Under A Latent Moon (A Werewolf Tale)

Chapter 26

Will

Discovering his childhood friend wasn't actually dead hit like a slap to the face. When he felt the explosion years ago, he didn't want to believe it. At eleven or twelve, your best friend wasn't supposed to die. The worst that happens is a fight. Death? No pre-teen should have to deal with death. But he did. He'd had to come to terms with it. 

The day after the attack was hell. His parents told him the news, yet a part of Will couldn't understand the gravity of what happened.

Despite this, he still had to move on. And so, after the funeral in which they'd buried a tiny, empty casket, he'd slowly begun to rebuild. 

School had been hard. The kids around him whispered. If they were tough enough, they'd ask him straight up about Mathias. What it was like to lose him. For weeks afterward he'd been lost. Wandering from class to class, hitting baseballs by himself, and crying in his bed at night when he was sure no one listened. 

There were moments when he'd think of Harley. He couldn't imagine what it'd felt like to be the little girl who'd lost her whole family. When Mathias was around, he'd thought she was annoying--nothing but a little sister who always wanted to hang out with the big boys. And she called him Willie--who wanted to be called Willie?

It had taken years. That was the thing about death--it refused to go away. Instead hanging a weight over his life. As he'd made new friends, as he'd trained, he never forgot about Mathias and how it would be to have him by his side. 

Now, Mathias actually was by his side. His brain couldn't comprehend it, but there he was, staring up at him and Harley. 

Mathias Pierce wasn't dead. And Will had moved on without him. The guilt formed a rock in his gut. As the best friend he wasn't supposed to let go. Will was supposed to hold on to Mathias and make sure he wasn't actually dead. There'd been no body in that casket--his parents had told him that bombs erased all of a person--but his brain had been telling him not to believe it. 

But he did. 

He had let go of his best friend. 

"Will, don't do that."

Harley kneeled on the grass in the backyard, her hand rubbing at Mathias' furry side. Her eyes were pink from crying, but he didn't care. She'd discovered her late brother was alive, and if he wasn't so self-conscious about crying, he would have followed her lead. 

"Do what?"

"You're drifting off on me," she said, "don't do that."

"I'm not drifting off."

Mathias gave an animal-like sneeze and got up to rub his face on Will's cheek. He made himself laugh and nudged Mathias away. "You getting sentimental in your old age, 'thias?"

The wolf growled low at him. Right now, Mathias was present with them. So far it seemed to come in little spurts--human, wolf, human, wolf. They'd sat in the yard for almost 40 minutes and so far he'd hopped twice since Alpha Mark left. However, even as the wolf, Mathias hadn't done anything. He seemed...calm when Harley and Will were there. 

Mathias sat back on his haunches right in front of him and stared at him hard. Sorrow pierced his chest. "I'm sorry, Mathias."