Chasing William

by Therese McFadden

  I went through all sorts of scenarios like that on the drive home. It was impossible to think logically. I’m surprised I made it home without hitting something. My mind kept making up these scenarios, all to the background noise of “he’s not dead.” I pulled into the driveway and tried not to notice all the extra cars around the house. He wasn’t dead. It was a joke. He was playing a cruel trick. He did something stupid. He wasn’t dead. Of course, when I walked into the house and saw the cop, I couldn’t think of any other reasons.

  I think that might have been the most memorable day of my life. I also think it will be the day I spend every other day of my life wishing didn’t happen. I guess that could be considered denial. Yeah. I am in denial. It’s funny; when I first read through that list I thought those were all short-term feelings. I never realized how deep these emotions could run. I didn’t realize how much a part of me they were becoming. Hell, it could take more years to come to terms with William’s death than I’ve currently been alive.

  That’s a scary thought.

  I turn the volume up on my “denial” playlist and hope the hour will be over soon. I don’t want to think about that day anymore. It’s bad enough when something happens to remind me of it. I don’t want to just sit here and brood about it. Some things aren’t meant to be over-thought. Especially the things that can’t be changed. I am starting to get hungry so I think about the next Chinese restaurant instead. They better have fortune cookies. If I hit one more place claiming to serve Chinese food but refusing to carry fortune cookies, I might as well just turn around and head for home.

  I could really go for some beef fried rice. Whatever kind of place this is, I hope they have fortune cookies and beef fried rice. That’d be great. I can almost taste it. Maybe I should have gotten soup. I wouldn’t have had to eat it there, could’ve just eaten it in my car. My car’s going to start smelling like food sooner or later anyway. I could have brought a snack bag. Why didn’t my mother remind me to pack a snack bag? She asked enough about everything else – like socks. I could get stranded in the middle of nowhere and starve to death, but at least my feet wouldn’t get cold.

  My GPS beeps and tells me to pull off at the next exit. I do so gladly. This place is a little harder to find and not right off the highway. I always start to get concerned when my GPS takes me through residential neighborhoods, because I know I’ll never be able to find my way out if it stops working. I hate having to put my trust in a little box attached to my windshield, especially when I’m already directionally-challenged enough to get lost going in a straight line. I’m too far in to think about it now. Just have to hope my little black box knows what it’s doing.

  Eventually, it gets me to what seems like a more populated road and I start to see fast-food restaurants lining the sides instead of houses. The GPS yells at me to make a left and I blindly follow its lead into the parking lot of a Panda Express. The place I was supposed to be going to was called “China Star 1”. This is obviously not it, but the addresses are the same. I guess I should have done some better fact-checking before starting my trip. After all, the universe and I are in some kind of fight. I can’t expect things to go right all on their own. That isn’t how the universe wants to play this.

  It’s tempting to just turn around and go home, but I made a deal with myself to only do that if they didn’t have fortune cookies. It’s equally tempting to just start driving hour three and hope for better luck at the next place, but I’m so hungry all I’ll do is think about food until I eat, and that would defeat the purpose of my hour trying to deal with stuff. Even if it is just a Panda Express it smells good – although I could be so hungry I’m just telling myself I smell something good. Either way, it looks like food wins out. At least Panda Express is a form of Asian food. That has to mean something. It could have been a McDonald’s or a Taco Bell. Then where would I be? This could even be a very small concession from the universe. I think that’s how I’ll look at it.

  Having finally made up my mind to go in, I find a place to park close to the door and go in. The second thing I notice – after a line that will take at least twenty minutes – is that there’s a bowl of fortune cookies by the cash register. Looks like I won’t be forced to drive back home after all.

  It smells just as good inside as it did from my car, and I start thinking less about what secret messages the universe might be sending me and more about what to have for lunch. I’m still not all that far away from home, but it feels like I am. I think it might have something to do with being totally alone and away from home. Calling is always an option. So is getting in my car and driving back. What makes it all seem so out of the ordinary is that I’m the one calling the shots. I’m making all the decisions. Obviously, I’m not totally independent, because my parents still expect me to come home (not to mention they’re helping to finance my late-adolescence-crisis trip). It’s just the most “on my own” I’ve ever been. It’ll be like this every day in college. If I get around to picking one. There’s a disaster that’ll be waiting for me when I get back. I’m not sure if it’s better to use this time to contemplate what I’ll do when I get home or just ignore everything until I’m home and hope the answers just appear.

  If I were taking this road trip with William, things would be different. We’d talk and help each other figure things out. He’d be driving though, and while I’d still probably get to dictate all the when’s and where’s of our stops he would, ultimately, be in control. I love William. I’d give anything to have him back, but there is something a little empowering about only having myself to rely on. Sure, it helps knowing I have a home to go back to where bills aren’t my concern, but all this not having to wait on someone else is kind of nice. There might be something to this being-on-your-own thing after all. Choosing where to eat and what to do with my life are very different questions, though. I think it’d be nice to have someone in my life (other than a parent) to talk about those big questions with. Sometimes it’s nice to be alone, but other times it’s just lonely.

  “What are you gettin’?”

  “Huh?” I stare at the guy in front of me who is wearing the uniform red shirt and black hat. For some reason his question just isn’t registering in my brain.

  “To eat. What’s your order? Food?” he looks at me like I’m an idiot. He’s probably younger than me, too. He’s got his first job and that freshman look about him, but he’s trying to cover it up by acting like a jackass. I’ve never understood why people do that. Acting like a jerk doesn’t make him look any less young. I remember my freshman year phase though. Me and Amanda went through it together. We fed off of each other’s insanity. I was a real bitch back then. It’s hard to see it when you’re a part of it, though. It’s amazing the growing-up a person can do in four years.

  “Beef with broccoli, General Tso’s chicken, and fied rice.” I smile and pretend I don’t notice he’s trying to be insulting. I hope he isn’t involved in the preparing of the food. I’m not sure I’d trust him enough to eat it.

  The line moves a little quicker now that the ordering is over and everyone pays with some form of plastic. I hate it when people stop a line by trying to count out change in pennies, or, God forbid, they want to write a check. Not that they don’t have a right to use their coins or stay out of debt and away from identity thieves, but those people always seem the slowest to make up their minds and unable to count properly or write the right numbers down the first time.

  I hand the cashier my debit card and grab a fortune cookie for my tray. The good thing about a crazy lunch hour is that a good chunk of people take their food to work, and I’m able to find a tiny table without too much trouble. The food is good, but it’s easy to tell it’s “chain food.” The thing about those hole-in-the-wall places is that the food isn’t always the same. Sure, it might be cooked by the same person in the same way, but every time things are a little different. The spices could have a different heat, the breading a different crunch, the sauce a different thick
ness. It makes things a little better.

  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 th
e 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.