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

by Jessie Walker

Against my chest, the blunt edges of his nails dig into my skin, and I kind of want to tell him to just do it. Rip my heart out. It’s already his anyway.

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.

“You didn’t make anything worse, Will,” I tell him after a long, quiet moment. “You woke me up, that’s all. You brought me back to life.”

I’m shaking and I’m exhausted and there’s a goddamn sun in my chest where my heart should be, burning its way through the shadows and shackles, until there’s nothing left but ash where there was once a cage and impenetrable darkness. A cage where a little boy remained a prisoner for so long that he forgot what it meant to be free. What it felt like to stand in the light. But I don’t look away. I don’t back down. I’ll never hide again. Never, never, never. Because I’m staring into the abyss and the abyss is staring back at me and it’s looking at me like I am the goddamn sun. He’s looking at me like I’m the goddamn sun.

“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.”