The Last Song by Nicholas Sparks Read Free Book Online Page A

then, at odd times, it all came back to him with visceral force. The images never changed or faded, the images never blurred around the edges. As though viewing it through someone else’s eyes, he would see himself running up the beach and grabbing Scott as he stared at the raging fire.
    What the hell did you do? he remembered screaming.
    It’s not my fault! Scott had screamed back.
    It was only then, however, that Will realized they weren’t alone. In the distance, he noticed Marcus, Blaze, Teddy, and Lance, watching them, and he knew at once they’d seen everything that happened.
    They knew…
    As soon as Will grabbed for his cell phone, Scott stopped him.
    Don’t call the police! I told you it was an accident! His expression was pleading. Come on, man! You owe me!
    News coverage had been extensive the first couple of days, and Will had watched the segments and read the articles in the paper, his stomach in knots. It was one thing to cover for an accidental fire. Maybe he could have done that. But someone had been injured that night, and he felt a sickening surge of guilt whenever he drove by the site. It didn’t matter that the church was being rebuilt or that the pastor had long since been released from the hospital; what mattered was that he knew what had happened and hadn’t done anything about it.
    You owe me…
    Those were the words that haunted him most.
    Not simply because he and Scott had been best friends since kindergarten, but for another, more important reason. And sometimes, in the middle of the night, he would lie awake, hating the truth of those words and wishing for a way to make things right.
    Oddly enough, it was the incident at the volleyball game earlier in the day that triggered the memories this time. Or rather, it had been the girl he’d collided with. She hadn’t been interested in his apologies, and unlike most girls around here, she hadn’t tried to mask her anger. She didn’t simmer and she didn’t squeal; she was self-possessed in a way that struck him instantly as different.
    After she’d stormed off, they’d finished out the set, and he had to admit he’d missed a couple of shots he ordinarily wouldn’t have. Scott had glared at him and—maybe because of the play of light—he’d looked exactly as he had on the night of the fire when Will had pulled out his cell phone to call the police. And that was all it took to set those memories loose again.
    He’d been able to hold it together until they’d won the game, but after it ended, he’d needed some time alone. So he’d wandered over to the fairgrounds and stopped at one of those overpriced, impossible-to-win game booths. He was getting ready to shoot an overinflated basketball at the slightly too high rim when he heard a voice behind him.
    “There you are,” Ashley said. “Were you avoiding us?”
    Yes, he thought. Actually, I was.
    “No,” he answered. “I haven’t taken a shot since the season ended, and I wanted to see how rusty I am.”
    Ashley smiled. Her white tube top, sandals, and dangly earrings showed off her blue eyes and blond hair to maximum effect. She’d changed into the outfit since the final volleyball game of the tournament. Typical; she was the only girl he’d ever known who carried complete outfit changes as a regular rule, even when she went to the beach. At the prom last May, she’d changed three times: one outfit for dinner, another for the dance, and a third for the party afterward. She’d actually brought along a suitcase, and after pinning on her corsage and posing for photographs, he’d had to lug it to the car. Her mother hadn’t found it unusual that she packed as though she were heading off on vacation instead of a dance. But maybe that was part of the problem. Ashley had once taken him to glimpse inside her mom’s closet; the woman must have had a couple of hundred different pairs of shoes and a thousand different outfits. Her closet could have housed a Buick.
    “Don’t let me