Where There's a Will (Lost Boys, #1)

by Jessie Walker

Grief was like a fever, she said. I just had to let it run its course. Sweat it out, just sweat it out, baby.

There’s only so much time a person’s allowed to grieve before it becomes an inconvenience, I’ve come to learn.

His face smooths out and he smiles this stupid crooked kind of smile. He shrugs, and I decide I kind of want to punch him in his stupid face.

But then, it’s over. He’s squeezing his eyes shut, and time’s speeding up, and I’m no longer the center of his fucking world. And it hurts. It hurts. How does it fucking hurt this bad?

This stretched out, heartbeat of a moment where I’m suddenly eleven years old again. And there’s this boy—this beautiful, raven-haired boy with eyes like a sunlit forest—staring back at me as if he’s seconds from diving into the water to reach me. As if he’s been waiting and waiting and waiting for a break in the waves. A chance. But like everything, it’s not lasting. Just a glimpse of a path not taken.

Let us have our vices and kindly shut the fuck up.

“The sun will always rise again.” I shrug. “You just need to make it through the night. Take it day by day—moment by moment if you need to—until you reach the other side. Nothing lasts forever.”

“Waylon.” God, I hate how he says my name. Like it was only ever meant to be on his lips. How fucked up is that?

“Because in the end, the only thing we have to fear in the dark are the things we run from in the light of day.”

My mouth dries, and I beg. I beg whoever may be listening, with tears stinging my eyes, that this isn’t a trick. A joke. I...fuck, I need him to hold my hand—to touch me more than I think I’ve ever needed anything in my fucking life. And it’s ridiculous, it’s absurd, how fast and swift my overwhelming want for this miserable, gorgeous asshole bowls over me. I want him. I fucking want him.

“Stop me,” I tell him gravelly, bitterly, desperately, “because I fucking can’t.”

“I hate you.” If this is hate, baby, I think, licking across his teeth, I don’t know if I’d survive your love.

We convince ourselves that we have a purpose, a reason for existing at all, but the truth is—we’re nothing more than empires waiting to fall, deluding ourselves into thinking we’re invincible. That we’re forever. Living isn’t prolonging the inevitable; it’s simply prolonging the acceptance of the truth our minds keep from our bodies.

You can’t change how you feel. You can only feel it. It doesn’t make you a bad person, Will. It just makes you human.”

All I know is that today, I made the decision to let him go once and for all. And Waylon stopped me.

“Well, aren’t you just in a lovely mood this evening, dear cousin. May I ask who pissed on the man you ate for breakfast?”

“You might not be able to trust what you feel,” I tell him, easing my hand back so I’m no longer touching him, “but your body doesn’t lie.” I lean forward just enough to press a chaste kiss to his lips. “It fucking sings for me.”

Cheeks flushed, Waylon shrugs and spreads his hands as if daring me to stake my claim. As if to say, Is this what you want? My mouth crooks up wickedly. Baby, you’ve no fucking clue. He arches a knowing, challenging brow. “Show me, City Boy.”

I didn’t know any different growing up. How can you be traumatized from something when it’s all you’ve ever known?”

“We were always going to end up here, weren’t we?” My voice is barely above a whisper. He shrugs. “Where there’s a will, there’s a way, right?” He smirks knowingly. “Kind of inevitable, wouldn’t you say?”

Not taking his eyes off me, he draws closer. Slow, calculated steps, like he has all the time in the world. Like he has forever to destroy me. Forever to take me apart piece by piece.