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

by Jessie Walker

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

Not only is caring a neon-sign pointing to where someone should kick to make it count, but it makes you accountable. And I’d rather have no expectations of me whatsoever, thank you very much.

“And for the record, you could always speak up if you have an issue. I’m not a fucking mind reader.” “No, but you do have at least two brain cells, right? Maybe try rubbing them together sometime and see what happens.”

“Let’s just say I know what it’s like to feel like all your shit’s on display. Makes it really fucking hard to move on when no one else lets you forget it.”

I know what it’s like to live in the aftermath, when the veil of mourning has lifted, and the world around you seems to rush forward. Brighter and louder than ever, while you’re still trapped in the shadow of what you lost. That defining moment where life, as you knew it, shattered. Severing your life into a Before and After.

It’s hard not to look at everyone around you and not see the person you once were looking back at you.

This one hurts.

Art is a lot like a parasite. An invasion of undeniable need to share your soul with the world. To try and make the world a little better than how you found it. It consumes you to the point of desperation. Begging you to just let it out; see me, hear me.

Talent isn’t something to be taken for granted. It’s ours to master as we please. Accepting failure is the first step. Taking responsibility for our successes is the next. It’s not arrogance, just hard work paid off. Continuously.

Nothing’s ever as simple as it seems. And more than not, we only see what we want to see.

Like earlier today, I feel that recognition again. A level of understanding that mere words could never justify. Perhaps this is what it means to find company in misery. It’s not so much a common ground, as it is a curse. We’re not trying to understand one another, we just can’t help but do.

my brain struggles to reconcile the absence of beeping horns and jumble of shouts with the unnerving silence of midnight suburbia. I forgot how quiet the world could be.

I’ve probably seen him smile a thousand times now, but there’s something about this one that just... Slices me right open.

This is what I came back for. Not for answers. Not for closure. I came back to remember what it was like to be happy. To be whole.

“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.”

“Because all those little pieces in your head that you’ve been trying to find and fit back together? They’re still there. It’s just that the shapes have changed. They don’t fit like they used to. That picture you had before is gone, and there’s no getting it back.”

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

I like that he smells like me. I like the smell of us combined.

I was wrong the night of the storm. There isn’t nothing inside me. There’s everything. And Will’s been the key to unleashing it all along.