What About Will

Think of a person you love, a sibling or a close friend, as a complex piece of music. You know their melody by heart—the predictable rhythm of their laugh, the familiar tempo of their walk, the comforting harmony of their voice. You can anticipate the next note, the rise and fall of their moods, the entire composition that makes them who they are. Now, imagine a single, jarring event—a fall, an accident—scratches that record. The music doesn't stop, but it’s no longer the song you knew. It’s distorted. The tempo is erratic, the melody is fractured, and sudden, dissonant chords of rage or confusion erupt without warning. The person is still there, but the music is broken. You try to hum the old tune, hoping they’ll remember it, hoping you can fix the scratch. But you can't. All you can do is learn to live with the new, chaotic sound, a constant, painful reminder of the beautiful song that was lost.

This heartbreaking dissonance is the reality at the core of Ellen Hopkins’s work. As a novelist known for tackling the toughest parts of family life, she doesn’t shy away from the moments that shatter a family’s composition. Her own life has been a study in navigating these fractured melodies; she adopted her daughter's son after her daughter’s struggle with addiction. This experience of raising a child shaped by a parent’s trauma gave Hopkins a unique, empathetic lens. She wrote "What About Will" to give a voice to the quietest victims of a family crisis: the siblings who are left to orbit the chaos, their own needs and fears silenced by the sheer volume of the central tragedy, forced to find a new way to love the person who remains.

Module 1: The Invisible Wounds of Trauma

The story begins with a family already broken. The older brother, Will, survives a football accident. But the Will who comes home is not the one they knew. This brings us to the first critical insight. Trauma inflicts both visible and invisible wounds, and the invisible ones often cause the most damage.

Will’s visible injury is cranial nerve damage. It leaves him with a facial tic and an inability to smile or frown. He sees himself as a "freak." He pushes away his girlfriend, Skye, convinced she deserves someone better. This physical change is a constant, public reminder of his brokenness.

But the invisible damage is far more destructive. The TBI unleashes severe depression, anxiety, and aggression. His temper is always on edge. He abandons everything he once loved. No more football. No more snowboarding. No more watching games with his family. He fears another injury, but this retreat from life deepens his isolation.

This leads to a difficult but essential truth. You must acknowledge that a person's behavior after trauma may be driven by brain chemistry, not just choice. Will lashes out, calling his younger brother Trace "dumb" and shutting everyone out. His family sees anger and defiance. But underneath, it’s a brain struggling to regulate itself. The medications don't always work. The old Will is gone, replaced by someone his own family barely recognizes. This is a neurological reality.

So what happens next? The family is left grappling with a ghost. Trace, the younger brother, mourns the loss of his "best-friend brother." He remembers Will teaching him to ride a bike. He remembers watching sports together. Now, Will ignores him. The memories become a painful contrast to their current reality. This highlights a final, painful point. Coping with a loved one's transformation requires grieving the person they once were. You can't move forward by pretending they are the same. Acceptance starts by acknowledging the loss.

Module 2: The Sibling's Burden

We've explored Will's internal battle. Now, let's turn to the person standing in his shadow: his younger brother, Trace. The book is told from Trace's perspective, and his experience reveals a powerful dynamic in family crises. In a family focused on a crisis, a 'good' child often becomes invisible.

Trace’s world revolves around Will. His mother left before the injury, and his father works long hours. This leaves Trace to manage the emotional fallout alone. He feels responsible for his brother's happiness. He tries to mediate fights. He suggests Will make up with his girlfriend. He keeps Will's secrets, like his unexplained absences and his new, rougher group of friends. Trace’s entire existence becomes an effort to avoid causing more trouble. He focuses on acing his report cards and improving his batting average. He hopes that by being perfect, he can somehow balance the chaos Will creates.

And here's the thing. This creates a dangerous internal pressure. A sibling in a caregiving role often adopts logic and structure as a defense against emotional chaos. Trace finds comfort in STEM subjects. He loves that formulas and equations have consistent rules. People are unpredictable. Math is not. He applies this same thinking to baseball and music, seeing them as solvable problems. It’s his way of building a stable reality when his family life is anything but. He pedals his bike until his muscles burn, channeling his anxiety into kinetic energy. It's a desperate attempt to find control in a world that feels completely out of control.

But flip the coin. This sense of responsibility comes at a high cost. Trace feels betrayed when he discovers Will has been stealing money from his savings. He sees Will’s behavior spiraling but feels powerless. His mother is absent. His father is overwhelmed. This leads to a profound sense of isolation. Trace is caught between love for the brother he remembers and fear of the person Will has become. He is the family's silent shock absorber, taking on burdens no child should have to carry.