Will half-rose from the bed. “Hey,” he said angrily. “You can’t blame me for this. I’m not ready to share every dark secret of mine with you.”
“What do you expect me to do? You scream and have panic attacks, and I don’t have a right to know what’s causing them?” I laughed harshly. “You must be joking.”
I seized my tank top and pulled it on. He sat on the bed, glowering at me under a curtain of dark hair.
“Where the hell are you going to go? It’s the middle of the night.”
“I don’t care,” I muttered, heading towards the bathroom to stuff everything into my suitcase. A part of me hoped like hell that he would change his mind.
“Stop,” he said in a tremulous voice, which was suddenly a lot closer. His hand fell on my shoulder and I looked up into the bathroom mirror. His eyes were wide and terrified and I felt myself weaken.
I revolved slowly on the spot and William held me against him, refusing to let me go. My eyes stung and I blinked furiously.
“Please, don’t go. I’ll tell you what happened.”
Chapter 8
“It happened a few years ago when I was still in college at Stanford. My friends and I, we used to party a lot. None of us took school seriously. My best friend Dan and I were at a party away from campus. I drove there. We got completely shit-faced and then Dan and I wanted to drive to another party, but I was too drunk. I convinced him to drive instead. He couldn’t even walk to the car.
“Everything was fine until we got off the highway and—and sped down the ramp. There was a sharp turn and it happened so quickly. We plowed into a group of people standing around a car.
“I remember coming to and smelling the burnt rubber, smoke, and something metallic saturating the air. Dan was hunched over in his seat, but outside there was screaming—just the worst sound I’d ever heard. I climbed out of the window and saw that we’d crashed into a parked car. The ground was slippery. There was so much blood. A woman lay on the street with this gaping wound; her chest was torn open—I could see everything: her organs, her ribs. And then I tried to close her up—these huge flaps of her flesh I pinned together, but she was already—she was already dead.
“There was screaming and I looked behind me. A little girl pinned under our car, as white as a sheet of paper. Her mother was crouching underneath—trying to lift it. Another person was pinned against the fence—he was definitely gone. I tried to save her. I lifted the car and her mother was able to drag her out, but she was so white and there was so much blood. Her lips kept moving and I held her hand. I still remember how tiny it was in mine. Her eyes never closed. She kept looking from her mom and back to me and then they froze inside her head and what little warmth was in her hand faded away.
“My father hired the best defense lawyers money could buy and paid off a ton of news outlets so that his name—our name, would never get dragged through the mud. Dan got court-ordered rehab and never spent a day in prison. We settled with the families. I kind of went crazy for a little while and was committed. I had really severe PTSD and my girlfriend at the time dumped me. She couldn’t handle it. No one could. I never moved on. I could never get past it. How could I, when I killed those people?”
Will finished speaking, his deadened voice echoing horribly in my head.
I felt physically ill from all of the graphic descriptions of the bodies he and his drunken friend had mangled. It was much worse than I thought. I imagined what the scene must have looked like—limbs everywhere, chunks of flesh and blood painting the concrete, the girl trapped beneath the car.
William had survived unscathed. It wasn’t fair. His face was twisted and red. His eyes burned holes in my head. “You can hate me if you want, I’ll understand. You can’t hate me more than I hate myself.”
I searched myself for what I felt—I was confused, stunned, and sickened by the whole thing. I felt a flash of anger for how irresponsible they were—like Gatsby and Daisy, rich, reckless people destroying lives and retreating back into their wealth without a backwards glance. But Will isn’t like that. He feels remorse.
“I think that the choices you made that night were awful. It was a terrible, terrible thing, but I don’t hate you, Will. I feel sorry for the families. And you.”
He made no move to defend himself. I think if I stabbed him in the chest, he wouldn’t have stopped me.
I stroked his hair. “You’re not a bad person, Will.”
“I am.”
“It wasn’t your fault. You weren’t the one driving,” I said softly.
“It was my car,” he said in a sharp voice. “I convinced him to go. That doesn’t absolve me of all responsibility. If I hadn’t been such a stupid, selfish moron, those people would still be alive.”
“What about the people at the party who watched two drunk people leave and drive away? They’re responsible, too. It’s not all on you.”
The darkness in Will’s face lightened slightly. He looked up at me, slowly daring himself to believe me. “That’s true, but—”
“It all makes sense now,” I sighed. “You won’t drink a drop of alcohol because you’re terrified that something bad might happen.”
“What bothers me the most is that I never got to set things right. I was never allowed to apologize to them.”
He was like a hollow shell—he always looked so empty when he talked about the accident. The light behind his eyes died. It scared me.
“Are you in therapy?”
“No.”
“Why not? You need it, Will!”
William rubbed his arm. “I can’t talk about it.”
I stopped in front of him and took his shoulders, giving him a little shake. “You just did. Will, you’re having panic attacks all over the place. It’s not something that’s just going to fade away. You need therapy. Jessica’s in therapy, you know.”
Will was looking anywhere but me. “Good for her.”
“It helps.”
“Nothing can help. I just have to live with it.”
“Are you so horrible that you don’t deserve forgiveness? Visit the families. Apologize. Allow yourself to feel better.”
“No,” he said, looking terrified.
“You have to do it,” I said in a flat voice. “Or you’ll be miserable forever.”
We both knew it was true. He would never be able to find a scrap of peace until he confronted his problems. Visiting them wouldn’t be easy. He would have to be prepared for the hatred that would be flung in his face. I tried to think about how I would feel if it were my family. Would I be able to forgive him? I don’t think so.