Where There's A Will

Jessie Walker

Where There’s A Will

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Editing: Zainab with Heart Full of Reads Editing Services

Proofreading: Heather Caryn

Interior Formatting: Chelsea Timm

Cover Design: Elaine York with Allusion Publishing

Contents

AUTHOR’S NOTE

PROLOGUE

Interlude

Acknowledgements

Content Warning

About the Author

For those who didn’t make it till morning.

“Just close your eyes and keep your mind wide open.”

—Katherine Paterson

Bridge to Terabithia

PLAYLIST

“Nutshell” - Alice In Chains

“Black Hole Sun” - Soundgarden

“Ghost” - Badflower

“Breath” - Breaking Benjamin

“Glycerine” - Bush

“I Won’t Back Down” - Tom Petty

“Fix Me” - Ten Years

“Don’t Fear the Reaper” - Blue Oyster Cult

“Let Me Out” - Future Leaders of the World

“Terrible Love” - The National

And more . . .

Check out the playlist on Spotify

AUTHOR’S NOTE

This isn’t an easy read. It wasn’t easy to write either. There is content in here that will be difficult for some (if not many) to read, but I’m hoping you’ll give it a chance regardless. Although a work of fiction, some of what happens in this book is very, very, real for a lot of individuals. In varying ways. Maybe, just maybe, you’re one of them . . .

The broken. The lost. The black sheep.

The survivors.

Please keep in mind, though, that this is not meant to be used as a guide or self-help book. While I did my best to handle the heavier stuff as delicately as I could—albeit, graphically at times—I am in no way perfect. I am still learning. My approach might not be everyone’s cup of tea, and that’s okay.

At the end of the day, I remained true to my characters and the story they wanted to tell. And that is enough for me. I hope it’s enough for you, too, because I promise it’s not all doom and gloom here. This is still a love story at its core.

A detailed Content Warning can be found at the back of this book, following the Acknowledgements, or on my website.

PROLOGUE

It’s cold when I come to.

Night has fallen, and it’s no longer raining but sleeting.

I am lying on my stomach on the ledge of a bridge in nothing but a thread-bare t-shirt and jeans that have way too many holes in them to hold any warmth. There’s an empty bottle of Lagavulin 16 tucked into my chest, and my hand dangles lifelessly off the edge.

300 feet of open air awaits me.

I’m alone.

How long has it been since I blacked out?

The bottle rolls off behind me as I force myself to sit up, falling to the patch of vegetation sprouting up between the rusted train tracks. My stomach roils, and I have just enough time to turn to the side before all the scotch I drank comes back up.

I should be dead.

Probably.

Maybe.

How the fuck am I still here?

I wipe the back of my hand over my mouth when I’m finished, eyeing the pool of vomit dripping down the sides of the concrete barrier.

It tasted almost as bad coming up as it did going down.

Makes me wonder what was so fucking special about it.

If there were two things my dad actually held any sort of value to, it was this now-empty bottle of scotch, and the picture of my mother he didn’t know I knew existed. The one he kept tucked safely under his gun in the top drawer of his nightstand. The one he’d sob and rage at late at night when he didn’t know I was awake, listening from my room across the hall. The one I stole tonight.

My vision wavers as I glance toward my right.

I should care.

I should care that the picture has been ruined by the rain.

But I don’t.

My dad was right. I am a fucking waste.

I slide my eyes shut and swallow back the burn of bile as I reach for the gun, grabbing the picture before it can blow away.

The pistol is heavy and slick in my hands. Somehow still cool to the touch, even though I’m well past the point of freezing.

Stuffing the wrinkled Polaroid in my pocket, I turn the gun over in my palms a couple times, wondering how many bullets are inside.

My dad never taught me how to shoot a gun. I don’t know why, but it makes me laugh. All that talk about making me a man’s man, and he never once fucking taught me how to shoot a gun.

I laugh until there are tears joining the sleet melting down my face.

I laugh until I’m screaming.

I laugh until I’ve got my knees pressed against my chest; and I’ve got the barrel of my dad’s .45 squeezed between my hands, cradled under my chin.

I’m laughing and I’m crying and I’ve got Tom Petty in my head, singing about stupid nonsense.

Won’t back down, my ass.

God, I fucking hate this song.

My hand slides down the barrel, lifting the gun in the process.

The voice singing in my head starts to shift and twist. Growing into something lighter. Softer. An echo of one I thought was long forgotten.

I thumb the trigger, screw my eyes shut...

Out loud, I start whisper-singing along with the phantom voice in my head.

—And I let the ocean carry me away.

1

Will Foster

The first time I ran away, I was five years old, and I had just watched a minivan run over my dog.

I didn’t get very far, but far enough to scare the hell out of my mother.

With a backpack stuffed with Oreos and a root beer, and my Scooby Doo blanket tucked under a bony arm, I hiked my way down the block to the small neighborhood playground where I found refuge in a rust-streaked, green crawl tube.

To this day, I can remember the stench of fading skunk spray and hot plastic as I spent my afternoon staring out from a star-shaped hole. Willing the whole time for my eyes to stop leaking and my lungs to stop hiccupping and my heart to stop thudding so loud and so fast.

My mom had found me just as the setting sun abandoned me to a world layered in shades of deep violet. Crying and biting her lip, she hugged me. Squeezed me so tight my sandpaper eyes struggled to well up once more.

“Why’d you run, baby?”

“It hurts.”

With gritted teeth, she told me to never scare her like that again. That the city was no place for a little boy to run wild. Grief was like a fever, she said. I just had to let it run its course. Sweat it out, just sweat it out, baby.

She didn’t account for the fact that some fevers don’t break on their own. That sometimes you have to do something drastic in order to heal.

Sometimes the only option is to flee.

Run.

Run, run, run...

August

The sun is high and blinding when I pass the Welcome to Shiloh sign.

Population: 743.

Home of the World-Famous Lackawanna River Viaduct.

The old train bridge carved into the wooden slats of the sign hardly does the real thing justice. Sure, it’s not as massive as I remember. I was only eleven last time I saw it, and that’s usually how these kinds of things go. But there’s still something unsettling about this bridge.

Wrong.

I watch through the tinted visor of my helmet as the dark concrete structure peeks out through the passing trees, growing bigger and bigger on the horizon. A looming shadow against the afternoon sky, it cuts through this small valley town like a relic from mining days gone by.

I steer my motorcycle off the highway, and for the first time in almost twenty miles, dense forest finally thins, giving way to civilization. Old farm houses, scattered far and wide. An abandoned slaughterhouse. Some kind of industrial park.

Gradually, and then suddenly, more houses begin to appear. Until there are more houses than trees. Businesses. A single floor motel—the only one for miles. The elementary school where I attended one year, and one year only. A church.

This town is built like a target; the bridge, its bullseye. And what constitutes downtown—Main Street—sits parallel to that bridge in near-perpetual shade.

Driving past the school, my eyes catch on the playground just beyond—the mid-day sun glinting sharply off the metal slide—and a hard lump forms in my throat.

I shouldn’t be here.

When I left Philly back in June, I didn’t have any set destination in mind. I just knew I needed to make a change. What kind of change, I had no idea. But taking to the open road seemed like a good place to start.

I thought it’d be enough.

Drifting my way through state lines. Bouncing from town to town. From one motel room to another...

Never settling for more than a couple nights.

Never giving my brain a chance to catch up. Just always pushing forward, never back.

I thought time and distance were supposed to heal all wounds. Isn’t that how it’s supposed to go? Isn’t that what we’ve always been told?

Just give it time.

It will get better.

What a crock of shit.

A gas station appears on my right, and I slow my bike to a crawl, signaling to the car behind me that I’m turning. I figure I might as well fill up, grab some grub, and make a game plan. Up here, in Nowheresville, Pennsylvania, it’s impossible to say when I’ll find the next town. Could be ten miles. Could be fifty. Not worth wasting my reserve.

At least, that’s what I tell myself.

I tell myself a lot of things these days.

I ease my way behind an old Cadillac just as it’s pulling away from the pump.

It’s hot as balls today. The sun bears down heavily on the pavement, causing a sort of rippling haze to lift from the glittering asphalt, almost like smoke. Shoving my helmet off, I blink through squinting eyes as I try to adjust my vision around the slices of light bouncing off the surrounding metal.

No longer deafened by the roar of my bike, I can make out Led Zeppelin’s “Heartbreaker” playing from the gas station’s speakers.

Stretching my arms above my head, I twist my back until there’s a satisfying pop. I’ve been on the road all morning, driving up from Baltimore in one straight shot. All this riding these last couple months, on top of sleeping my way through one lumpy motel bed after another, is taking a toll on my back.

As I wait for my tank to fill, I pull out my phone.

Three messages. One missed call. All from my parents.

It should probably bother me more. Hurt, even, that no one outside of my family has tried to get in touch with me. Not-a-fucking-one. Not since I left Philly.

But it’s not like I can blame them really. Between dropping out mid-semester and quitting football with no warning, and the fact I all but ignored their calls and texts for weeks in the wake of Zayne’s death, I guess it didn’t take much at all to burn what bridges were left.

There’s only so much time a person’s allowed to grieve before it becomes an inconvenience, I’ve come to learn. Before the clock speeds up, and the world goes on spinning without you, you either pull yourself out in time to catch up, or you get left behind. That’s just the way it goes.

And like I said, it should hurt. Sting a bit.

But it doesn’t.

If anything, I see it as just one less thing tying me to the city I once loved.

One less thing tying me to the person I was before.

It’s lonely, but...freeing.

Loneliness is freeing.

How fucking sad is that?

I thumb out a quick response to my mom, telling her I decided to take a last-minute detour, and I’m not sure when I’ll be back. If I’m going back. But I don’t tell her that. Yet. Not waiting for a response, I turn my phone to silent before shoving it in my tail bag.

I had every intention of returning to Philly today. With school starting back up in a couple weeks—another thing I had every intention of getting back to—my parents wanted to spend some time together before they took off on their sixty-day cruise in the South Pacific. A trip I insisted they not cancel after months and months of their worrying and hovering. Even when miles and miles apart.

But with just a single glance at the skyline I once called home, popping up over the horizon like little shiny beacons under the rising sun, I knew I couldn’t do it.

Couldn’t go back there. Not yet. Please don’t make me.

So when the time came to choose, I didn’t think. Didn’t second-guess. I just kept driving. Following signs for towns I never gave much thought to, putting as much distance as I could between Philly and me.

A loud click pulls me out of my thoughts. I remove the nozzle and twist the cap back on. Not bothering with the helmet, I move my motorcycle closer to the convenience store to free up space at the pump.

The bell rings as I push open the door, announcing my arrival. A blast of air washes over me, sending a much welcome chill over my exposed arms and neck. The clerk gives me a mumbled greeting that I return with a small nod, before making my way toward the coolers in the back. There’s only one other person in the small store: a guy about my age with messy ash brown hair and a grease-stained t-shirt and jeans.

Grabbing a couple waters and a bag of jerky, I make my way toward the register. Scoping out the rack of lottery tickets on my way, I debate whether I should buy a few scratch-offs. I’m not usually one for gambling, but it’s become this little game I play with myself. Using them as a sort of gauge when arriving in any new town.

Win: stay.

Lose: go.

Simple as fucking that. Let the universe call the shots. I’m done trying.

For some reason, I’m more hesitant to play this time. I don’t look too closely as to why that is.

The guy I spotted when I came in is paying for a pack of gum and an energy drink when I approach the counter. At the last second, I reach behind me and grab whatever ticket my hand lands on first. I don’t look down to see what it is.

The clerk finishes ringing the guy up. When he turns to pocket his wallet, my eyes catch on the silver hoop threaded through his bottom lip. He mumbles his thanks, grabs his stuff, and turns toward the door without a backward glance.

The bell rings just as I set my stuff on the counter. I turn my head to find an older man has entered the store, stopping the younger guy with a big grin and a back slap. Paying them little notice, I hand my card over to the store clerk.

“—you tell that McAllister boy I don’t want any problems.”

My fingers jerk, stuttering against one of the bottles of water. It tips over and I fling my hand out just in time to catch it before it can roll off. Squeezing it in my palm, the plastic crackles, threatening to burst.

Blinking hard, I ignore the blood whooshing in my ears and hastily try to catch the rest of the conversation going on behind me.

“—won’t happen again, I promise,” a different voice says tiredly.

A grunt. “You’re a good kid, Mason. I don’t wanna see you slippin’ to old ways.”

In a tight voice, the younger guy responds, “I’ll keep that in mind. Take care, Mr. Phelps.” The bell jingles. An engine roars past as a wave of hot hair blows in, before both are abruptly cut off by the door sealing shut once more. Heavy footfalls drag across the floor—

A throat clears loudly.

I dart my head up. I imagine my eyes are as wide as a fucking deer in headlights.

The clerk arches a bushy white brow.

Right.

I mumble an incoherent thanks to the man as he hands back my card. He slowly—too slowly—stuffs my purchases into a plastic bag. As soon as he hands it over, I hurriedly make my way outside.

Darting my wide gaze around, it doesn’t take me long to spot him.

Mason.

He’s standing only a few feet away, with his back to the store. His phone’s pressed to his ear and he doesn’t seem to have noticed me yet. I can’t make out anything he’s saying—if he’s talking at all—not that it’s really any of my concern. I’m too busy still trying to process what I just overheard.

It can’t be...I think, just as he slowly turns around.

He tenses when he catches me standing here, frozen, staring at him like I’ve just seen a ghost.

His brow furrows as he mumbles something into the phone before lowering it.

If I had any doubts before, I don’t anymore. His lip might be pierced and he’s got a full sleeve of ink; muscles where there were only lanky arms before, and hair a shade or two lighter than when we were kids—but I’d recognize those blue eyes anywhere. They’re so pale, they’re nearly translucent.

“Mason?” I finally manage.

His frown only deepens. Just when I think he might not recognize me, those glacier blue orbs widen after doing a quick sweep of my features. “Holy shit, Will?”

I nod, a startled laugh escaping me.

What are the fucking odds?

A grin breaks across his face and he takes a step forward. Pulling me into a surprising hug, he pounds my back in a quick gesture that I’m a little slower to return. “What the hell, man? I almost didn’t recognize you.”

“Ditto,” I breathe as he pulls back.

He shakes his head in wonder. “What are you doing here?” I’m assuming he means Shiloh in general, not this gas station.

“Just passing through, I guess.”

He smiles curiously. “Passing through to where?”

I open my mouth, shut it, and frown. “Good question.”

He chuckles almost nervously, like he’s not sure what to make of me.

Me neither, pal. Me fucking neither.

Frankly, I’m a little surprised he did recognize me. But then again, I knew who he was, so it would only make sense he’d remember me right back.

Clearing my throat, I run a hand over my sweaty hair and look around. “I guess curiosity just got the best of me, you know?” I can’t help but notice how he tenses the faintest bit, as if bracing himself. “I’ve been traveling all summer, and I just...well, I guess I wanted to see if it was like I remember.”

Something seems to soften in Mason then. Almost like relief, but that doesn’t seem right. “Makes sense.”

More like a load of shit.

I haven’t had any ties to Shiloh since my parents upped and moved us back to the city after my grandma’s death ten years ago. Sure, Mason was my friend—one of the few I made during that brief time we lived here—but in the wide, seemingly never-ending landscape of youth, what’s one passing childhood friendship out of dozens?

As if to further call me on said bullshit, that snippet of conversation I overheard inside rushes to the forefront of my mind.

“McAllister boy.”

My pulse races.

I really, really shouldn’t be here.

“You stickin’ around?” Mason asks abruptly, yanking me out of my thoughts.

Giving my head a little shake, I go to tell him no, only for my mouth to take the reins before my brain can catch up. “Yes.”

His eyes brighten before creasing into another frown as I quickly backtrack.

“I mean,” I grumble, “no. I shouldn’t. I—” A ragged sigh escapes me. “I’m supposed to go home this weekend. I...” Trailing off, I seal my mouth in a hard line.

He studies me more closely now, wariness and something else—something almost like concern—replacing the earlier flash of surprise. It’s a long beat before he says quietly, slowly, “You don’t want to go back.”

Not a question.

I stare back at him for one heart-pounding beat, before slowly shaking my head. “No,” I finally allow myself to admit out loud. “I don’t want to go back there.”

Not back to college where Zayne’s ghost haunts the campus.

Not back to my parents who don’t seem to know what to do with me.

Not to the city where the memories of who I was cling to every nook and cranny, reminding me of what I lost.

“I don’t want to go back,” I reiterate my earlier statement.

A knowing sort of glint hardens Mason’s gaze. “Then don’t.”

I laugh, and I hate that it’s this shaky, almost nervous sound. “Just like that?”

A shrug before his attention drifts momentarily somewhere over my shoulder. “Why not?”

I blink.

Easy. He makes it sound so easy, when it’s anything but.

“I don’t even know where I’d stay,” I hedge.

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Where There's A Will

AUTHOR’S NOTE

PROLOGUE

1

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