If There's a Way (Lost Boys #2)

by Jessie Walker

“He didn’t mean it. It wasn’t him.” Something splinters in my chest at that, something I didn’t know could break… Something I don’t think can ever heal once broken. Run, I think. Beg him silently. It’s time for you to run, Will.

I imagine the eleven-year-old boy I left behind is there, the one who spat at the boy who meant everything to him, casting him out. All in the name of protecting him. The boy I just chased out of our life once and for all.. He sees me, and the hope in his eyes he’d been so scared of feeling dims when he realizes I’m not there to set him free from the dark. But I thought… the younger me starts to say. I know, I respond. I thought so too. And then I sit next to him, and repeat the words he once muttered into his pillow⁠— “It’s for the best.” Only this time, it’s not my dad I’m so desperate to save him from… It’s me. It was always me.

It’s resilience. The drive to stand back up, even when the world would rather have you on your knees.”

“Isn’t it obvious?” He cocks his head. “He wasn’t just terrified I’d hurt him for it, Will…” My vision blurs. “...he was terrified I’d hurt you.”

He was sick, and we found comfort in one another. We settled for what was in front of us, rather than brave trying to find someone new. Someone who lit our souls on fire, rather than just keeping them warm.

Where grief would rather have us cower, submit to its whims, and give up—we fucking spit in its face. Life is for the living, motherfucker.

“He deserves better.” Jeremy scoffs, rolling his eyes. “You know that’s a total cop-out right? Maybe stop worrying about what he doesn’t and does deserve, and, I don’t know, maybe try to just be what you think he deserves.”

“Well too fucking bad,” I murmur. “You are loved. And I’m not better off without you.” He sucks in a shaky breath. Slowly, I take a step back, then another. His shirt pulling until I have no choice but to let go. “And I’d rather feel this burden of knowing and loving you than go even a second without you existing somewhere on this planet.”

He loves you, a weak voice tries to remind me. I grimace, and shove it away. It doesn’t matter what he thinks. I don’t know a lot about love, not personally, but I’m pretty sure it’s not supposed to be this heavy and suffocating and filled with so much ugliness.

healing is about more than letting go. You can’t fall forever and expect to never land. Eventually you’ll have to learn how to make peace with the ground. Find your legs and keep on keepin’ on.

“Way, what are⁠—” “I’m your trigger.” I blink at him. He gestures to my chest and smiles grimly. “And you’re mine.”

I’ll do whatever it takes to prove I’m not going anywhere. Prove he’s not a whim or a fix or any-fucking-thing else in between. He’s the beat of my fucking heart. And that? That’s everything.

“That’s my burden, okay?” Exhaustion weighs down every word. “My burden is loving you, but not letting myself have you, because I’m fucking petrified nothing will ever be enough to keep you. And I can’t live with that. I literally cannot live with the idea of losing you, Waylon. So there you fucking have it. I’m not just scared, I’m petrified. Happy?”

Apologies are useless in hindsight. They don’t change a goddamn thing. They’re just empty words to fill the silence between one regret and the next.

It’s okay to be angry sometimes, my Sunshine Boy. It’s okay to be sad and scared too. Even the sun needs a break sometimes—it’s why it has the moon to help out every night.”

“Sometimes people will do things they don’t want to do.” “Why?” I rasp. I feel her shrug. “Could be for a number of reasons. Fear. Shame… Denial. Or maybe to protect someone else.” Her throat bobs with a swallow that I feel near my cheek. “The world can be an ugly, scary place, my sweet, Sunshine Boy. So you’ll have to be brave, okay? Brave and strong.”

This. This moment. Right. Fucking. Here. This is what I’ve been waiting for all along. Maybe my whole life.

“And I know that’s a fucking lot—I’m a lot. Especially when it comes to you.” He’s shaking his head. “Will.” “But it is what it is,” I tell him simply. “Take it or leave it, because I refuse to water it down, even for you. I’d do just about anything for you, but don’t ever ask me to love you less.”

“I can’t fight this any more than you can run from it,” he whispers. “And trying to convince myself that we’re better off apart isn’t working for me anymore. Is it working for you?”

I meet his gaze once more and I feel it. Feel that rope that’s always been there, tethering us together, strengthening and smoothing out into something solid. Impenetrable. We are solid and impenetrable. And everything else can just fuck off.

“I don’t have to give you the talk, do I?” My brow furrows. “The talk?” He arches a bushy dark brow. “You’re a good kid. But that boy—wherever you’re hiding him right now—he’s my entire world.” His eyes glitter with something like amusement, but there’s also an edge there that tells me he’s also being dead serious. “You get me?” I chew on my lip, fighting a smile. He looks heavenward like he’s praying for patience. “This is supposed to be a threat, kid. Can you at least pretend you’re quakin’ in your boots?”

He holds me to him as desperately as I hold on to him. This, I think. This is all I need. Oxygen? Who fucking needs it? Shit’s poisonous anyhow.

No one loses when the only objective is to out-love the other.