Chapter Text
“I thought I might find you here.” Kiara said, climbing up to gigantic willow tree that stood a few miles south from her house, right above a beautiful lake, to the place where JJ sat.
The sun was setting, casting a fiery glow across the sky, and Kiara could see her sparkling reflection dancing off the water below.
“Hey, I showed you this spot. You can’t use my own hiding spot against me.” JJ said, his voice flat, but laced with hidden emotion. Kiara reached the branch right next to him, and sat on the piece of wood that stretched over the lake.
It was true, JJ loved this spot, and he showed it to Kiara one day when she was crying after school. Some of the girls in her class didn’t like her anymore because she wore Bob-Marley t-shits and cared more about the environment than trying on make-up for the first time.
JJ had coaxed her out of her hiding spot where she was literally bawling her eyes out underneath a swing set at the park, and then he took her by the hand to this Willow tree.
“It’s like Harry Potter but Instead of the Whomping Willow, it’s the Weeping Willow. You can cry all you want up here no one is going to hear you.” He told this to her like it was the upmost secret. Kiara had sniffled and wiped the last of her tears away while JJ sat by her side and watched the birds build a nest right above their head.
“You can come here whenever you want to cry.”
After that day, it became their spot. But more importantly it was a hiding spot covered by a protective strand of leaves that no one could see through unless they were on the other side of the lake. This was the perfect spot for when they found themselves in trouble, and needed a place to go while their parents cooled down, or when they were upset about something. It was perfect spot for privacy.
“You don’t need to hide,” Kiara said as she swung her legs idly. Her brown sandals hung loosely by a withered strap, and she hoped they wouldn’t fall into the lake.
“Well I can’t go back, can I?” He snapped, the sunlight casting a fire-like reflection in his seething eyes.
“Of course you can. Don’t be stupid.” JJ was always saying stupid stuff like he wanted to run away build a hut in the forest. Or once he told Kiara he saw an actual dinosaur bone when he was fishing. Worst of all, he’d do stupid shit like jump from a roof onto another roof or mock teachers.
Scoffing softly, in what Kiara assumed was self-deprecation, JJ turned his head towards the setting sun, and stared out into empty space. She studied him for a moment. His blond hair, which was growing longer everyday, was messy from the tumble he took down the hill, and his knees were scraped through the tattered holes of his cargo shorts. He was clearly upset, that much Kiara was sure, but she didn’t know why. She did, however, have a hunch.
“John B isn’t mad.” She informed him.
JJ’s face twisted in disgust. “Well I am.” He shouted, smacking his hand against the branch that supported his weight. It wobbled, and JJ’s eyes immediately stung with remorse. He loved that tree. It was the place where he slept when he didn’t want to go home. The branch he loved jumping off of into the lake. He loved that tree so
much; he didn’t mean to hurt the things he loved, yet he it seemed to do it quite frequently.
“True. You are mad… but not at John B. You’re mad about something else, aren’t you?” Kiara tried to read him. It wasn’t hard to tell that he was angry.
JJ shook his head, smiling sadly at his dirty bare feet. “He’s such an idiot.”
“Who? John B?”
He nodded, tilting his head to the sky to stare at the rolling clouds.
“Why do you say that?” Kiara wondered if she should touch his shoulder the way her parents would whenever she was upset. He was shirtless, wearing nothing more than some swim trucks. She’s seen him shirtless a million times in her life, but this time -quite possibly for the first time - Kiara noticed there was a line of muscle along the ridge of his spine. Since when did he get so strong? Kiara frozen, suddenly very aware of how close they were sitting together. A warm blush rushed to her cheeks.
“Cause he is.” JJ gripped the tree bark tightly, glancing straight ahead at the sun. “He’s an idiot for believing her!”
Kiara shook her head and withdrew her gaze. He was angry about something. Now was not the time to be feeling feelings. Were they even feelings? What was she saying? She noticed he stopped talking.
“Wait, Jage. Are you really sitting there telling me your mad because John B believes his mom?”
“No,” JJ snarled through clenched teeth, his hand squeezing even tighter against the bark. “No, Mom is a word you use for the woman who actually stayed in her child’s life. That bitch left John B. She left him, and John B still believes she’s going to come back!”
Kiara didn’t know what to say. Just holy shit he was mad, and she got the strangest feeling that it wasn’t John B’s mom he was mad at; she was just his scapegoat.
It wasn’t everyday that JJ opened up about mothers. That subject had always been a sore spot for him, one in which Kiara avoided the same way she would avoid punching a bruise on someone’s shoulder. No need to go around making a wound worse. But right now, JJ was inviting her to poke the bruise.
“Why can’t John B see that she’s never coming back? She didn’t even bother to call whenever his Dad was in the hospital. I hate her!” JJ screamed that last part so loud a bunch of birds in the tree squawked, flapping their wings, and fleeing the scene. She watched them fly away to some distant place and then returned her gaze to the disheveled boy who was red-faced and panting.
“I mean, it’s bad enough I got my hopes crushed thinking my mom might return one day, but now I gotta listen to my best friend go through the same thing? It freaking sucks!” He pounded his fist against his thighs. She shook her head and stared at the water beneath them. This was JJ: self destructive, violent, feels everything all at once, JJ. It sucked to watch him beat his own fists against himself so she glared at the water instead and waited for the tantrum to cease.
When he stopped punching his thighs, he rested his hand on the tree branch. After a heartbeats hesitation, she laid her own hand over JJ’s.
He startled. A little gasp escaped his lips, but he didn’t pull away. Just let his questioning gaze linger on her face.
“Jage… you have to let John B make his own mistakes. He’s never going to grow if you’re constantly shielding him from everything.”
JJ ripped his hand away violently. “Shut up!” He yelled. “Don’t you tell me how to take care of my best friend. You don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m allowed to protect whoever I want.”
Guess she poked the bruise a little too hard.
“JJ would you just listen to me.”
“I’m not going to let him get hurt the same way I did!”
Silence.
The sudden urge to reach out and hold him surged through Kiara but she beat it back. He wouldn’t want to be held. JJ always complained whenever she linked arms with him at school or gave him a hug at John B’s house. He claimed he hated affection, always scoffing at displays of love. Pope and John B and Kiara all said the ‘L’ word to each other one night and JJ naturally had to crack some stupid joke to make the moment mean less. So he wouldn’t want a hug now… even if it looked like he was trying to hug himself, the way he had his arms wrapped around his knees.
“What do you mean by that? How did you get hurt?” She asked. He can’t just drop a bomb like that and expect her not to question him.
JJ jerked. He was so lost in his thoughts that the question caught him off guard. Glancing at Kiara through his bangs. He opened his mouth and then closed it again. She waited but he shook his head, determined not to speak.
“JJ you can tell me anything. You know that. We’re best friends. We share secrets all the time. I won’t tell anyone, I promise.”
He gulped back a lump in his throat. “My mom…” his eyes flashed with a dangerous hatred before burning out. “What did I do?”
Kiara furrowed her eyebrows. “What?”
“What did I do?” He repeated, staring at Kiara with pleading eyes.
“JJ… I don’t understand.”
“Why?” He asked so sincerely it cut Kiara to the bone. “Why did she leave me? What did I do?”
He was genuinely asking what he did wrong to make his mother leave. How could Kiara answer something like that? Her own eyes began to well-up with tears.
“Is it because I’m bad? Is that why she left? Cause I tried my best, you know. I guess it wasn’t good enough. I just don’t understand what I did to make her stop loving me. If I knew what it was, I would have fixed it, I swear. I would have fixed it.”
“It wasn’t your fault, JJ.” Kiara choked in a hushed whisper, feeling the need to correct him on this. “You didn’t do anything to make her leave. I’m sure she loved you.”
But JJ shook his head rapidly, and withdrew his knees from his chest, making the branch shift with his weight. “If she loved me then why did she leave?”
That was a good question. It was something Kiara wasn’t sure she could answer. But she had to try.
“Maybe she had a reason for leaving. One that we don’t know about? Because we aren’t her, you know. It’s like when you read a story and you know how the main character feels because you’re seeing it from their point of view. But then it’s hard to imagine the antagonists perspective sometimes.”
JJ sniffled, digging the palm of his hand across his sky colored eyes. Shit, was he crying?
“And - and we don’t know what you’re Mom’s point of view is.” Kiara continued shakily. “We just have to believe that she had a good reason.”
A cool breeze nipped at Kiara fingertips, and ruffled the tree’s leaves, sprinkling some colors all around them. JJ was chewing on his fingernails, seeming to be once again be lost in thought, but this time it didn’t seem to be tormenting him.
“I guess I should apologize to John B, huh?” He said. She loved how his mind always seemed to return to his friends.
Kiara shrugged. “He understands the subject was a sore spot for you. He already told me he wasn’t mad. He just wants you to come back to the Chateau safe.”
Cause John B knew as well as Kiara that when JJ was angry, he was self-destructive and there was no telling what stupid situation he would get himself into. Last time it involved the police and then JJ didn’t come over for like four days and when he did show up he was all tired and hurt and stuff. And although John B didn’t say how he got hurt, he did tell Kiara that JJ was never allowed to run off like that again.
That’s why today John B was in a panic, calling Kiara five times in a row until she picked-up and then shouting his lungs out about how stupid he was for picking a fight with JJ over something so - well okay it was important to him - but not more important than his best friend’s health.
“Ah,” JJ mumbled, “I still feel like I owe it to him to admit that I overreacted. I don’t like fighting with him.”
Kiara smiled, “I know. That’s cause you’re an amazing friend.”
A slight blush creeped up on JJ’s face and he nudged Kiara’s shoulder. “You’re not so bad yourself, miss Marley.”
Kiara shoved him. “Shut up, Chipmunk.”
“Chipmunk?! Are you calling me short?”
“No I’m calling you small.”
“That’s it, Ki. Just for that, I’m not giving you the last slice of pizza.”
She gasped. “You wouldn’t.”
A devilish grin. “I really would though. That pizza we ordered lasts night was delicious.” He licked his lips.
They leaped from the tree at the same time and scampered down, trying to beat the other one home.