The Reason | ✓

Bonus Chapter: Will - In Time

Bonus Chapter: Will - In Time

On the first line of the To-Do List Penny has as a magnet on her fridge, I write in my chicken-scratch-calligraphy the start of my confessions.

My name is not Will.

The lines on the two "l"'s are too small. Even my hand can't stand the truth.

The "fancy" credit card I used at the café isn't mine.

It was my sister's best friend's, whom helped us escape out her back door when things turned to worse. When things... got out of hand.

I was in the self-help section to educate myself on how to be better.

I hesitate, but soon force the Papermate pen back to the paper and... explain.

But I can promise you that nothing in those books could show me anything that you have already.

I don't notice that my teeth are grinding until my jaw begins to throb.

I am on the run now, though, six years after giving my speech at graduation.

She's not going to be safe with me.

The authorities caught me three months ago setting fire to my house.

The lights on the cars (red, white, blue, red, white, blue, over and over again 'til I couldn't stand to watch anymore) were blinding.

I lost my sister two months after, in the middle of a chase from the police.

A choked sigh.

I am Seattle's most-wanted criminal.

I whirl away from the paper when I hear the door's lock un-bolt; I didn't even notice that I've turned to the second page. Looking down at the pad, indentations from the pen pressing so hard to its surface, I wonder how many pages I'm going to fill before everything is explained.

But Penny's bathroom door cracks open and she squeezes out, a ziploc bag in hand full of essentials and tenderly putting it inside her backpack that she's taking along. We can't stay here. We wouldn't be safe.

She must feel me watching her because her back stiffens, and from the side I can see one cheek turn crimson. She's not use to attention. The thought enrages me. But keeping in mind that she needs her space, I reluctantly turn back to the To-Do list and... continue.

Although this sounds like an excuse, I've been set up by my father.

He told me everything would be fine... he was wrong.

We were going to fake his death. He was in trouble with the authorities already.

The neighbors saw me with the gasoline.

We didn't have time to say our goodbyes.

My father is somewhere that I don't know, and my sister...

I'm still on the hunt for her.

I'm still waiting to clear our name.

And I'm still waiting for life to give me a break.

"What are you scribbling away about?"

Her voice stuns me and the pen goes sliding from my hand, across the table, and clatters to the tiled floor. She cocks her head where she leans on the bedroom's doorframe, looking more closely, not at the paper, but at me.

I can't meet her curious eyes.

"Gimme," she whispers, and my chest thumps at the childish word in her stern voice. I don't give the paper to her. I gulp. I'm not ready yet for her to know everything... but will I ever be? Appearing exasperated, she walks - no, practically floats - she walks on air, she's so graceful - to the table I'm sitting at and slides the pad towards her.

She reads, but only for a second, before she does the unthinkable: tosses the entire thing into the trash bin beside her.

"Penny?" I mean to say in a demanding tone, but instead comes out as a question.

She turns back to look at me and notches an eyebrow at my probably distraught expression. "No explanations."

"Don't you want to know?"

She purses her lips. After a few prolonged seconds, her ever-so kind brown eyes watching me carefully throughout, she finally comes out with, "In time."

And with that, she leaves me breathless yet again.

She twirls around in her spot and walks back to the bedroom, leaning down to sling her now-full backpack from the floor to one shoulder. "Ready?"

I think for the first time about the same question I've had to ask myself for three months now. Ready? And for the first time, my answer is simple. "Yes." Striding to be at her side, I take her hand in mine and together we walk towards the front door. "Are you?"

A crooked smile curves her lips and my chest does the thing again. "I think so, Travis."

I trip over my feet at the sound of the name - my name - I haven't heard in so long. I look at her with wild eyes and she only looks up to me, stops, squeezes my hand, and gives me the warmest smile. "In time."

And then we walk out the door into the warm-turned-chilly night, both knowing that those two words would just have to be enough for now.

With that truth, we're going to be, maybe not safe, but okay.

And that's enough for us, too.