The Conditions of Will

by Jessa Hastings

“You’re attracted to me?” I technically ask him, but it’s more of a statement because his body is already giving him away. He scoffs and looks over at me. He looks pained for a second, like he’s working out how to proceed. “Fuck—” He smiles tightly, then laughs again. “Yep.” He nods, then shoves his hand through his hair uncomfortably. “What gave me away?”

“But I think that’s because I was trying to send a love letter to Josh Hartnett.” “Well—” I cast a look between the two of them. “One could hardly blame you.”

There are three people in the world who truly know what really happened; one of them is me and the other two are liars.

Sam should be a stranger to me, but he isn’t. Like I’ve dreamt of him all my life and I’ve just woken up and it’s bleeding through, and I know him… I know I don’t know him, but I know him.

“What are you going to do with it?” my dad asked, leaning against my car, blocking the door so I couldn’t get in without answering him first. “I’m going to give him half of mine.” Quick as lightning, and I’ll swear it till I die, though not a soul alive will believe me: a small smile flickered over my dad’s face, but then it was gone. “It’s yours.” He nodded. “You do with it what you want.”

Silence with him is silence. Silence with him is five fifteen in the morning before the sun’s up and it’s still dark but the birds are singing. He’s the heavy quilt you pull over your head when it’s too cold and too early to wake up. He’s the song no parent ever loved me enough to sing. He’s the way water runs and bubbles over stones in a stream. He’s a quiet mind.

Sam Penny’s hand was not only still on me at that point in time, but the way he was gripping me—it was anchoring me to the earth and steadying me still. And when I stand and he’s no longer holding me because gravity and circumstance won’t allow for it, I feel a nervous kind of exposed.

my heart ache for all the other mundane things I don’t think I’ll get to see him do: clean his teeth, pick up the morning paper, buy some milk, ask for directions— Sam Penny doing any of those things would be poetry, but him like that on the bed with a book is Shakespeare.

Kissing Sam Penny on this bed is the greatest thing I’ve ever done with my life up until now. Forget Cambridge, forget my internship, forget loving Storm, forget getting to confront my sister— This is it. This is what music exists for. This is why the birds sing. This is why the tide pulls and the water falls. It’s why the sun rises and it’s why the moon hangs there all ghosty white.

Sam Penny is a safe harbor—also true. But what else is true is this: Sam Penny is undoubtedly the greatest man I’ve ever met.

our eyes catch and my heart sparks, and it feels conflicted with this swirly mix of excitement and frustration to be in love with him but then to have to pretend I’m not.

it’s not the same with you as it was with them.” I give him a long-suffering look. “Why?” “Because.” He shrugs as he reaches for the pajamas I’ve still got clutched to my body. He takes them from my hands. “I’ve met you, and I’m different now.”

“So don’t pull this shit with me, Gige—there’s no failsafe for loving you. Once you’re in, you’re in, and I’m in.” I tuck my chin, suspicious. “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,”