Not Made to Last

by Jay McLean

Like, what happens if your soul dies but your heart refuses to stop beating?

I wish I could go to her. Hug her. Tell her everything will be okay. But I can’t lie to her. Or myself.

We wake up every day with goals set, hoping for that tiny piece of joy we obtain when we achieve them—all the while knowing in the back of our minds that we have absolutely zero control over this shit-show of a thing called life.

Life is crappy enough—there’s really no need for the reminder. Besides, people my age are made to believe they have the world at their feet. We can achieve anything, so we’ve been told, and I’m sure as hell not going to be the one to break it to anyone.

Some might call it fate. Kismet. A series of unfortunate events.

I didn’t get up because… sometimes, I feel as if this life, this world, isn’t worth getting up for at all.

Most of all, though, I like that she’s present. That she’s here. With me.

Olivia just became my new sport. My new discipline. My new obsession. And she has no fucking clue what she’s in for.

“Sometimes, I think I am the curse.”

Trying is just another word for failing, and I’m not big on it. Like I said: I failed once. I won’t do it again.

“Hey… I forgot to ask you yesterday! How’s that girl who tilts your world off its axis? The one who made you want to stay?”

“I was planning to leave, but I didn’t have solid plans. It was more a wake up and see where life takes me kind of thing.”

“I think I’ve made it pretty clear that I want to do more than just kiss you, Liv.” I smirk when her cheeks bloom pink. “But all that aside, you have something that belongs to me.”

“Sometimes I wonder if that’s all life is. The constant search for that one person who gives you hope. Who inspires you. Someone you’re willing to wait years for, even when the outcome may not always be forever.”

Kissing Rhys Garrett is like breathing in sunshine, warming me from the inside, thawing my heart, my soul, until cracks appear in my ice-cold armor.

If heartbreak isn’t real, then what caused the endless tears my mom and sister shed?

“Sometimes living here feels like a job. Like I wake up and I go to work, and not even for one of my actual jobs, but for my family.

“Just so we’re clear,” he starts, kissing me once. “I hate hiding you.”

Clean. Confident. Masculine.

“All human wisdom is contained in these two words - Wait and Hope.”

“What are you hoping for, Rhys?” His answer is simple. Fast. To the point. “You.”

He made me believe I was more than I was. That I was bigger. Braver. Better than I was. Who wouldn’t want to feel that way always?

And how much that power can ruin me.

Besides, I’ve already lost Rhys once. How hard could it be to lose him again?

I refuse to move it. Moving it means letting go, and as hard as it is to admit, I’m not there yet.

Wanted to hope for her.

It suddenly dawns on me that I don’t just want her. I need her. Not just in the physical sense, like my brain’s wired to think, but in every way possible. Don’t get me wrong; I like what we have going on. This back and forth, and push and pull. But, right now, I want to jump into an ocean of her. Surround myself with nothing but infinite moments of her.

“It’s always goodnight with you,” she says. “Never goodbye.”

“Because goodbye is forever. And I’ll never be ready to say goodbye⁠—”

Sometimes people would enter. But I would always remain. Just me and my books.

But reading saved my life. In more ways than one.

I realize now that it’s how my feelings for Liv started: everything, all at once. But it doesn’t need to be like that always.

My miracle is you.

“You’re my Ohana.”

“The family we create means more than the family who created us.”

A life filled with nothing but lies. And he was torn.

Torn between their truth and the truth.

“Whatever he did, he didn’t mean it.”

I’ve always been the provider. But Dom… Dom’s always been the protector. His throat moves with his swallow, as he nods once. “Come in.”

Dominic might be a fuckwit, but he’s Olivia’s brother, and it’s clear he cares about her in the same way I care about my sister. We love them beyond words. Protect them beyond reason.

“Ice bucket. Call you. Stay with her. I got it, man,” Oscar interrupts, saving Dominic from revealing his hand—that Olivia is his weakness. And I get it, I almost tell him. She’s mine, too.

Breathe. One more time. Every time. And I promise to do the same.

“I have lost so much of myself that there’s nothing left of me, Dominic. Nothing.”

“You lost someone you just met. I’ve lost my best friend. You’ve known me for weeks… I’ve loved you for years.”

“I keep them there as a reminder that the world is vast, filled with so many singular objects, and we, as individual humans, are just one of those things. We’re so small. All of us. So insignificant.”

“You’re still two different people, and I don’t know how to separate you. And not even you—as in the two different versions of you—but I don’t know how to separate what was real and what wasn’t.” “All of it was real, Rhys.”

“Ollie… when Rhys loves, he loves with everything inside of him.”

“No. What I’m saying is that now, it’s his turn to be loved. And that love better come with everything inside of you. Because he deserves nothing less.”

“And I’ll make you believe me again. But more, I’ll make you believe in me. Even if it takes another three years. Hell, even if it takes the rest of my life.”

“I made you a promise,” I croak, my words finally audible. “You breathe, I breathe.”