BEST FRIENDS FOR LIFE

Chapter 4

For the past days, the accident had made the local news and people from all parts of the county came to visit, giving him and their families condolences and offers to help in any way they could. But a visit, a visit he wasn’t ready for came his way.

“Mr. McKenzie, we’re going to get you in a wheelchair now. Someone wants to see you.” The way the nurse said it got Will frightened. “O-Okay but couldn’t they just…come to me?” The nurse didn’t answer. She just loaded him into the wheelchair and proceeded to carry him elsewhere. The nurse had wheeled him to the hospital reception area and a man wearing a baseball hat, flannel shirt and denim jeans stood. On seeing Will, he took his hat off, revealing his balding head. “Hello,” he greeted dryly. “Hi. Who are you?” Will was smiling at him, happy to see another visitor who cared enough to visit. “My name is Viktor Dowton. I’m….I’m the driver of the truck.” Will’s smile fell as he leaned back in his wheelchair. “I-I-I didn’t mean to hit your car. I was coming back from…a bar. Right outside of town and it started raining and I was heading home. Maybe I had too many drinks, maybe I didn’t but I started feeling…sleepy and I think I drove on the wrong side of the road, hitting…” He couldn’t continue. Will couldn’t listen anymore. “You were drunk?!” Anger clouded his sight and he lunged out of his wheelchair and unto the man, ignoring the complains of his body. “You’re telling me that Casadee is dead because you were drunk?!” He started punching Viktor senseless and a group of nurses came to break up the scene. “You…you were drunk! My girlfriend…is….dead…She was going to Yale, man!” Will started sobbing shamelessly in the arms of a nurse. The tears he thought were wasted came back and he cried them for the thousandth time. Viktor felt ashamed. Maybe this was a bad idea, he thought. “I’m sorry,” he murmured then left Will to wallow in self-pity….

 ~TIME LAPSE~ ((3 months later))

“The funeral is tomorrow, Will,” reminded Ms. Johnson. They were sitting in the Johnson’s garden, enjoying a glass of lemonade. Will came back from the hospital three days ago, fully recovered and back on his stride. Ms. Johnson kept her word and was having Casadee’s funeral tomorrow due to Will’s recovery. Will sighed and took a long sip of lemonade. “I better get me a good suit then.” The thought of suits and Casadee, Will never thought the word funeral would come to play. He was thinking graduation….marriage. But that’s how it is. That’s how it was. Will convinced himself for the past three months that life was unfair. Casadee had her whole life ahead of her but it ended so soon, she didn’t have time to prepare.

Ms. Johnson still loved Will, even though Casadee wasn’t here to do it too. Will was like the other child she never had and to Will, Ms. Johnson was more of a mother than his real mother. “I better get going. See you tomorrow,” then he kissed her on the cheek and left the garden. He no longer had the red mustang. He traded Big Red for a beat up old Toyota truck. He drove back to McKenzie Estate and headed straight for his closet. A few weeks before the accident, Will bought a brand new black suit for their prom and a purple corsage because purple was Casadee’s favorite color. Now, they laid at the back of his closet, forgotten but it’s time he wore them.

That night, Will had a nightmare. He dreamt the night of the accident but in his dreams, he wasn’t alone with Casadee this time. Ms. Johnson there and so was Steven. Then the truck hit the car….“Ahhh!” Will shot up from his bed and fell to the floor hard. ‘Will? You okay?” called his mom from some other part of the house. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m alright.” He got up from the floor and ran his hand through his hair. “I guess…I better get ready.” 

By the time nine came, Will stood on the stairwell looking sharp in his black suit, holding the corsage in his hand. He let out a long sigh. “Don’t you look handsome,” complimented Angela. She was wearing a black dress and black gloves. She walked over to him and fixed his tie, lifting his chin up. “We’ll get through this, okay?” Her eyes were big and glassy. Will had stopped believing he’d ever get through this but he’d give Angela the benefit of the doubt. The service started at ten in St. Peter’s Church of God, not too far from Foreyard’s Lake. People came up and gave little accounts of Casadee, mostly complying of ‘She was a quiet person. No one knew her but Will.’ Ms. Johnson sat with the McKenzie’s, determined not to cry. And she almost made it too. It was only until the trek to the St. Peter Cemetery and the open casket service did she break down in Will’s arms. And Will stood, looking down into that casket and looking at his best friend and the love of his life. She was wearing a purple dress that bared the resemblance of a prom dress. She didn’t look dead. She looked asleep but the one thing that was noticeably different were her lips. The lips Will had kissed more than a thousand times, the lips he’d do anything to kiss again. They were thin and pale. The same paste-y white color of her skin. When the pastor said the prayer for the dead, Will had slipped on the corsage, right next to the charm bracelet. His blue eyes looked drained and sadder than ever in his life. There was no color in his cheeks, no happiness anywhere. People wore black and stood motionless in the gloomy cemetery. They closed the casket and lowered it into the grave, burying it before a tombstone that read: