𝐔𝐍𝐓𝐈𝐋 𝐋𝐈𝐅𝐄 𝐃𝐎 𝐔𝐒 𝐀𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓 - ᴡᴀʟʟʏ ᴄʟᴀʀᴋ

iii.

ALONE AGAIN.

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WALLY, AS CLICHÉ AS IT SOUNDS, WAS ONE OF THE MOST POPULAR BOYS AT SCHOOL, if not the most popular one. Countless people wanted to date him, even more dreamt of being his friend, everybody seemed to wish to talk to him once.

At the same time, he was the worst in relationships. As soon as he caught himself being interested in someone, he got all awkward and lost every opportunity to have any kind of bond with his crush. Sometimes he even cut all connections off due to his raw, animal fear.

Of course, when you're locked up in a building with the same group of people for over than three decades, the amount of your talking points begin getting thinner and thinner until it ends. You feel like you know everything about your desert companions, you know them better than you know yourself.

So, at some point, you start speculating, discussing topics you've never thought about, and with others' help you finally find roots of your problems. Basically, sooner or later, your friendgroup turns into a team of your therapists.

It appears, Wally is afraid of failing. Failing his mother. During his short life everything he did was to please his mother: he started playing football which he wasn't enjoying at all, he took subjects he didn't find interesting and even was friends with people who annoyed him all the time.

His life wasn't exactly his, it was his mother's. She didn't only give him a birth, she created a whole new person, step by step, every aspect of his life was under her control.

Nothing really changed for a ghost Wally. He has been doing everything his mother had wanted him to do when he was alive because he had no idea how to do anything else. Wally didn't know himself, what he loved, what his hobbies were.

So, when he had found himself thinking about Isabel more than about anyone else, he freaked out. And told about his feelings to two people who, he was sure, were going to decrypt Wally Clark.

Wally liked Isabel, probably, more than he has liked anything since his birth. Feelings he had towards the Baxter girl were something that wasn't truly familiar with him. And it scared him.

Isabel is everything his mother hated. She is a distraction, someone who makes him stop thinking about the upcoming game or training. Every single distraction was strictly forbidden by his mother.

Wally Clark, the boy who has been dead for almost forty years, now has to decide if he's ready to mute his parent's voice in his head, if he's ready to be someone who he wants to be.

Wally Clark has to choose himself over his mother.

And he, as badly as he wants to, isn't ready to leave her. At least, now.

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Wally hasn't been more grateful for bumping into Charley before. Just after the girl of his dreams basically admitted to him that she liked him, Clark became all awkward and rushed to switch the position, made sure it didn't look like they were going to kiss anymore.

So, when the other ghost-boy came into the picture, he joined him without any explanations for Isabel.

She left there, in the middle of a school corridor, completely alone, and miserable. Why did he ask her if she liked him when he wasn't interested? Why did he flirt with her, dance with her during school dances and always, always showed that he was ready to protect her? Was it a game for him? Because for Isabel, it wasn't.