Identity - Rewritten

Chapter Ten

August 2009

Will's ceiling is off-white. The average person to look at it may conclude that it's just regular white, but after careful consideration he has come to the conclusion that it is, indeed, not.

This is one of the many unproductive decisions he's made today. The others include the number of strips of wood on the hardwood floor, the rate of new clouds in the sky out of his window at five-minute intervals, and the number of threads in his pajama pants.

Needless to say, he is extremely bored. Bored out of his mind.

However, no matter how hard he does or doesn't want to, Will can't force himself out of bed. Getting up means doing things, like homework, and socializing, and he'd much rather waste away under a few layers of bedsheets than do any of that. Besides, he's got nothing interesting to hack into as of the moment, so booting up his laptop would serve no purpose, either.

He prefers to find ways to both occupy his mind and also not think about the last year of his life. But Will has run out of things to count, and so instead of focusing on his breathing like he's trying to, his mind wanders to exactly the things he's been trying not to think of.

Moving in with Aunt Heather. The accident. His family, dying.

Flashing across his vision, instantly, is the image he's seen so many times- his little sister Tamara giving a huge smile at the sight of him, before dissolving into a fit of coughs. The racing of her heart. The high-pitched whine of the machine next to her, confirming to them all what they knew was coming. Her angelic little face, as a doctor put a sheet over her head.

Rubbing at his eyes, Will takes slow, deep breaths, counting every one, making sure they're all the same length.

1, 2, 3...

Even breathing properly becomes difficult under scrutiny, and Will lets the breathing become the only thing he can focus on, lets it consume his whole world.

He notes that every breath is a luxury on lost time.

His bedroom door opens, then, and Will doesn't move his gaze from the off-white ceiling.

"Heather let me in," says a soft, feminine voice. Will recognizes it instantly. The bed dips next to him, but WIll makes no attempt to move or look her way.

16, 17, 18...

Kay sighs. "Are you going to talk to me today?"

No response. Will's breathing gets shallower. She lays down next to him, resting her head on his bare chest and snuggling herself under the warm covers. She hasn't been invited to do so, but then again, she never needed to before.

"It's been almost a month, Will," she finally whispers. "A month next week."

Once upon a time, that color in her voice would send him searching her face, asking what's wrong and figuring out how to fix it. Now, he just moves his eyes blankly to meet hers.

Will replies, "I'm aware."

Her expression pinches together. "You never leave the house anymore. You don't do your homework for your summer classes, you're failing almost all of them, you don't hang out with our friends anymore, and..," she pauses. "You barely even talk to me. What do you want me to do, Will?"

It's a genuine question, but the words slide out of her mouth broken and raw.

"We haven't even had an actual conversation since that day. We don't go out on dates. We've kissed, what, three times? It's like we're not even in a relationship anymore." A pause. A shaky breath and a then a deep one. "I know you're still dealing with it all, and I know it's hard for you, but I can't keep pretending like I'm okay with being ignored all the time. I may as well be dating someone who's dead."