Before You Leave [finished short collection]

Chapter 7: The day Will met Gabriella Pt2, Finding The Truth

July 10, 2019
"Bernie Montoya." I say to the lady sitting behind the front desk, she looked to be about her mid 30's but something told me she was type of person to look older than they really are.

"Sign in." She said in monotone, I grab the flower pen from the chrome cup and sign my name in the box.

She looks at my name written down and up at me, "Room 204, head down the left wing and to the right. If he's not in his room then you can check the garden miss."

I tell her thank you as I make my way down the left wing, did I look presentable? What if he didn't want to speak to me? What if he doesn't even remember Will? I stop in my place and take a deep breath, I can do this. I walk forward a little more and peak into Room 204 to see it completely empty. I bite my lip as I walk past the room and into the garden, it was beautiful and colorful and had many shading and benching area for the seniors. I nervously mess with my hands while I look around to see if I would know what Bernie looked like. I stop my sights on a man sitting on the bench not to far from me, he stayed with his sights on the long sunflower stems in front of him, I see a walker placed beside him. For some reason I can just tell it's him, like everything in my body is pulling me towards him.

"Excuse me, Bernie?" I ask and he doesn't reply just looks at me and then back at the flowers. "My name is Cassie, I'm... I'm a friend of Will and I know you've heard of the bad news obviously... I just... I-" I stutter with my words and feel my embarrassment rising up at his rejection of my existence.

"A friend of Will is a friend of mine." I hear a voice say behind me, I turn around to see a man a lot less older then the man sitting down on the bench. He was standing watching me with a black sunglasses on, it wasn't until I noticed his cane that I realized. "Now if I'm not mistaken you're speaking to Trevor, but don't expect a response back I promise you he won't give you one. Unless you decide to yell it in his face and then maybe he might hear you." He smiles and I realize that I was completely wrong, that was Bernie, of course that was Bernie.

We start walking along the garden and I want to ask him trillions of questions, but I decide to keep them to myself. Bernie was a taller asian man, probably in his 70's, he was blind and from what I could tell... really happy for a retirement home junkie.  "Will actually spoke a lot about you, young lady."

I lift my head up, "Really?"

He laughed a deep throated laugh and it automatically brightens my mood, "He would always talk about the stuff you guys would do, and how annoying you are." He smiles.

I roll my eyes, "Takes one to know one."

"Will has been visiting me for quite a long time now, I was really heartbroken to hear of his passing." He says seriously, I could tell this guys wasn't usually serious so this was definitely something that had affected him. "I even had him on my will, not that I was going to tell him that. Stupid kid, probably would have asked me how much faster I would be dying." He smiles half- heartedly again, showing his really nice white teeth.

"Will unfortunately never told me about you, but then again he wasn't one to talk about the things he truly enjoyed." I put my hands in my pockets, "For being the one person in the world who probably knows the most about him, I feel like this guy was a total stranger."

Bernie laughs, "Best ones are the ones you still find things about even when you're older, that's why I loved my wife until the day she died."

My heart drops, "I bet she was a wonderful lady."

He smiles nostalgically, "She was and is, the most beautiful person I've ever met... inside and out. I was in love with her the day I met her in a little bakery outside of Manchester, at the time I told her I had a girlfriend because I didn't want to scare her off. We became best friends until the day I asked her to be my girlfriend in town square on Christmas eve. Married for 36 years ever since."