Chapter 15: What William Wanted

William Bennet had asked for exactly three things in his life, and he had been refused none of them.

He had asked for a seat on the club council and for his father's blessing.

He had asked for the lights left on in his mother's old room.

He had never asked for anything in bed.

People offered, and he said yes or no.

It was easier than the hard thing, which was saying what he wanted before anyone had guessed it.

After dinner the camp smelled of woodsmoke and burnt marshmallow.

Two hundred students sat round a dozen fires, and William walked away from theirs with his hands in his jacket.

Noah walked beside him.

He didn't ask where they were going.

That was the worst of it, William thought.

Noah never asked, and always came.

They climbed the slope above the lake until the voices thinned out.

The water below was a sheet of black glass with a thin moon on it.

"You watched us this afternoon," Noah said.

"Yes."

"You didn't leave."

"No."

"Did you want to?"

"No," William said. "I wanted to be Troy."

Noah stopped on the path and turned.

William made himself look at him, at the grey eyes and the cold nose and the flour-dry hands pushed up in his sleeves.

He had rehearsed this on the bus.

He had rehearsed it on the walk, in the dark of the tent, in the shower at home with the water running loud.

None of the lines had survived.

"When Troy had his hands on you," William said, "I wasn't jealous that he had you."

"Then what?"

"I was jealous that you were letting go."

The wind moved in the pines.

"Nobody has ever made me do that," he said. "I run things. I hold things. If I let go of any one of them I think the whole house comes down."

Keep reading free with an account. Start He Moved Into Their Mansion, He Chose All Three Brothers from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.