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

by Jessie Walker

For those who didn’t make it ’til morning.

I have a rule about Sundays—if I can’t do it from the comfort of my couch, then it’s not getting done.

I can’t tell him, especially him, that sometimes it feels like I’m barely hanging on to this stupid, fucking life because I don’t know how to live in a world without her. How do I tell him that? How does anyone admit that without splintering right down the middle?

What if the truth all along is that my dad was right—and I’m a waste. Worthless. Nothing—and this really has all just been just another vice to drown out the truth?

“Maybe I like being sad.” His eyes drift to some point beyond me. “When you’re sad, nothing else really matters anymore.” Somewhere deep under the heavy wool of alcohol’s influence, a warning bell rings out. But I’m far too gone, far too numb right now to pay it much notice. I make a face. “And that’s a good thing?” His eyes focus on mine once more. He shrugs. “When you have nothing to lose, you have nothing to fear.”

“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.”

Please don’t hate me, please don’t hate me, please don’t hate me⁠—

Black creeps in around the edges of what little consciousness I have left, and I welcome it. I chase it. I don’t want to be here anymore. I can’t fucking do this. I can’t want this. I can’t do this again. “Please don’t hate me.” I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry⁠— Because it’s no longer his voice in my head. It’s mine. Please don’t fucking hate me.

The knight in shining armor I never asked for, not now when he was ten years too late, and the only dragon left that needed slaying was me. Because I wasn’t that kid anymore. I didn’t need a hero. I just wanted someone to finally put me out of my misery.

“...and, somehow, through all that...darkness caving in around him, he managed to think of you...”

“Where there’s a will, there’s a way, right?” he says simply. His mouth ticks up. “It made me laugh thinking about it. I couldn’t get the words out of my head after that. They just kept playing on this...endless, delirium-ridden loop. Like a song stuck in my head on repeat. I just kept thinking how it was a play on our names, and it just...it hit me.”

“There’re a lot of meanings behind this symbol, but that’s the one I chose for myself. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.” And my heart... It. Just. Explodes. There’s no other word to describe it. Whatever was left of it...is just gone. I am gone. So. Far. Fucking. Gone. Waylon smiles faintly, a dimple peeking out just barely. “Told you it was cheesy.”

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

“Then one day, it was your smile I was noticing,” he says faintly, face scrunching up as his eyes dart to the pinched corners of my lips. “What it did to me...I never knew a smile could make me feel so full. Like I was worth something. Like I mattered.

“I remember acting like a complete and utter moron,” he goes on, a small smile lifting his face. “Always following your lead, despite knowing the cost. Doing whatever I could to keep your attention. Your interest. I felt so fucking big in your eyes, and I was so scared you’d one day get sick of me. Find someone who wasn’t so angry and weird and⁠—” “Way,” I croak.

I am drowning. Drowning in overwhelming want for this guy. This fucking guy who just told me I was once his everything, when I was sure I was only ever his nothing.

“Are you okay?” I ask eventually. Waylon gives a small nod before turning to rub the tip of his nose against my skin. “Yeah. It’s quiet here.” I turn my head toward the window as he draws a finger down the center of my chest. In a voice so low I have to strain to hear him, he says, “It’s always quieter when I’m with you.” Jesus fuck, this guy.

“It’s just...it’s hard for me to wrap my head around it. I didn’t know any different growing up. How can you be traumatized from something when it’s all you’ve ever known?”

I’d be embarrassed by the sounds coming out of my mouth if I wasn’t so relieved to finally have a taste of what’s been forbidden for so long. If I wasn’t so fucking gone for this boy. This damaged, drive-me-fucking-insane boy who’s managed to find all those pieces of my heart he broke years ago, and fit them back together. Like it was nothing at all.

Perhaps that’s why we hold on to it so tight—that hardness. That Herculean stoicism in the face of any great and terrible pain. Any perceived weakness. Perhaps that is why so many men feel threatened when their masculinity is tested, choosing to turn it into something ugly. Violent. Because when that hard exterior finally cracks—when the pressure of all the generations before us, with all their “Buck up, sons,” and “Boys don’t cry,” and “Be a man,” finally becomes too much—there’s nothing to shield us from the rapidly approaching avalanche that is our own crumbling egos.