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

by Jessie Walker

I don’t see Will leave, but I feel it. I feel the hollowness left behind like it’s a living thing, creeping its way up my limbs, and settling where my heart once was. It’s familiar and strange all at once, but rather than fight it, I let it welcome me in its cold embrace. 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.

my heart 💔💔💔💔💔

“It’s not your job to love who brought you into this world unconditionally. It’s the other way around. You don’t owe me anything.”