the way things
worked? She decides to walk out and everyone follows. Leaving me
just as alone as before.

    To: William Davis
    Message: Hey Will. Hope you’re having
a better time wherever you are than I am here. Are you alone where
you are? I bet not. You probably always feel good and happy in
heaven. That’s what makes dying not so bad, or, I guess, what they
say makes it not so bad. I guess I have to believe in God and
heaven and that whole mess. It’d be a lot easier to accept if the
fortune cookies were talking. At least that’s a sign the universe
is listening (whoever controls it). Can you do anything to fix it?
I guess if you could, that would mean there is some kind of spirit
and be an answer all on its own. Funny how philosophical death can
make you.
    I don’t even really need a sign. I just hate
feeling so alone. Having someone to talk to who talks back is
something I’ve really taken for granted. This has to get easier. It
can’t stay this impossibly hard for long. Growing up, figuring out
the future, grieving for you, moving on without you to hold my
hand. There’s a way to do all this, there has to be. Even if I have
to do it all alone. It doesn’t stay like this forever. Please, tell
me it doesn’t stay like this forever. It can’t stay like this
forever… I love you and miss you. Still.
     

 
    “ The change of seasons is a
good time for changing other things.”

    It is starting to get colder outside,
getting closer and closer to Christmas break. I haven’t had any
more movie nights in my basement, but I’m also busy at work and
school and everyone else is starting to freak out about graduation
and getting ready for college. Say what you will about high
schools, they really want us to be really prepared for college. All
the homework makes it hard to socialize. I guess they think it will
keep us from meeting dangerous boys and having sex or whatever
crazy things they think highschool seniors will do if not kept
properly busy. I’d thought about having sex with Will. I thought
he’d expect me to because he was reckless with everything else in
his life, but he never brought it up. He never laughed and said I
was just scared, he didn’t say I was immature, he didn’t try to
pressure me. In fact, the one time I tried to talk about it with
him, he looked at me very seriously and said he wasn’t ready for
that either, he had enough issues to work out on his own before he
could even think about making that kind of a commitment to someone
else. I always wondered why people were so hard on him. That seemed
like a pretty mature attitude to me.
    I never felt closer to Will than I did that
night. I think that’s the night I started to learn about true love,
although, I’ve always been a little upset with myself about it too.
I mean, aren’t all these stories supposed to have a happy ending
when the secret girlfriend finds out she’s pregnant? I sometimes
think about the healing we could have had if I was having a baby.
Sure, my life would never be the same, but it isn’t the same
anyway. William’s mother would have a piece of him to hold onto,
and I’d have a piece of us to keep for the rest of my life. And yet
we’d been responsible. The one time we did the right thing. Just
another step in a long line of me playing it safe. Maybe that was
for the best, though.
    I’m not sure why, but thinking about that
puts me in a bad mood on what is probably the worst day ever to be
in a bad mood. It is the four-month anniversary of William’s death,
but it still feels like I’d found out just hours ago and am stuck
in angry grief. Irrational, angry grief. It’s almost the end of the
day and all I want to do is get home and sit in my room. It would
stand to reason that now is the time I hear it.
    “Yeah, my mom’s driving everybody home so
you don’t need to worry about a ride.”
    I’m not in my right mental state; I’m way
too emotional. I know this. I also