Chapter Text
4|
JJ's fingers tried to grab for the oversized hat, but it slipped again as if it had finally abandoned him too. It fell back, veiling his pale face and shrouding his vision.
Weariness bore down on him, draining his resolve and taking away his ability to muster the strength to do anything about it. So he let the hat be, blocking his eyes, and with it, the encroaching darkness swallowed his world.
He reached for the beer bottle anyway, somehow bringing it up to his lips, runaway dribbles of beer falling down his chin, escaping him like bitter memories.
The beer had long turned lukewarm as it sloshed down his throat—sickeningly familiar, a reminder of keggers, memories, and everything he wished to forget—and it made him want to stop, but he couldn’t seem to find the strength to. He needed it as much as he needed air. A familiar feeling, a dependence he had seen all his life, something he wished to eject from his blood.
But it didn’t seem to matter how much he drank this time; it did nothing to fill the gaping hole inside of him. If anything, he felt it expanding.
Nearly missing the counter as he tried to place the bottle back down, the beer splashed over the sides and onto the floor. He was surrounded by chaos. It no longer mattered, nothing did.
Days had passed since the Phantom was lost to the storm and John B and Sarah were lost to the darkness of the sea. No one knew exactly whether or not they had died out there, maybe they wouldn’t ever know. Maybe it was better for some people that way, easier to live in fantasy and not reality.
All JJ knew was that there was a gaping hole inside him where they should be, ripping him apart by the seams until suddenly he was bare and empty in a house too big, too scary, and too devoid of people.
At the very least, he hoped it had been days and not weeks. He had yet to venture past the door of his room, let alone step outside the house.
For once in his life, JJ, the boy who was always moving, had become frozen, somehow stuck in time. Because maybe if he moved, maybe if he escaped the protective shell he’d trapped himself in, all of the pain he’d been holding in would suddenly hit him that his brother was gone. That one of his best friends was gone with him.
So he stayed there. He didn’t move an inch, and slowly, the pack of beers he placed beside him that very first day was diminishing in size. What he’d do when they ran out—well, that was a problem he didn’t have the energy to think about. So he didn’t.
He didn’t want to think about anything at all but stare into the blackness of his closed eyes and the depths of the abyss he was in. All he wanted now was to wait for some magical angel to eventually take him out of his misery and take him to them. To lay there, seal his eyes so tight that no light could ever seep through, and hope that he never had to open them again and live his life without them.
*
When he heard footsteps coming down the hallway, he knew who they belonged to. Not because he’d memorized the sound of them over the years, not because he knew his dad was in jail, that no one else would’ve come for him, but because of something he’s still not sure he could even put into words.
When they were little, so young that fairytales seemed real, sometimes he used to think they were tied together. He’d tug on the ends of her braids and tell her that they were no match for any of the seekers because they always knew where to find each other. Life changed as they grew up, but that always seemed to stay the same: a sixth sense for each other that they never seemed to outgrow.
A superpower it was, most of the time.
But sometimes he just wanted to stay completely hidden. Hide her from the parts of his world he didn’t want to expose her to. Those days, he wanted to hide from everything, even her.
When Kiara made it to the doorway, he could feel her as she leaned on the door frame. "Hi," she whispered into the quietness of his room.
He didn't have to open his eyes to know hers were tracing up to the posters, down to the friendship bracelets, and every stone and every shell she'd given him over the lifetime they’d shared.
It made him feel nauseous suddenly, nothing but beer swimming in his stomach to fight against it. He didn’t want her to look at the walls, he didn’t want her to look too closely and see everything he’d held tight inside him all this time.
Normally he’d get any of the pogues out of his house as soon as they walked near it, make excuses over the years and find a way so that they never saw too far inside it, too far inside him.
They wouldn’t come back then.
Maybe it was that he was too tired, or maybe it was just that part of him—the part that it hurt too much to admit to—needed her there more than he needed anything. So he let her walk inside, even though he didn't respond to her greeting. He let her walk all the way to his bed, kick off the yellow that was her vans, and lay down carefully beside him into the blackness.
She was timid in a way she never was, not with him, and she didn’t get too close. She knew when he needed space and when he didn't, so she kept her distance, keeping the space between them as foreign as it always felt when they were. She understood him sometimes better than he felt he even did himself. Had seen the lightest of him and the darkest of him, and yet there she was. She hadn’t run; she’d always come back, no matter what his thoughts tried to distort.
Blind to the world still, he may not be able to see her, but he could imagine her anyway: her hands were nervously fiddling with one another as if not sure where to put them anymore, how to reach out without him pushing her further away, worry painting her eyes and etched in the lines of her face.
And JJ had been strong, he’d been strong ever since his mom left him and told him that life was going to be heavy, so he had to be strong enough to carry it. He'd just stolen money from a drug dealer, and then right after, his dad’s boat, but maybe he’d been so strong for so long that he’d cracked himself in half because JJ wasn’t brave enough to face the sight of her. He couldn’t see her face—not right then, not ever, he didn’t think.
"He loved that hat," Kiara said, suddenly breaking the silence and speaking as if she were just saying her own thoughts out loud. "I don’t think he took it off for like a year after you got it for him for his birthday. No matter what pile of mud or who ran it over. Thing’s been to hell and back and it’s still standing."
There was the beginning of an almost laugh, only to be snatched away just as fast as it had arisen—that guilt he could see she felt stopping her, stuck inside her throat, heavy as a bullet, refusing to be dislodged.
He didn't respond with a comment, no quip or witty remark came from his mouth the way it always did. So she kept talking the way JJ noticed she always did over the years as if trying to talk him into doing the same. Coax him into showing her what he was beneath the weight of his hat; let him know that she was right there with him, willing to submit to being under the heaviness of it all.
"I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone love anyone as much as he loved you, JJ," she said.
For once, JJ was thankful for the slippery hat, its coverage and its shield, hiding her from the sight of him breaking. He wouldn’t let her see that, he’d never let her see that if he could help it. He bit his tongue, but it did nothing for the liquid grief, rushing out of his eyes like a river. Nothing could stop it.
His voice was hoarse when he found it, a trembling echo of his pain. "I’ve been thinking—I can’t stop thinking about how many moments I fucking wasted fighting with him—every moment I could’ve been spending with him,” he said. “I just want them back. I want all of them back... I just want to go back."
There was a feeling beside him—a turning, a shifting—like maybe Kiara was about to hold his hand or do something out of instinct, but then she shrivelled back in on herself as if she thought again about it and changed her mind. He felt her phantom touch linger.
Her voice goes quiet then, and the contrast to his makes his heart seem to slow down in his chest. “Me too," she whispered, on the verge of something more but unable to finish.
When he heard her voice break and fall in on itself the way it did, he couldn’t take it anymore. He sat up, the hat sliding down his chest and onto the quilt beneath them.
When his eyes fell on her, the hole inside him seemed to split, he fought everything not to look away from the sight of it all. Her hair was tied up out of her face, so he could see the bags under her eyes and the stains on her face that showed she’d been crying.
Kiara's eyes bored into his, and they looked so familiar it scared him, like a mirror of anguish, a reflection of his every despair. Something in him that had fought to be numb didn’t seem to be working anymore; it was all hitting in full force all of a sudden as he looked at her, amber eyes full and ready to spill the pain of it all.
"What are you doing here, Kiara?" he asked, his eyes dilating as they met hers.
Using her full name was like a knife to a stitched-up wound, he knew how to feel for her when he used it, the way it stung, like when he put her on the outside as he did during her Kook year. Kiara ran her hand up her forearm, he could feel her heart, the weight of it heavy enough to sink her to the depths of the ocean, where her two best friends lay lifeless.
The question was pointless, the answer was obvious. Even JJ, the one whose mouth the words were spoken from, knew it. That’s what they did, the two of them, sought each other out no matter how hard far they’d try to hide away. But that wasn’t what he was asking when he asked her that, this time it held something else, something strong simmering beneath its surface.
"I just wanted to see if you were okay," she let out tentatively, as if she was treading cautiously near a live wire, scared of the jolt.
"Well, I’ve never been better," JJ said. “You can save your time.”
The bitterness was palpable in his voice, a taste so acrid he was sure it made her want to run, escape the weight of his house, surrender to her own sorrow until the tears consumed her too. But she wouldn’t, she never would, she knew him better than she knew anyone. Saw through every facade he’d try to put up and every attempt to push her away.
And if it was the last thing she’d ever do, he knew by now that as much as he’d try to stop her, she would never let him go down that desolate path.
She turned her head to the side and looked at him, staring at the wall. "Please don’t push me away," she said.
It was the way she said it that cut the most. Tore the hole inside him so deep that he thought he might just fall apart right there on his bed. He didn’t think it’d be such a bad place to go. Because he heard the unsaid voice that finished her words—she needed him too.
And he couldn’t handle the thought of that any more than he could withstand seeing her in pain, so he tried for the solution he’d always used; he took what was left of the beer bottle and tried to bring it back toward his lips.
But as soon as he did, he found her hands, wrapping around his, around the bottle. Kiara took it from him easily, it slid out of his fingers as if it were never there, and she put it back down beside her.
He didn’t know why he let her, but he did.
Sometimes he thought he’d let her do anything to him.
The gap between them that was never there took on a shape—sunk and twisted to form their missing link. And he hated himself for, even in the middle of their entire world falling apart, thinking about something so trivial in comparison.
He ran his hands through his mess of blonde hair. "You heard from Pope?" he asked.
"I texted him," Kiara said. "But he hasn’t gotten back yet."
Her voice dripped with guilt over something he couldn’t understand. It made him shift uncomfortably beside her.
Then she spoke again, her words hanging in the air long after they’d been spilled, and he understood: "I came here first," she said.
And he hated the way she made him feel, even after all this time, like there was something there that never was, not reciprocated on her side anyway. The way she made it seem like she was his first choice, even though he knows that he never was. He hated that she gave him hope again and that he knew it was going to hurt even more to fall all over again.
But most of all, he hated that he didn’t hate her—not even close, the farthest thing from it.
That was the worst part: he could never hate anything about Kiara, even if he tried so hard that it killed him.
Maybe that was the thing that scared him the most about it. He’d always love her, and he’d watch her move on; he’d watch her change the world like he knew she would because someone like Kiara was always going to be bigger, so much bigger than he could ever dream of, and he’d watch; he’d take the sidelines to her life and never get over it—never, not really.
The bubble inside him would grow and grow until it got too large, larger than him, and it consumed him, swallowing him whole.
"You should’ve gone over there," he muttered, clenching the blanket tighter between his fingers as if it were the bottle.
Kiara’s voice splintered apart as his insides did, "That's what you care about right now?" she whispered.
"I just mean that—" But he didn’t know what he meant by that. He didn't know what he meant at all or what he felt slowly taking hold of him, so tightly that he could no longer breathe. "I just meant that he probably needs you right now."
When he thought she couldn’t see him, his head turned away from her, Kiara was watching him as his eyes filled, her chest sinking to the floor with guilt.
"I want to be here for you," she said, wobbling as she said it. "I just want to help you, JJ, I—"
Only she couldn’t finish her sentence, she unraveled mid-word, and in seconds she was breaking into a thousand fragmented pieces. JJ saw as the tears poured down her face, the way she wrapped her arms around herself as small as she could, the tears he knew she had held back at home, trying to be strong, began to pour out uncontrollably. The floodgates had opened for the deluge to begin.
The space was gone as soon as the first tear was, he was so close to her then, hands ghosting by her skin. "Why?" he asked her, exasperation dripping from his words. “Kie, just tell me why.”
He was begging her for an answer he knew she wouldn't give. He should have given up before he ever began, but something in him just wouldn’t let him.
"What do you mean why?" Kiara asked, she looked nearly about to collapse from the emotions threatening to drown her.
JJ exhaled, his breath shuddering, sorrow lingered in the room, “You shouldn’t be here, Kie, just go back home.”
"I want to be here for you," she whispered, her determination as unwavering as it ever was.
"You don’t have to do anything. It’s not your fault—none of this is your fault, listen to me, Kie," he said.
Seeing through her had always come as easy breathing, he knew those words were the ones, the ones she needed as much as she needed anything then, the guilt, the grief, the burden of it all was choking her, blocking her airway.
Maybe she fell, or maybe he caught her, but suddenly he was wrapping his arms around her, his fingers ending up in her hair. "It's okay, hey, it's alright." His voice came far away, a whisper in her darkness.
So quiet it almost slipped away, "I’m sorry," came after, a whisper in the middle of it all.
The tears came down too fast, but so did his arms, he wrapped them tighter around her as his tears sank into her hair, soaking her with his sorrow. But this time, they were no longer alone as they broke apart, they broke together.
*
The house was too quiet, their insides too loud as he pulled back slightly, hands still holding onto her. Something in him, the pessimistic view he’d been clutching onto, fought to quiet itself. For the first time since their world had broken, he tried to see a life after, to find a way to bring the pieces back together.
The metal of his rings slid against her face, his eyes never leaving hers. "You can’t break down a pogue," he said, trying not to let his thoughts linger on the fact that they just did. "Remember when the turtle hatch went to shit? You never broke; the dude running the thing practically handed you his stuff and dipped. Where's that Kie now?"
Kiara laughed this time and JJ could hear that guilt had fallen away, something deep inside her laughed until her cheeks felt warm again and something in her felt lighter—something familiar that she tried not to name ever since it started that day on the beach.
"We’re going to handle this," she said, and her voice tried to be stronger for him too. "Just like we always do."
"See, that was way better than my shitty speech," he smiled until it reached the redness of his blurry eyes.
Her head found his heart the way it always did, pulled to it like it belonged there, and he was quick to find refuge in her arms.
It felt like a lifetime, and yet only minutes since they’d been like this.
He laid his head on hers again, and the déjà vu of the last time they were here before she left hit them. Reminded them of all they’d been through—splitting up and finding their way back together—and most of all, that they had each other, and they had Pope, and that anything they’d get through, even the hardest of them all.
They talked about memories until the tears on their faces turned cathartic, feeling like they were with them again, brought back to life in reminiscing, laying with them as if they never left. It was bittersweet; it hurt like hell, but the arms around each other made it seem like no matter how hard it would be, they’d get through it.
Kiara dug her head into the crook of his neck, that same warmth filling the gaping hole inside them. The weight of their loss was heavy in the air like it always was, yet in the mix of it all this time there was also hope—just a bubble from his grin—but she thought it was enough, and this time he did too.