Pop: Chapter 21a

     Will takes a breath before continuing.

    "Jim and Ray hung out over the summer a few times, but I made sure I was never with them.  Shortly after school started back, the two of them had a falling out. Jim didn't really have any other friends, so he hung our with us much of the time.  It wasn't until the spring that the two of them reconciled.  They were going to be roommates in college, even with Ray's poor grades.  After graduation, our family went to Florida to visit my uncle for a few weeks.  When we got back, Jim couldn't find Ray anywhere.  Ray's mother said he just went to work somewhere, but she didn't go into any details.  Jim could tell that Ray was still around somewhere, but he was never able to contact Ray before college started.  When Jim came home that first weekend, he told us that Ray never even enrolled, even after being accepted.  Jim gave up trying to find him, but he would still be on the lookout if anyone else had."

    "Will," I ask calmly," what happened to Ray?"

    "I found out from my girlfriend that year, Bobbie Sue, that Ray had been kicked out of his house by his stepdad a few days after graduation, with barely more than the clothes on his back.  Ray wound up shacking up with Bobbie's cousin, ten years older than him.  She kicked him out a year or two later, after they had a baby.  I never told Jim, though.  Not even when he wanted Ray to be the best man at his wedding, and I had to take Ray's place.  About a month after that, when I was helping out at a rehab center, I saw Ray.  He had been with another woman, got her pregnant with twins, and left her.  I found all of this out from a co-worker.  None of this is confidential, by the way.  That information, I was never privy to. Still never told Jim, not even when he named one of his own twin boys after him."

    "Why didn't you tell Jim about this?" Rick asks.

    Will squirms.

    "I felt that Jim was better off without him.  Ray almost did something to me that was disgusting.  I kind of enjoyed keeping them apart, if only to save Jim from finding out how bad his best, and only, friend was."

    "Only friend?" I ask.  I was sure Jim was more popular than that.

    "The two had known each other since just before kindergarten.  Jim was always well-liked, but he kept most people away.  He barely dated, never anything steady, and it shocked me when he announced he was engaged.  In hindsight, it makes sense.  He was unsure of who he was, and I kept him from the one person who he did feel close to."

    Pete starts to open his his mouth, but a quick press on his arm from Rick stops him.

    "A few weeks ago," Will continues, "some workers clearing out a local cemetery found Ray's body, right behind his father's gravestone.  He had been missing since just after Christmas, about the anniversary of his father's death.  Overdose.  While growing up, his stepdad wouldn't allow Ray to visit the gravesite.  Ray's cousins tried to help, but that monster was stubborn as all get out.  The cousins just managed to pay for the funeral, as the stepdad wouldn't.  I don't think Ray's mother and sisters were allowed to go, although I think the sisters are almost eighteen now.  It was through one of them that I managed to find out about Ray. If only I had spoken up sooner, Ray could have gotten help.  Now, five children from three different women will grow up without their father, even if wasn't that good of a man.  He was just trying to, I don't know,  escape somehow."

    Will starts to cry, deep heaving crying.

    "So, that's why you've been so nervous around Jim lately." Pete says.

    "Yeah," Will whimpers through the tears. "It has been so hard keeping these secrets from him for so long, especially since I found out about Ray's death.  I should have told him so long ago, and now it is too late."

    "If you didn't want to keep this a secret for so long, why did you decide to apply to the same medical school your brother got into?  If it were me, I would have picked anywhere else." Rick wonders. "At the very least, you should have tried to get into UK."

    "I did.  I was accepted.  Easily." Will responds.

    "No you didn't.  We kept pestering you, but you always said you never even thought about applying."

    "Well, I did, and I got accepted.  Virginia was only one of my backups.  I only went there because of my parents.  When Jim got married, my mother talked to his bride and found out that he didn't seem to have any friends.  This got my parents so worried, that they begged me to go there too, to make sure that Jim had some extra form of support.  They were getting ready for the move toFlorida to be with my uncle, and they were afraid that Jim would need someone else in his life.  It wasn't the best position for me, but I would do anything for Jim." Will says.

    "You didn't have to that for my account."

    "JIM!" we shout.