“Healing is a matter of time, but it is sometimes also a matter of opportunity.” – Hippocrates
In this third and final story in the Waiting for Forever series by Jamie Mayfield, we rejoin the story directly after Brian, Mike, Alex and Leo rescued Jamie from Steven O’Dell. Jamie has been beaten severely and has a serious burn on his abdomen. With the help of his father, via webcam, and his friends, Brian gets Jamie doctored up and helps start his path to healing. Leo even gets in touch with a dealer to get some Oxy to help Jamie with the pain while he heals. Jamie is very worried about what Steven is going to do to his and Brian’s friends but he can’t regret the fact that he is with Brian again.
After about a week at the boardinghouse, Jamie and Brian leave to go to their apartment Brian rented for them. The two young men settle into a routine and seem to be starting a new life together, finally. Once the Oxy that Leo got for Jamie runs out, he starts going through withdraws and Brian and Leo do everything they can to help Jamie, but this is a struggle he is having a tough time winning. Finally, Jamie cannot do it anymore and he goes out to buy drugs. He is successful the first time and the second time. Unfortunately, Steven finds Jamie and Brian through the dealer Jamie bought from, and Brian ends up shot, and Jamie is forcibly taken back with Steven. Jamie stays because he believes Brian died that night and he feels he has nothing to live for. Eventually, Jamie just gives up, he wants to die, but he can’t let Steven do the things he has done to Jamie to anyone else. So, one box of rat poison and one baggie of cocaine later Jamie is ready to end not only his life but Steven’s as well. Luckily, Jamie survives the poison-laced drugs, but Steven doesn’t.
When Jamie wakes in the hospital, he learns that although he is alive, he is not totally unscathed. He will have some short term memory problems, and seizures for the rest of his life. Brian does the best he can for Jamie, but he also tells Jamie that he can only be his friend. Jamie is devastated that he has finally lost Brian. The only good thing to come from everything is Jamie and his father are reunited and working toward getting to know one another again.
This series of books touched me in ways not many other books or series have in a long time. After Jamie goes home with his father, survives detox, starts working the program at NA and gets into college, you can just see his confidence start to grow. I loved watching Jamie go through the maturation process that Brian went through in the second book. Even though it seems Brian left Jamie when Jamie needed him the most, I think it was exactly what Jamie needed. He needed to learn to take care of himself and learn that he has people who care besides Brian. Eventually Brian and Jamie do get back together; I mean really did you even for one second think the author would do that to us?!? But I think the journey Jamie needed to take had to be taken without Brian for a while. Once they come back to one another, they are so much stronger than before and it is just a beautiful thing to witness.
I believe in no uncertain terms that Jamie needed some Jamietime to get his life sorted. He and his father had some heart to heart talks and got so many things out in the open that their relationship is stronger and more honest than it had ever been before.
If you know any LGBT youths or friends of LGBT youths, I think these books are a great read for them. A lot of these kids are told from a very young age that they are sick, wrong and unloved. Not all of these kids are lucky enough to find a Leo or a Mike or an Alex to show them how special they are. If you learn nothing else from these books, I hope at least the message of acceptance gets through. We need to let these kids know every day that someone cares about them and that they are worthy, no matter their past, no matter what they did to survive and no matter where they come from. So, yeah I highly recommend giving these books a read. If you don’t want to read the YA versions there is also an adult version of the series. So in closing I will just say I hope you love Brian and Jamie as much as I do.
Reviewed by: Jackie
You can buy Determination (Waiting for Forever, Book 3) here: