I finally give up and collapse on my bed before holding my head in my hands.
And what about D? Did I just deliver a monster to his door? Not Will, obviously. But Reed? If he finds out I told D, he’ll kill him. My head won’t be the only one on the docket. D’s will be too. And I can’t let that happen.
A set of footsteps pique my curiosity as I continue to sit in my room, stewing in silence.
“Stay in here,” a low voice orders across the hall before retreating back down the stairs.
Head cocked, I wait for any other clues but don’t receive any. There’s a moment of silence before I tiptoe toward my door and open it a few more inches. The hallway is empty. With a deep breath, I venture into the unknown and raise my fist to tap on the door that’s opposite of mine.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
“Hello?” a little voice squeaks.
Chest aching, I push open the door. “Will?”
“Queena?”
His pre-teen body practically tackles me as he darts across the room and wraps his arms around my waist.
“Queena, where have you been? You disappeared. Dad said you quit—”
“I know, Will. I know.” Squeezing him tight, I fight back my tears, then slide to the ground and rest my back against the wall. Will follows suit and scoots beside me, leaving less than an inch of space between us.
“What are you doing here, bud?” I whisper as I take in his profile. I’ve only known him for a year or so, but when you’re with someone day in and day out, you start to know them better than yourself. His cheeks aren’t as full as they used to be, and the normal rosy color that I’ve grown accustomed to is absent. It looks like he’s aged a few years since the last time I saw him. And I’d do anything to give him back that time.
“I don’t…I don’t want to talk about it,” he chokes out.
His words act like a vice around my heart. “Then we don’t have to talk about it. Just know that I’m here for you, okay?”
“Okay.”
“You look tired, though,” I point out.
He shrugs but doesn’t deny it.
“You should get some rest.”
With a quick shake of his head, he mutters, “I uh, I don’t like to close my eyes.”
A sad yet knowing smile graces my lips before I divulge a secret. “Ya know, I get scared sometimes too. But do you wanna know what helps me?”
“What?”
“I think about the good stuff. Sometimes, if you try hard enough, you can replace the bad with the good. You just have to stay strong and not give in to the darkness.”
“How do I do that, Queena?” he whispers.
“Think of happy thoughts.”
“Like in Peter Pan?” He quirks his brow in disbelief.
“Exactly,” I chuckle before bopping him on the nose with my index finger.
“And that really works?”
“Not all the time,” I admit. “But it definitely helps.”
Peeking up at me, he asks, “What’s your happy thought?”
An image of D immediately comes to mind. His eyes are alight with fascination as he pops another kernel of popcorn into his mouth while staring at an über-cheesy Hallmark movie. The plot might as well involve aliens for how foreign it is to a guy like him, but he’s as entertained as ever. And I know it’s because he wants me to be happy and will do everything in his power to make it happen, even if it involves sitting through a predictable, sappy love story.
“Queena?” Will murmurs, pulling me back to the present.
I toss my arm over his skinny shoulders and tug him into my side. “Get some rest. I’ll hang out with you here and keep the monsters away, okay?”
With a loud yawn, he scoots down then rests his head on my lap while his gangly body spreads out across the floor. There’s a king-sized bed a few feet away, but I don’t mention it. He looks too exhausted to move anyway.
“Thanks for being here, Queena,” he whispers as his heavy lids flutter closed.
“Anytime.”
Running my fingers through his brown mop of hair, I think back on how much our worlds have been flipped upside down in such a short amount of time. But there’s no use getting lost in the past and what coulda, woulda, shoulda been. Diece taught me that. And now, I’m going to do my best to pass on the knowledge to this kid who, in the blink of an eye, got dealt a pretty shitty hand too.
My head rests