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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.”
8
“It happened a few years ago when I was still in college at Stanford. My friends and I partied a lot. Typical dumb jocks. None of us took school seriously. My best friend Dan and I were at a party away from campus.We got shit-faced and then Dan wanted to go to another party, but I was too drunk. So he drove instead. I thought he was okay to get behind the wheel.
“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 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 smashed against the fence—he was gone. I tried to save her. I lifted the car and her mother draggedher out, but she was so pale 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 didn't spend a day in prison. We settled with the families, but I never got past it. I—I couldn’t save them.”
Will finished speaking, his deadened voice echoing in my head.
I felt ill from all 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 survived unscathed. It wasn’t fair. His face was twisted and red. His eyes burned holes in my head.
“You can loathe me if you want.I’ll understand. You can’t hate me more than I hate myself.”
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 into their wealth without a backward glance.
But Will isn’t like that.
“I thinkthe choices you made that night were awful. It was a terrible, terrible thing, but I don’t hate you. I feel sorry for the families. And you.”
He made no move to defend himself. If I stabbed him in the chest, he wouldn’t have stopped me.
“You’re not a bad person.”
“I am.”
“You weren’t the one driving,” I whispered.
“It was my car,” he said in a sharp voice. “It was my responsibility. If I hadn’t been such a stupid, selfish moron, those people would still be alive.”
“What about the ones at the party who watched two drunk kids leave and drive away? They’re responsible, too. It’s not all on you.”
The darkness in Will’s face lightened.
“It all makes sense now,” I sighed. “You won’t drink a drop of alcohol because you’re terrified that something bad might happen.”
“I could never 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.
“Then visit the families. Apologize. Allow yourself to feel better.”
“They don’t want to see me.”
“You have to try.”
Visiting them wouldn’t be easy. He would have to be prepared for the hatred that would be flung in his face.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
