Title: Crazy For This Girl

Author: Courtney

Email: [email protected]

Rated: PG-13

Category: Will/Bella; future-fic

Disclaimer: Whatever, not mine.

Summary: Will's POV; Will Krudski has always known what he wants . . .

Distribution: Required Reading and anywhere else, just tell me.

Author's Notes: No one writes Will/Bella fic and I hate that. I think they're cute together. Anyway, here's my first attempt. Oh, and the song is by Evan and Jaron, a couple of Atlanta boys who really rock!

***

She rolls the window down
And she talks over the sound
Of the cars that pass us by
And I don't know whyBut she's changed my mind . . .

How long have I loved her? It seems like forever sometimes. Since we were kids, at least. I remember I used to love to sit behind her in Mrs. Jenkins class in the third grade. She had the most beautiful long blonde hair . . . it smelled like strawberries and looked like sunshine. I know I loved her then . . .

Maybe I was born loving her. I like the thought of that. I also like that, before we were ever anything else, we were always friends. She's my very best friend, even now. I've never loved anyone the way that I love her. It's a love built on trust and common interest and years of being there for each other through the toughest of times. She's always been there when I needed her.

The first time I knew we were going to be together forever is a little easier to pinpoint. We were on a road trip. We were seventeen and she was going to a college up the coast for her final interview with the dean there. She really wanted to get into that school. I knew it meant a lot to her and I also knew how nervous she was, so I offered to drive her, just to be there.

I was 'in love' with Julia Dyer at the time. She attended Rawley Girls and we'd been dating for about a month or so. Bella liked her and she liked Bella . . . things were good as far as I was concerned. I had my girl and I had my best friend; I had school, which was almost over and I had a scholarship to a great East Coast school not very far from the one we were on our way to visit. I was happy.

"So, Julia's going to Brown?" she asked casually over the noise of the passing traffic.

"Yeah," I replied.

"Long drive for weekend visits," she commented.

"I suppose."

"I doubt Sean will be driving up to see me too often," she said then.

My interest was immediately peaked. "Why not?"

"We're just going to be friends from now on," she said. "Ever since Scout left I've been realizing more and more that I was always using one of them to keep the other at bay . . . and that's just not right." I nodded my agreement. "So, we talked and we're just going to be friends. It's better this way."

"You're okay with this?" I asked.

"Better than okay," she said with her familiar smile.

"I'll come to visit you," I assured her.

She smiled again and I looked from the road to her as she said, "I already knew that, Will."

And that was when I knew. We were going to be together forever. Don't ask me how I knew or why this was so significant. It just was and I just did. She was the one . . . and someday we'd both admit that to ourselves and to each other.

Would you look at her
She looks at me
She's got me thinking about her constantly
But she don't know how I feel
And as she carries on without a doubt
I wonder if she's figured out
I'm crazy for this girl
Yeah, I'm crazy for this girl . . .

I love you.

That's all she ever needed to say and I would have crumbled and professed all of my feelings to her in a heartbeat. All she had to do was give me some sign, some little hint that she felt the same. But she never did; not back then. She cared about me and we were friends and I knew that she loved me in a lot of ways . . . but I was never quite positive that she loved me in that one way that I hoped for . . . so I waited.

I'm not sure how long I would have waited for her . . . probably forever. I was too afraid to be the first one to admit to my feelings for fear that she wouldn't feel the same way and then not only would I lose the girl I loved, but I would also lose my best friend and I just couldn't comprehend that. I needed her too much to take that risk. So I waited.

She made me wonder for a long time. All through college she dated and I dated, or at least told her I did, and we were always just friends. I thought about her all the time and called her every day and visited her every weekend so I'm sure she had a hint that I felt a little more than friendship . . . but she never said a word so neither did I. I'm a very patient man. And she was worth waiting for.

It was at her graduation that it finally happened. It's a day I'll never forget. And, after all that time of waiting and wondering, it amazed me how casual she was about the whole thing.

"So, congratulations!" I said as I came up to her after the ceremony and gave her a hug.

"Thanks," she beamed. "God, it's hard to believe that four years went by so fast, isn't it? It seems like we were seventeen years old just yesterday."

I smiled as I thought back to our younger days. "And I was waiting tables at Friendly's and you were still a pump girl."

"We had a lot of fun back then," she said nostalgically.

"Yeah, we definitely did," I agreed.

"So, New York for both of us, huh? Funny how that worked out," she said.

"Yeah, well it'll save me a lot of gas money to be in the same city as you," I kidded.

"The same apartment, even," she pointed out. I nodded. "So, are we finally going to make a go of it you think?" she asked.

I looked at her quizzically, wondering just what she meant. "Come again?"

"Me . . . you . . . us," she replied. "You think we're ready for that?"

"Us?"

"Will," she said as though she were explaining something to me that really didn't need to be said, "There has always been an us underneath it all. You knew that."

I smiled at her then and took her hand. "Yeah, I guess I did."

And that was the beginning. Well, not really the beginning because I've always felt that our beginning was much earlier than that; like the first time I saw her or the first time I touched her or the first time I made her laugh. We've had so many beginnings and I remember them all. I don't think I'll ever forget one detail of my life with this amazing girl . . .

She was the one to hold me
The night the sky fell down
And what was I thinking when
The world didn't end
Why didn't I know what I know now

From teenage life to college life to apartment life, we'd made it pretty far together. I loved her, she loved me; life was perfect. Well, maybe not perfect, but pretty close. We still had our own rooms. It was sort of strange, but we dated for a long time, as if we'd never met and were just getting to know each other. How funny that there were even things about her that I didn't already know.

I enjoyed that time in our lives. It was as if I was making a new friend and still keeping the one I already had. She was becoming more and more to me every single day and I loved her all the more for that.

But then, one night, my life changed. And my relationship with Bella Banks changed, too.

The phone call came at about eight o'clock, right after we'd finished dinner . . .

"Hello? Yes, this is Will Krudski. What? Are you sure? Oh . . . um . . . yes, yes, thank you." I hung up, or at least tried to. I think the phone actually fell out of my hand because she turned around when she heard it hit the floor and then came rushing over to my side.

"Will, what is it? What's wrong?" she asked in concern. I know I must have looked awful at that point.

"My dad," I said softly from my seat on the edge of the couch. "That was . . . he's . . . he's dead, Bella. My dad is dead."

"Oh Will . . ." she said then and the next thing I knew she was holding me and I was crying. I'd never seen eye to eye with my father, but I was still devastated to hear of his passing. I loved him, despite our differences. He was my dad and I knew I would miss him . . . I still miss him.

I cried for a long time that night. I cried for the loss of my father. And I cried for my mother, who I knew would never be the same without him. And then I cried for all of the things I would never get to tell him, the things I wished then that I'd had the chance to say. I wanted to tell him I loved him and that I didn't resent him for the strained relationship we'd sometimes I had. I wanted him to know that nothing he ever did or ever could have done would have made me stop loving him. But none of that would ever get to be said. Because he was gone . . .

Bella held me while I cried. She listened to my half incoherent babble about the could haves and should haves of my relationship with my father and she never said a word. She just let me talk and let me cry and she was there for me as always. I don't think I had ever loved her as much as I did that night.

Maybe that's why I'm glad that that turned out to be our first night as lovers. We'd dated for months, known each other forever, but we'd never been intimate until that night. I remember feeling so happy when were together that first time, like nothing in the world could hurt me while I was in her arms. She couldn't take my sorrows and sadness away, but she always made me feel loved and that made up for everything else.

I knew that night that she would never leave me and I would never leave her. I knew I had found my soulmate . . .

Right now
Face to face
All my fears
Pushed aside
And right now
I'm ready to spend the rest of my life
With you . . .

She's about to walk towards me now and, though I was scared when I woke up this morning, I'm not scared any longer. I love her and she loves me and that's all that matters. As they say, this is the first day of the rest of our lives . . . and I intend to make it wonderful.

"Do you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?" the minister asks and what else can I possibly say but yes, I do. She smiles and repeats the words and suddenly I'm crying and I don't even know why. I guess it's because I'm happy, because I know that this is the happiest I have ever been.

"You know Will, I always knew it would be you," she says to me later as we dance our first dance as man and wife.

"I love you, Bella, I always have," I tell her. And that's the end . . . and the beginning.

The End

September 15, 2000