Every Breath After: Part 1 (Lost Boys, #3)

by Jessie Walker

“It might feel like life’s on pause for you right now, and that’s okay.” He nods, and something in me relaxes at his words. “But what you do during this pause? There’s no erasing it. When life starts up again, I don’t want you to have burned it all to the ground. You get me?”

It comes in waves—pummeling me, dragging me down before I even realize what’s happening. This…this darkness inside me that consumes me. One second, I’m okay. Things are…shitty, but bearable. And the next, they’re not. They’re not bearable.

And it happens so fast, that shift—quicker than it takes me to hold my breath and count to five and talk myself down. I’ll be standing on solid ground, and then I’m drowning, caught up in a riptide I didn’t see coming, not until it was too late.

I’m sorry. I never should’ve left you I wish it was me

Well, that’s grief for you, or whatever you want to call this. It’s unpredictable and nonlinear. One second the memories are just that—memories—and the next you’re rocking in a corner, praying to whoever might be listening for some kind of relief.

And yet, we still continue to torture ourselves by revisiting them, rather than shoving them all away, and starting over.

The sky is blue, and the grass is green, Izzy’s still missing, and I, Jeremy Montgomery, am gay.

If I disappear, she’ll notice me…

I can’t remember the last time she hugged me… She hovers and she worries… but it’s from a distance. The second I’m in her sights—the second she’s assured I’m home and safe—she pulls away again.

Izzy’s absence is no longer this glaring hole in our lives, but a toxic sludge that has moved in and contaminated every aspect of our lives, making what once was, the oddity. And this, the norm. And it’s stupid. It’s all so fucking stupid.

I just wonder if they would have gone this long without saying it to Izzy, had it been my chair that was empty instead.

We all know the truth. We all know the fates fucked up.

Spurred by the sudden fear of losing this—losing him—I strengthen my grip on him like I could keep him here, keep him from destroying himself. Like it could make up for the fact I only have this to begin with—this touchy, cuddly Mason who needs me—because she’s not here.

Difference is… In his arms, I’m a stand-in for someone else. In mine, he’s everything I’ve always wanted. Would I trade this to have my sister back?

Tonight though… tonight, I don’t know. I don’t know that I could actually choose. This or her. Not when I have him to hang onto. And that’s the ugly truth of the matter, one I’ll carry to the grave, one that won’t even scar.

Human trafficking. You hear about it all the fucking time. Hear about the dangers of straying off alone. See the posts all over Facebook. See it reenacted in cheesy Lifetime movies. Learn all about the disgusting underbelly of society in True Crime documentaries.

“I don’t feel anything. I’m sorry. I don’t feel anything.” Over and over and over again, he chants this. And my chest is splitting right down the middle. “You’re lying.”

But selfish is as selfish does, and I’m nothing if not the worst version of myself these days.

And all I can think when I look at the round, shocked and wounded amber eyes of the boy who’s been my best friend since I was six—the boy I’ve secretly vowed to protect amongst all else—the boy who is currently looking back at me like I’m a stranger… This is all his fault. That’s what runs through my head. This is his fault. I lost her because of him… Because of what I felt for him that night. Because of what I did.

And all I can do is close my eyes, whisper, “It’s okay,” and take it. Even when an elbow nails me in the rib… Even when his fist grazes off my chin… Even when he twists and squirms and claws at the arms I bracket around him in a bear-like vice… I take it all. Accepting his violence for the precious gift it is.

Because as far as I’m concerned, there’s no one else in the world who deserves to unleash as much as Jeremy Montgomery. And right now, there’s no one more deserving of his wrath than me.

And Jeremy screams. The most heart wrenching scream I’ve ever fucking heard in my life. It rings out into the night, broken and savage and filled with more pain than words could ever do justice. More than I think any human is capable of carrying, much less storing inside for as long as he has.

And I realize it’s not just the loss of his other half finally hitting him, after months of holding it in, displaying hardly any emotion whatsoever. It’s everything. A culmination of years’ worth of bullying and anxiety and struggling to accept himself. Tonight was just the tipping point. I was the tipping point. I see that now. I feel it. In every shove turned fierce, clawing grip on my arm. In every hitch in his breath, and broken wail into the night. In the way his lean body curls inward, clenching, twitching with the onslaught.

He holds me like I’d imagine he’d hold his sister if she was here. And I hold him like I’d hold my girlfriend, whispering sorrys in her hair. Apologies for not doing enough to find her—irrational that that may be.

Apologies for being so weak and selfish lately…for being relieved when I thought, tonight, that she’d finally found peace, and that we could too… Apologies for that brief moment I had inside where I blamed it all on the boy in my arms, the one we always vowed to protect. All for one, and one for all…

I can’t fix this. I can’t protect him from this.

And I find myself pleading. Praying. For once not for her… But for him. Make it stop. Please, make it stop. This can’t be happening It can’t. She can’t be dead. He won’t survive it… We won’t survive it.

She’s forever seventeen. The reminder that I’m not just minutes older now, but years older, never fails to gut me.

Whichever way you look at it, it’s torture all the same for all of us.

I can feel people watching me, and it’s surreal to think how drastically I’ve changed in such a short amount of time. It makes me bitter, so fucking bitter, to think how stupid and pathetic I used to be, terrified of…of what? What people thought of me? What they were saying?

I’m not Jeremy the Coward anymore. I’m Jeremy the Wicked. And if hope shall be my downfall… Then fall I will.

On one hand, I think I understand. On the other, I don’t understand at all. Because buried under all that fury and grief, there’s something else—something bordering on fear, the desperate kind, like how I imagine a cornered animal would look.

I don’t get where any of his newfound hatred of me is coming from. But that’s what it is, isn’t it? Hate.

“You know, Mason,” I say. He lifts his head, glassy light-blue eyes meeting mine. “She was my sister.”

And I see it—see him. The scared, lost little boy still in there. The boy terrified of losing those closest to him. The boy now verging on manhood who’s clung to me all these months, finding comfort in something neither of us could explain. The boy who held me in the rain only a week ago, so tight, like his arms were the only thing keeping me from shattering completely.

And it’s that Mason—the real Mason who is my best friend, and the boy I’ve loved for what feels like my whole life; the Mason who is my protector, my hero… the Mason who currently needs me to save him… It’s that Mason I am utterly helpless to deny.

But then his face hardens, his eyes go cold, and the villain side of him takes over, spewing spitefully, “Yeah, well, she was the love of my life.”

I can’t fix this. Nothing short of bringing her back, will ever fix any of this. And God have I tried, bartering myself up to any god or devil that might be listening—anything to switch places with her. But the truth is, she’s gone. This is it.

The Mason I knew and loved… He’s not coming back either. He’s been washed away by vodka and Vicodin and this grief he’s content to let ruin his life and everyone around him.

“She’s the love of my life.” Yeah, well, you’re mine, Mason. So fuck us both I guess.

The world keeps on spinning… Yet why am I still stuck in place?

Seeing him hurts. Watching himself destroy himself hurts even more. It’s unbearable.

that. He can’t see how gone he is, but the rest of us can. He’s well past the point of just coping. We all are. We’re broken. Shattered. Pieces scattered across a frozen alien landscape. We’ll never be the same.

“Did you do it on purpose?” I ask him, point-blank. His mouth opens, closes, and…and something in me dies at the guilt etched across his face. My face hardens, and I spit, “Fuck you.”

He did do this on purpose…but not to die. To be saved.

“Did you even, for one fucking second, think about what this would do to me? What if no one got to you in time? What the fuck were you thinking?”

“I can’t lose you too. I hate you so much right now, but I can’t—I can’t—” My voice stutters out into gasps, and I cover my face.

“I’m…I’m sorry.” I shake my head. “For scaring you, I mean. For…for hurting you. For everything, I’m…I’m sorry.” Jaw working, I shrug, not sure what to even say to that. He did hurt me. He should be sorry. And it’s not okay. So what the fuck else is left?

“If she really did die, I think I would’ve felt that.” This time, a tear manages to escape, spilling down his cheek. “Y-yeah?” I nod. “I mean, it makes more sense than this…this emptiness I feel. If she was dead, I’d be in fucking agony, right?”

“Just gotta…hold my breath and count to ten, right?” He wets his lips. “Every breath after that…it’ll be a little easier.”