When You Come Back to Me (Lost Boys, #2)

by Emma Scott

“Death wish is a strong choice of words,” I said airily. “I prefer to think that life and I are keeping things casual. No need to get serious.”

I’d take my money and run. I’d travel all over the world, go anywhere at any time, and stay only as long as I wanted. Never again would I allow anyone to imprison me or lock me up. I’d be free. Or maybe I’d just disappear.

My last refuge was the shop, fixing something broken and making it work again. I wished there were something—or someone—who could do the same for me.

I honed my body into a temple of lean muscle for future lovers, and because I’d be fucked if I let anyone overpower me again.

I reached for my packet of cloves as the first girl’s gaze raked me up and down with a predatory gleam. Her heteronormative assumptions that I was A) straight and B) automatically attracted to her, were amusing.

“Tell me something, River Whitmore…” Light flared as he lit his zippo. His eyes bored into mine, seeing through me as if I were made of cellophane. “Aside from me…who else knows you’re gay?”

“As far as I can tell, it just means the nonstop thoughts in my head are more cunning and can torment me in multiple languages.”

“No, thanks.” Holden strode through the class, ignoring the curious stares that followed. Half the desks were empty so, naturally, he sat beside me.

“The problem is that the guy in question is not my type, to put it mildly. An All-American good boy. Warm, gooey, everyone loves him. He’s the human equivalent of a grilled cheese sandwich.”

school… Threats to disown me, which I never took seriously. Then they got desperate.”

“Boys will be boys, right?” “Boys will remain boys unless they’re taught to be men,” Mom said, shooting him a pointed look.

Our song. Nothing was ours. There was no us. But Miller sang that if you never try, you’ll never know, and the words pierced me like arrows.

My pulse pounded. I could feel him all over me—in my mouth and lungs and heart—his kiss a resuscitation.

He pulled me out of the lake and breathed life into me…

I shook my head mutely, the warmth—his warmth—still flowing through my veins. How could I explain it had never been like that? That it wasn’t supposed to be like that?

No one had ever kissed me like it meant something.

“What are you going to do?” Holden asked. And then I was grabbing him, kissing him. His tongue was in my mouth and mine was in his, and something lost in me came home…

Again, confusion flashed over his face and I sort of hated anyone who’d been here before me, taking and taking and giving nothing back.

“River Whitmore,” he murmured to the ceiling. “There was nothing fucking casual about that.”

My body hummed and I could feel River everywhere he’d touched me. Still taste him on my mouth and on my body that felt warm and safe for the first time.

fought against my own brain, the fight-or-flight mechanism that was triggered when anyone showed me the slightest bit of kindness or care. The silence was unbearable.

Maybe something good would happen if I let it in.

She scoffed and took my chin in her hand, giving my face a gentle shake. “Do you go to school with blind people? How can anyone look at this face and not fall in love?”

“É fácil amar você, meu doce menino. Mas você tem que se deixar ser amado.”

It’s easy to love you, my sweet boy. But you have to let it in.

“Why? You’re the one who called shit off, remember?”

“Because I fucking can’t stop thinking about you, okay? Every day, all day, every goddamn night. And I wanted to do something. Instead of just sitting around being miserable. But it was obviously a mistake. Our favorite word.”

“You’re a good guy, River. Too good for the likes of me.” I pushed off the wall and started walking. If I looked at him, at his face that was as kind as it was handsome, I’d cry.

“I don’t want to see you like how you were on Christmas. Not ever again. I…don’t want to hurt you.”

I pressed the phone tighter to my ear. “I don’t want to hurt you either.”

“Forget what I said about not wanting to see it,” River said. “I want to be there for you and…help you through whatever I can.”

I shook my head, tears stinging my eyes.

God mine too

Kissed him slowly, tasting him and myself. The mixture of both of us on his tongue more potent than any shot of vodka.

River infused me in every pore, his kiss leaving me stupid with happy euphoria. Leaving me with a piece of himself so that I wasn’t alone.

He reached out and brushed a lock of hair off my forehead. “Not every guy is as good as you, River.”

I stepped out of reach. “We’ve been here too long. It’s time to go.”

God i need him happy pls

My heart tried to climb out of my throat, the elation and relief expanding until I could hardly breathe. Because I love him. Holy shit, I’m in love with him.

But he was drunk and sipping from his flask; I hadn’t seen it in his hand in months. His gaze wandered until he found me.

He answered with a strange smile that sent a sliver of fear down my back. The same kind of wild smile I’d seen him wear at Chance’s party all those months ago when he dared Frankie Dowd to stab him in the heart.

His eyes still on me, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and suddenly hurled the steel flask at the nearest drink table. It struck a row of sparkling cider bottles, shattering one. Shocked cries rang out as teachers and students looked around for the source. Holden shoved open a side door and was gone.

“I told him I was going to Alabama,” I said, pain ripping through me. “And that he couldn’t come with me.” I stabbed him in the heart. Every day I hid us, another stab…

“Holden…” I said brokenly. “What are you doing?”

“What they told us to do,” he said. His face was pale, a horrible, sad smile on his lips that were blue and trembling. “When you have unwanted thoughts and feelings…you go into the water.”

Jesus. Tears are falling

“I love you, Holden. That’s real. It’s the most fucking real thing I’ll ever know.”

A huge number. It would take half a lifetime to count that high, and yet I’d have traded every penny to have my parents be parents instead.

Long after the bruises have faded, the poison lingers, circulating through every part of me and rotting everything I touch.

When River tells me he loves me, the poison whispers that he’s lying. When I want to say it back, the poison tells me my words aren’t worth the breath it takes to utter them.

The poison commanded me to run away, and I did, even though I’d have g...

And that’s not why I came here. I came to tell you that even thousands of miles away, I’m still here for you. I can’t make you believe me when I say that I love you, but I do. I think you love me too, and when you come back to me, I’ll be waiting.

“By all means. Tell them they are free to tell their side of the story, Bernie. They’re welcome to share with the world how they had a gay son and didn’t want him to be gay anymore, so they tortured him for six months which resulted in a year’s long sanitarium stay which further resulted in him sabotaging the best thing that’s ever happened to him. He had to run away from the one person he loved more than anyone because he didn’t feel he was worthy, because he put that person in danger, and because he’d rather die than do it again. Tell them that.”