Show Wesper meet

Part 11

Jesper's POV:

Sunlight crept up the walls of the bedroom, soaking Jesper in a bright orange light. The boy scowled, shading himself from the source with a lazy arm across his face. When this did not work, he scowled, rolling on his side. 

His eyes remained shut but his fingers stretched out, seeking the warmth of Wylan's body. They searched but found only the rough, bare mattress of Jesper's bed. 

Confusion. 

An empty mattress? Memories of the previous evening danced through his head. He distinctly remembered the red-haired boy with his sky-blue eyes. 

Had he been so drunk last night that he had imagined it all? No, he couldn't have.

Jesper's eyes shot open. He sat up, blinking furiously as he adjusted to his surroundings. Wylan was gone, but sure enough, a small head shaped divot remained in the pillow beside him. Jesper stared at the pillow for a long moment, as though to will Wylan back there, next to him, but to no such luck.

Jesper's frown deepened as he drew himself up from the bed, pulling on a a crumpled white shirt as he walked. The slat was small and it didn't take him very long to search to be sure that Wylan was no longer there. All that remained were two empty mugs of hot-chocolate and a half-eaten bag of stroopwaffels.

He plucked a stroopwaffel from the packet on the side and took a slow bite, unprepared for the sudden sweetness of the thing. It was too early for Jesper's head to be processing this much information and the sudden burst of sugar hadn't clicked in Jesper's head yet. He rubbed his temples and finished off the flat disk, his only breakfast.

Wylan was gone.

No one had ever left first before.

The feeling was unfamiliar and uncomfortable to Jesper, though he couldn't quite place why that was. He had known it would come to an end. That was how he worked- always bouncing from one person to the next, gambling his wit away to anyone who would take it. Jesper lived for the thrill of it.

 So why now did it feel like he had been completely hollowed out?

He paced the rooms once more: maybe he had missed the shockingly bright curls of the boy in his half-awake state. But no, the boy truly was gone.

Jesper stood in the doorway for a long while, staring into nothing like some sort of pitiful fool, played at last by his own cards. He felt lost at the lack of Wylan's presence, uneasy at how much he had actually enjoyed the strange boy's company.

He was fine, he would move on. Wouldn't he? The gamble, the risk, it never stopped. Jesper cursed his feelings, wishing something would jump up and start shooting at him, rid him of having to debate the subject any further. His fingers itched for his guns, the smooth feel of their pearl handles. 

He left the room with a burning desire to find something, anything to distract himself- and for the first time in a long while, melted into a sense of relief when a note slipped through the door from Kaz, asking for his arrival at the crow club. That, he could navigate. That, he knew.