The Last Song(36)
Author: Nicholas Sparks

He turned, ready for Teddy, but it was Ronnie holding his arm, a terrified expression on her face.

“Stop! He’s not worth going to jail for!” she screamed. “Don’t ruin your life for him!”

He barely heard her, but he registered her tugging as she began trying to pull him off.

“Please, Will,” she said, her voice shaking. “You’re not like him. You have a future. Don’t throw it all away.”

As she gradually loosened her grip, he felt his energy drain away. He struggled to stand, the adrenaline leaving him shaky and off balance. Ronnie slipped an arm around his waist, and they slowly began walking back to the truck.

The next morning, he went to work with his hand aching, only to find Scott waiting for him in the small locker room. As Scott pulled up his coverall, he glared at Will before shrugging the one-piece over his shoulders.

“You didn’t have to quit the match,” he said, pulling up the zipper. “The paramedics were there the whole time.”

“I know,” Will said. “I wasn’t thinking. I’d seen them earlier, but I forgot. I’m sorry about having to forfeit the match.”

“Yeah, well, so am I,” Scott snapped. He reached for a rag and tucked it into his belt. “We could have won it all, but you had to rush off to play hero.”

“Scott, man, she needed help—”

“Yeah? And why did it have to be you? Why couldn’t you wait for help? Why didn’t you call 911? Why did you have to haul her off in your truck?”

“I told you—I forgot the paramedics were there. I thought it would take too long for an ambulance to arrive…”

Scott slammed his fist against the locker. “But you don’t even like her!” he shouted. “You don’t even know her anymore! Yeah, if it was Ashley or Cassie or even Ronnie, I could understand it. Hell, if it was a stranger, I could understand it. But Blaze? Blaze? The same chick who’s gonna send your girlfriend to jail? The chick that hangs out with Marcus?” Scott took a step toward him. “Do you think for a second she would have done the same for you? If you were hurt and you needed help? Not a chance!”

“It’s just a game,” Will objected, feeling his own anger begin to surface.

“To you!” Scott screamed. “To you it’s a game! But for you, everything’s a game! Don’t you get that? Because nothing matters to you! You don’t need to win things like this, because even if you lose, you still get life handed to you on a silver platter! But I needed this! It’s my future on the line, man!”

“Yeah, well, it was a girl’s life on the line,” Will lashed back. “And if you could stop being so self-centered for once, you’d see that saving someone’s life is more important than your precious volleyball scholarship!”

Scott shook his head in disgust. “You’ve been my friend for a long time… but you know, it’s always been on your terms. Everything has always been what you want. You want to break up with Ashley, you want to hang out with Ronnie, you want to blow off practice for weeks on end, you want to play hero. Well, you know what? You were wrong. I talked to the paramedics. They told me you were wrong. That by hauling her to the truck the way you did, you might have made things worse. And what did you get? Did she thank you? No, of course she didn’t. And she won’t. But you’re perfectly willing to screw a friend over because what you want to do is most important.”

Scott’s words were like blows to his stomach, but they only stoked his anger. “Get over yourself, Scott,” Will said. “This time, it’s not all about you.”

“You owed me!” Scott screamed, slamming the locker again. “I asked for this one simple thing! You know how much it meant to me!”

“I don’t owe you anything,” Will said with quiet fury. “I’ve been covering for you for the past eight months. I’m tired of Marcus playing us. You need to do the right thing. You need to tell the truth. Things have changed.”

Will turned and strode to the door. As he pushed it open, he heard Scott behind him.

“What did you do?”

Will turned, holding the door half-open and meeting Scott’s gaze with steely intent. “Like I said, you need to tell the truth.”

He waited until Scott absorbed his words, then stepped out, letting the door slam shut behind him. As he made his way past the cars on lifts, he could hear Scott calling after him.

“You want to ruin my life? You want me to go to jail for an accident? I’m not going to do that!”

Even as he neared the lobby, he could still hear Scott slamming his hand into the lockers.

29

Ronnie

The next week was tense for both of them. Ronnie wasn’t comfortable with the violence she’d seen Will display, nor was she entirely comfortable with the way it had made her feel. She didn’t like fights, she didn’t like to see people get hurt, and she knew that it rarely improved a situation. Yet she couldn’t force herself to be angry at Will for what he’d done. As much as she didn’t want to condone what happened, watching Will completely dismantle the three of them made her feel just a bit safer when she was with him.

But Will was stressed. He was certain that Marcus would report what happened and that the police would come knocking at his door any minute, but Ronnie sensed that something else was bothering him, something he wasn’t letting on. For some reason he and Scott weren’t on speaking terms, and she wondered whether that had something to do with Will’s unease.

Then, of course, there was the family. Particularly Will’s mother. Ronnie had seen her twice since the wedding: once as she waited in the truck at Will’s house while Will ran inside to pick up a clean shirt, and once at a restaurant in downtown Wilmington when Will took her out. As they’d taken their seats, Susan had walked in with a group of her friends. Ronnie had a perfect view of the entrance, but Will was facing in the other direction. On both occasions, Susan had pointedly turned her back to Ronnie.

She hadn’t told Will about either incident. While Will was lost in his own world of retribution and worry, Ronnie noticed that Susan seemed to believe Ronnie was somehow personally responsible for the tragedy that had befallen Blaze.

As she stood in her bedroom, she watched Will’s sleeping figure from a distance. He was curled up near the turtles’ nest; because a few of the other nests had begun to hatch, they’d removed the cage this afternoon, and the nest was completely exposed. Neither of them felt good about leaving it unattended for the night, and because Will was spending less and less time at home anyway, he’d volunteered to watch it.

She didn’t want to think about their newfound troubles, but she found herself replaying all that had happened this summer. She could barely remember the girl she’d been when she’d first arrived at the beach. And the summer wasn’t over yet; in a couple of days, she’d turn eighteen, and after one last weekend together, Will would be leaving for college. Her next court appearance was scheduled a few days after that, and then she’d have to go back to New York. So much already done and so much left to do.

She shook her head. Who was she? And whose life was she leading? More than that, where would it take her?

These days, none of it and all of it felt real, more real than anything she’d known: her love for Will, her growing bond with her father, the way her life had slowed down, so simply and completely. All of it sometimes seemed to be happening to someone else, someone she was still getting to know. Never in a million years would she have considered the idea that a sleepy beach town somewhere in the South would have been filled with so much more… life and drama than Manhattan.

Smiling, she had to admit that with a few exceptions, it hadn’t been all that bad, either. She was sleeping in a quiet bedroom beside her brother, separated only by glass and sand from the young man she loved, a young man who loved her back. She wondered whether there could be anything greater in life. And despite all that had happened, maybe because of it, she knew she would never forget the summer they’d spent together, no matter what the future might bring.

Lying in bed, she began to drift off to sleep. Her last conscious thought was that there was more coming. Although that sensation often foretold the worst, she knew that couldn’t be possible, not after all they’d been through.

In the morning, however, she awoke feeling anxious. As always, she was acutely conscious of the fact that another day had passed, meaning one less day left with Will.

But as she lay there, trying to make sense of the unease she felt, she realized it wasn’t just that. Will was heading off to college next week. Even Kayla was heading off to college. Yet she still had no idea what was coming for her. Yeah, she’d turn eighteen, and yeah, she’d deal with whatever the court decided, but then what? Was she going to live with her mom forever? Should she apply for a job at Starbucks? For an instant she flashed on a image of herself holding a shovel and following behind elephants at the zoo.

It was the first time she’d confronted the future so directly. She’d always held to the breezy belief that everything would turn out okay, no matter what she decided. And it would, she knew… for a while. But did she still want to be living with her mom at nineteen? Or twenty-one? Or, God forbid, twenty-five?

And how on earth was someone supposed to earn enough on her own—and afford to live in Manhattan—without a college degree?

She didn’t know. All she knew for certain was that she wasn’t ready for the summer to end. She wasn’t ready to go back home. She wasn’t ready to think about Will wandering the green quads at Vanderbilt, walking beside coeds in cheerleader outfits. She didn’t want to think about any of it.

*     *     *

“Is everything okay? You’ve been kind of quiet,” Will said.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s just that I’ve got a lot on my mind.”

They were sitting at the pier, sharing bagels and coffee, which they’d picked up on the way. Usually the pier was crowded with people fishing, but this morning they had the place to themselves. A nice surprise, considering he had the day off.

“Have you given any thought to what you want to do?”

“Anything that doesn’t involve elephants and shovels.”

He balanced his bagel on the Styrofoam cup. “Do I want to know what you’re talking about?”

“Probably not,” she said, grimacing.

“Okay.” He nodded. “But I was talking about what you wanted to do for your birthday tomorrow.”

Ronnie shrugged. “It doesn’t have to be anything special.”

“But you’re turning eighteen. Face it—that’s a big deal. You’ll legally be an adult.”

Great, she thought. Yet another reminder that time was running out to figure out what she was going to do with her life. Will must have read her expression because he reached over to put a hand on her knee.

“Did I say something wrong?”

“No. I don’t know. I’m just feeling weird today.”

In the distance, a pod of porpoises broke the water beyond the swells. The first time she’d seen them, she’d been amazed. Even the twentieth. Now, they were a regular part of the scenery, but even so, she’d miss them when she was back in New York, doing whatever it was she was going to do. She’d probably end up addicted to cartoons like Jonah and insist on watching them upside down.

“How about I take you out to dinner?”

No, scratch that. She’d probably end up addicted to Game Boy. “Okay.”

“Or maybe we’ll go dancing.”

Or maybe Guitar Hero. Jonah liked to play that for hours. And so had Rick, now that she thought about it. Pretty much everyone without a life was addicted to that game. “Sounds fine.”

“Or how about this? We paint our faces and try to summon ancient Incan goddesses.”

Addicted to those lousy games, she’d probably still be living at home when Jonah went off to college in eight years. “Whatever you want.”

The sound of Will’s laughter was enough to bring her attention back to him. “Did you say something?”

“Your birthday. I was trying to figure out what you want for your birthday, but obviously you’re out in never-never land. I’m leaving on Monday, and I want to do something special for you.”

She thought about it before turning toward the house, noticing again how out of place it was along this stretch of beach. “You know what I really, really want?”

It didn’t happen on her birthday, but two nights later, Friday, August 22, was close enough. The staff at the aquarium really did have the whole thing down to a science; earlier that afternoon, workers and volunteers from the aquarium had begun to prepare the area so the turtles could reach the water safely.

She and Will had helped smooth the sand in the shallow trench that led to the ocean; others had put up caution tape to keep the crowd at a safe distance. Most of the crowd, anyway. Her dad and Jonah had been allowed inside the taped area, and they were standing off to the side, out of the way of the bustling workers.

Ronnie didn’t have any idea what she was supposed to do, other than make sure no one got too close to the nest. It wasn’t as if she were an expert, but when she wore the Easter-egg-colored aquarium outfit, people assumed she knew everything. She must have answered a hundred questions in the last hour. She was pleased that she’d been able to remember the things Will had first told her about the turtles and also relieved that she’d taken a few minutes to review the loggerhead fact card the aquarium had printed up for onlookers. Pretty much everything that people wanted to know was already there in black and white, but she supposed it was easier to ask her than glance at the card they held in their hands.