Chasing William (11 page)

Chain food also means chain fortune cookies.
Not that all fortune cookies aren’t made in a factory and shipped
out in bulk, but chain restaurants seem to have more ambiguous and
less individualized cookies. I don’t expect the place to have an
old Chinese man with a long white beard stashed in a back room,
hand-writing prophetic script for everyone who enters, but I like
having the possibility of imagining it. I can’t really imagine that
at a Panda Express.

I finish my plate before the line is
completely gone, but business has started to dwindle a little. I
throw away my plate and open my cookie as I walk out:

“Today is a good day

”

I hate fortunes that use smiley faces in
them. I can’t take emoticons seriously. Just like when you’re
chatting with someone and they send you a smile because they don’t
have anything else to say. I’d rather just be blown off than be
stuck trying to reply to a digital facial expression the person
probably isn’t even making in real life. I toss the cookie and the
fortune into the trash can and get back in my car.

“
We feel pain when things are
bad to know we can still feel.”

The third
hour is the one I’ve been scared of the most. Pain isn’t like the
other stages of grief – it’s tangible. Pain can be felt, touched,
and tasted. Pain is the thing you feel when you’re working through
all the other emotions. The pain of grief is always there, and the
only thing about it that changes is the cause. I’ve been feeling
enough pain lately. I don’t want to examine it more closely, or
strip it down and see if there is a way to stop it. I guess I’m
afraid there won’t be a way to make it go away. I realize things
work themselves out with time (everyone tells me that, like it’ll
help now) but I don’t like being in pain. No one does. It is,
however, on the list, so I make it a playlist and prepare myself to
cry.

It’s hard to describe just what hurts the
most about William being dead. I guess not having him here to talk
to is pretty high up there, knowing that things will never be that
way again, but that’s not all. What hurts the most is having my
future taken away from me. I’m almost eighteen. Everyone tells me I
have the whole world open to me now, that it’s time to “invent
myself” as an individual, but that’s not true. The one door I
wanted to stay open was just slammed in my face and no one’s
bothered to open a window. There’s no guarantee William and I would
have stayed together, but I wanted the chance to see for myself. Of
all the guys I’ve met, William was the only one I felt at peace
with. I never wanted more when we were together. He was the only
guy worth the risk of losing. Even knowing how things would end, he
was worth it. Now I have to figure out my future alone and there is
no way he can be a part of it.

That’s what hurts the most, knowing I will
never know.

God, life is unfair.

I stare out my windshield and try not to
think about anything. The music doesn’t really cause the emotional
response I expected it to. I feel hollow and numb, if it’s even
possible to feel both at once. I must be repressing something. I’ve
been crying at everything recently. It doesn’t seem normal that the
one time I try to only think about what hurts, I can’t cry. I just
keep thinking that there’s no point, nothing I can do to change
anything. That seems like it should be a good thing, but it doesn’t
feel “good”. I don’t feel like I want to change anything, or go on
a quest, or take on a challenge to get myself going again. I just
feel empty. I threw around the word “apathy” a lot back when Amanda
and I were best friends. It was cool to be apathetic about life,
but I never really was. I always cared, even if it was just a
little. Right now I really do feel apathetic. I could keep going or
turn around or just stop. It wouldn’t change anything. Why bother?
I feel a little like Bartleby from that Melville story Miss R. made
us read. Suddenly responding, “I would prefer not to” to everything
makes a lot of sense.

I decide to keep going just because it’s the
easiest thing to do. I wish there was more traffic so I could get
upset about something, but the highway is almost empty. I wish it
would start snowing or my heater would give out – just something,
anything – so things would be different. Nothing happens. I keep
driving and nothing gets in my way or makes the drive unpleasant. I
call these my “stare at the wall” moods because if I were at home
I’d just sit and stare for awhile, trying to figure out what to do.
I haven’t had many of them recently because whenever I’d think
about what was going on in my life I’d cry. Being alone with my
thoughts has become a very dangerous pastime. Not as dangerous as
whatever was going on now, though. I can’t even say it’s a feeling
that makes me want to give up. It is like I already gave up and I
just haven’t realized yet. I try to ask myself what to do next, but
it’s like my mind just shrugs its hypothetical shoulders and makes
me go it alone.

“Turn left at next exit,” my GPS chirps at
me in its computerized impersonation of a human.

I guess I’ll go left at the next exit. There
doesn’t seem to be any better choice. It is scary to feel this
empty. I don’t like it. What if this feeling never goes away and
I’m like this forever? I can’t even over-think myself into a panic.
No matter what I do, nothing will change. I guess I’ll just have to
hope for an answer inside the next fortune cookie. I’m going to a
place called “China Wok”. According to the reviews it’s another one
of those hole-in-the-wall places at a strip mall. When I was making
my list of Chinese restaurants, it never occurred to me that going
to some of these places alone might be dangerous. Right now I can’t
bring myself to care, but any other day I would have really started
to panic.

My GPS doesn’t seem to be leading me down
any dark alleys yet, though. The streets are busy, and the few
houses I can see from the road don’t seem like the type to have
bodies buried under the floorboards (not that you can ever be quite
sure). I see the China Wok sign and turn into the parking lot. It’s
not the classiest place in the world, but it doesn’t look like I’ll
get hepatitis either. It’s right next to an out-of-business
Blockbuster and a tiny storefront that seems to be an insurance
agency (although I think I’d trust the Chinese food well before I’d
trust the insurance). It’s actually crowded when I walk in, but
I’ve finally found a place that lives up to my expectations. I can
hear Mandarin being shouted in the kitchen, and the people working
are not blond haired and blue-eyed. It also smells spectacular,
like crispy noodles and spicy sauces and all sorts of other edible
delicacies. I wish I’d waited just one more hour to eat, because I
can almost guarantee the food here will easily top Panda
Express.

“Can I get an order of beef fried rice, a
fortune cookie, and a large soda?”

The guy working behind the counter nods and
yells out what I assume is my order to the kitchen. I take my cup
and fill it from the fountain, then grab a small table by the
window. It’s probably about time I sent some kind of contact home
so my parents know I haven’t died on the way. I’m still not really
in the mood to do anything, but I’d hate for my parents to put out
a missing persons call just because I didn’t feel like talking.
Sending a text would be a lot easier than calling, and I also
wouldn’t have to answer any follow-up questions or explain how I’m
feeling about the situation.

It seems like the best plan.

For lack of anything else to do, I start
watching all the people going in and out with bags. It looks like
this place does do a lot more carry-out business than they get
people who stay to eat. That is fine with me. The fewer people I
actually have to risk contact with, the better.

“Are you a student?”

Thought too soon. “Um, yeah, sure.” The
woman in front of me is middle-age and wearing a tacky holiday
sweater. I hope she’s going to some kind of theme party, but she
seems like the type of person who would make that fashion choice
for everyday wear.

“I remember college. Those were the best
years of my life.”

“Yup.” I must be near a college. What is it
about college towns that makes people so chatty?

“I’m surprised you’re still here. I thought
everyone would’ve been back home for the break already.”

“Yeah. I’m just passing through.”

“Oh.” She looks at me like I’m some crazy
drifter who’s going to try and murder her and steal her car. At
least that’s how I interpret it – I like to pretend I look pretty
tough, must be another one of those “teenager” things. She’s
probably just thinking I’m acting like a bitch.

Finally the guy from the counter brings me
my food.

“Merry Christmas,” I mumble through a mouth
full of rice.

The woman gives me an obligatory smile and
nod, then moves closer to the counter to wait for her carry-out
bag. Maybe I should be insulted she moved away, or take it as a
sign I need to change my attitude, but I’m hungry (which surprises
me, considering all I ate at Panda) and I’m still finding it
difficult to really care about anything.

I wonder what kind of university is around
here? I hadn’t done much college searching over the summer due to
the fact that there were more important things to deal with at the
time. I hadn’t really picked up where I’d left off either.
Everything just stopped and I’d only sent out a few applications
because my guidance counselor made it mandatory. I was hearing
everyone in my class talk about the schools they went to visit and
how they’re excited about majors and dorm life and moving away. I
want to be excited like that too. Talking about dorms with Amanda
was exciting, but only in a theoretical sense. I knew whatever we
talked about wouldn’t happen. No matter how good it sounds, I know
it isn’t real. I think I want to go to college. I’m just not sure
how I’m going to get there. I can’t do things like everyone else
anymore. That’s probably overreacting, but that’s how it feels.

I finish my rice and decide to go for a road
trip within a road trip. I told my mom to think about this as a
long college visit, so I might as well actually look at a college.
The GPS finds the address pretty quickly. It was only five minutes
away. I makes it to campus and just drive around. Tacky Sweater
Lady was right: the place looks totally deserted. Everything looks
so old and big and impossible to navigate on an everyday basis. How
do people actually walk around with backpacks and make it to class
on time? How do you find people to be friends with in a place like
this? It seems so intimidating. Maybe rooming with Amanda isn’t
such a bad idea. Looking at a place this huge, it seems impossible
I’ll ever get to know other people. Coming in with someone I have
history with seems like the only solution. She could be the only
person I ever really get to know. Maybe things will get better in
college. It’ll make us both grow up and be able to live together
somehow. The campus just seems so..adult somehow. I do not feel
prepared for this.

My stomach knots up and my palms sweat. I’m
nervous. I’m feeling something about something again! This makes me
happy. I never thought I’d miss emotions, but now that they’re
back, I cling to them to reassure myself I’m still alive and the
world is still turning. I take a deep breath and head back to the
highway. I left my fortune cookie unopened back at China Wok, but
that doesn’t seem so important right now. Time to move on to stage
four.

“
You cannot control others’
actions.”

Guilt is one of those things you can’t
really feel on command, but once you get it into your mind to feel
guilty about something, it’s a very powerful emotion. It also
happens to be my fourth stage of grief, which is why I am spending
so much time thinking about it. Other than having my mom try to get
me to do something for her, I’m not really sure what I’m supposed
to do to make myself feel guilty about William’s death. It’d be
easy if I’d been doing drugs with him, or sold him drugs, or pushed
him in front of a car or something. Even if I’d broken up with him
the night before he died, I’d have something to feel guilty
about.

I guess I could just feel guilty about being
alive when he’s dead. That’s something. The thing is… I don’t.
Everything I’ve read or been told seems to indicate it’s totally
normal (and expected) to go through some sort of “I’m here and they
aren’t” guilt. It never even occurred to me to feel that way,
though. I mean, briefly, it might have, but it wasn’t one of those
thoughts that stuck. It just flitted around and disappeared.

The traffic is starting to pick up and it’s
starting to get harder to just drive and contemplate. I actually
have to start paying attention to the highway. I don’t know what it
is about the interstate that brings out the idiots, but everyone
driving seems to have a problem with every other car out there. I
probably drive too fast (I’ll be the first to admit it)but that’s
what the fast lane is for. I watch out for cops; I haven’t gotten a
ticket yet, but I just like to get where I’m going as quickly as
possible. Unlike the person in front of me who seems to think
highways and school zones aren’t much different. I can’t stand
people who drive like that, and of course some asshole is tailing
me like it’s my fault. I swear, these are the same people who
complain about teen drivers and how we shouldn’t be on the road. If
I had a chance I’d get on a soapbox and complain about
their
driving. Not much of an example they’re setting.

I really should be spending more time
worrying about how to feel guilt for an hour. The time passes a lot
quickly when I need it for something than when I’m waiting for
something to be over. That obnoxious GPS voice will yell out the
next exit soon enough and then it’ll be too late.