The Wreck Read Online Free

behind his father, his mother’s
scream was eerily reminiscent of Carly’s. Before Brian could tell them that Sam
hadn’t died alone, his mother fainted.

Chapter 3
    T he small town of Granville is nestled in
the rural northwest corner where Rhode Island comes together with Connecticut
to the west and Massachusetts to the north. With an easy commute to Providence
and Boston, Granville attracted executives looking to raise their families in a
more bucolic setting. The “commuters” tended to gravitate to the fancy new
subdivisions on the south side. Residents who could trace their roots back to
the town’s early nineteenth century origins clustered closer to a downtown made
up of converted mills from Granville’s glory days as an industrial hub.
    In a town of just over fifteen thousand,
the loss of six teenagers touched almost everyone in some way or another,
uniting the commuters and the townies in a shared grief that brought the usual
buzz of activity to a halt during the week following “the tragedy,” as it came
to be known.
    Flags flew at half-mast, routine meetings
were canceled, and the high school suspended classes but offered counseling to
students who needed help making sense of something that made no sense. With an
unexpected week off from school, young people gathered in subdued groups in the
town common, at the beach by the lake, and in all their usual hangouts
downtown.
    Within two days, the scorched earth
around the Tucker Road crash site was almost completely hidden by a makeshift
shrine erected by the victims’ classmates. Freshly painted white wooden crosses
bearing the six names—Sam, Toby, Pete, Michelle, Jenny, and Sarah—were
surrounded by flowers, candles, balloons, stuffed animals, letters, and
drawings protected from the elements by plastic bags.
    Thousands of people descended upon the
town to pay their respects, to offer their support, and to satisfy the odd
curiosity generated by epic tragedy. Recent Granville High School graduates
flocked home from colleges around the country, and the story garnered national
press coverage.
    On Friday, one week to the day after the
accident, Sam was the last to be laid to rest in the town cemetery where six
fresh new graves dotted the landscape. Just two rows from his girlfriend Jenny
and four rows from Pete, Sam’s final resting place overlooked the town common
where he had spent many an aimless afternoon. Standing with his parents at the
gravesite after everyone else had left, Brian thought his brother would approve
of the location.
    He gave his parents credit for attending
all six funerals, something many of the other parents had been unable to do. The
lingering numbness from the other five funerals had no doubt helped the
Westburys through this unimaginable day. Was it really only a week ago that
the eight of us were dancing in Toby’s basement without a care in the world? And now six of them were dead, Carly had yet to fully emerge from the stupor
she’d descended into after the accident, and Brian was more alone than he’d
ever been in his life.
    His mother dabbed at her swollen eyes
with a handkerchief grown sodden with tears.
    Resting a hand on Brian’s shoulder, his
father asked, “Are you ready to go, son?”
    Michael Westbury’s broad shoulders were
hunched, and his ruggedly handsome face had aged overnight. That his son had
been driving the doomed car weighed heavily on the chief, as did the
preliminary findings of the investigation.
    “I’m going to take a walk over to check
on Carly,” Brian said, adding quickly, “If it’s all right with you.”
    Mary Ann Westbury had clung to Brian over
the last week, as if letting him out of her sight might bring about further
disaster. He’d done his best to be patient with her, but he needed some
distance, some time to process what had happened now that the protracted and
agonizing ceremony of grieving had finally ended.
    “What time will you be home?” his mother
asked with an anxious