The Conditions of Will

by Jessa Hastings

I like how he watches me. I couldn’t tell you why yet. I’ll be able to soon once I’ve been alone with him again.

holy fucking fuck, he is divine.

It’s a funny part of growing up, actually… Accepting that things that are better for you, healthier—they can still be painful. That the worst, most shameful day of my life to date would in turn become the most defining.

He stares at me for a long few seconds, and fuck—I like him how he is. In the dead of night, in a white T-shirt and black Calvin Klein pajama pants. A bit disheveled, a lot perfect.

“You’ve got Catherine on your arm already, you don’t need a Georgia—” “I don’t know.” He shrugs, holding my gaze. “I could need a Georgia.” “Trust me.” I lift my eyebrows. “You don’t. They’re not worth it.” “I’m pretty sure they are,” he says, but in the context of everything, I’m pretty sure they’re not, so I just give him a tired smile that matches how my heart feels.

There is something about him, isn’t there? Like, beautiful and fascinating, and so much bigger than me.

It was this almost otherworldly feeling, where you’re so small, but not in a way that’s degrading or upsetting, but the fact that you’re on the planet at the same time as something so big and so significant, I don’t know—it was strangely life-affirming? Like you’re not alone in the world. And I get that same feeling when I’m near Sam Penny.

Sam feels like I’ve read him before, but I haven’t. He feels like the kind of memories I wish I had but don’t. He’s like déjà vu. And you know how when that happens, your brain is like, “Wait, we’ve been here before,” and you’re watching everything unfold and you’re waiting for the next thing to happen and you’re like, “I knew that,” and then the next thing happens and you’re like, “I knew that too,” and every time something happens that you’ve been waiting to happen because you feel like it’s already happened even though it hasn’t, you feel this floaty sense of delighted satisfaction—that’s what it feels like to be near Sam Penny.

“Isn’t it the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen?” I stare up at the big arch, which is my favorite part, I think. “Even though it’s broken?” “Yep,” he says quietly, and he’s looking just at me.

“Loving someone’s an obsession—and being in love, even fucking—you get that high.”

“You asking me to fall in love with you?” I smile coyly. “Maybe.” “Maybe I will.” He shrugs. And then he looks serious. “You’ll watch me?”

The nicest thing you can ever do for another human being is see them, and really see them, at that. To be understood is one of most base desires we as people have, and it was one that Oliver wasn’t only deprived of, but often quite deliberately denied. All our lives he wanted our dad to see him and to care what he saw, and I think just now my brother got a glimpse that our dad did.

“You’re sounding like an addict.” “I am an addict,” he tells me, sure. “You’re not meant to be addicted to me.” “I’m not addicted to you, I’m in love with you,” he says matter-of-factly. “I don’t need you, I want you. And I want you because I know you.”

And I think to myself, wouldn’t it be so lovely if we viewed ourselves through the same lens as the people who love us?

“Oh, so you’re officially taking her side now?” “From here on out?” Sam blinks, unfazed. He nods. “Unequivocally, yes, man.”