Archive of Our Own

The summer before eighth grade, Pope goes to a sleepaway camp. Six weeks away from home. Six weeks away from his friends. Six weeks away from John B. and JJ and Kie.

It’s bad. The whole time. He doesn’t make any new friends. Everyone smells gross, like mud and weeds and wet dog. He spends most of his time speeding through his summer reading list and daydreaming about being back home. Daydreaming about what it’ll be like when he gets back to Kildare. He’ll tell his parents he’s had the worst summer ever, and they’ll feel so bad for him they’ll let JJ stay the night two times that week. Maybe even three.

It’ll be great.

He’s three weeks in when his counselor pokes her head in the door that morning. He’s staring broodily at the camp’s morning crossword. She deposits a little envelope on his nightstand and tells him to think outside the box for 3-down before she leaves.

He opens the envelope.

It’s a letter.

Pope,

Hi dude. It’s JJ. We all miss you like crazy, man. It’s boring at home without you!!! Come back!!!

Just kidding. Mostly. Would be cool if you came back early but don’t want to stop you having fun. Are you having fun? Are the kids there cool? No way they’re cooler than us. And if they are don’t tell me. I don’t wanna know.

John B. broke his big toe last week. Kinda still not sure how he did it but it was the funniest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. He’s ok. Wish you had seen it. Maybe I’ll break his other toe for you when you get back. So we can experience it together.

Kiara told me I should dye my hair blue. I told her to shut up. She smacked me for it. I think we need to establish a new rule: No Smacking JJ When He Says Shit. Ever.

Do you agree? We need a 3/4th vote for it to pass and we can’t pass it without you. John B. only agreed because I told him I’d give him all my beer for a week. Not sure that was worth the trade. He drank so much last night he threw up and then fell in it. Lightweight.

That was also funny. I actually got a video of that one. I’ll show it to you when you’re back.

You haven’t really missed that much though. Just our usual. We miss you. When you come back home we have to spend the whole day together, just the two of us. ‘Cause I miss you more than the other two.

That was rude and probably not true. I just miss you a lot.

Saw this thing at the store the other day. Snatched it for you. It’ll be waiting for you when you get back. It’s an orange and green bracelet. Our colors right? Still don’t know why your favorite color is orange. Who likes orange? You’re weird, Pope.

Stay that way.

Love you dude.

JJ.

Pope tucks the letter neatly back into the envelope. There’s a little thrum in the leftside of his chest, a little flash of buzzing energy. Like there’s a bee trapped beneath his ribcage.

He goes back to his crossword, and fills in the word for 3-down.

Enamoured.

Pope wakes up at 3 am with his heart in his chest, sweat plastered to his body. His shirt’s off and he feels like he has to peel the skin off of him, anyway, like bugs are crawling all over him. He feels unclean, putrid. Dirty.

He feels like there’s sand in his eyes and blood on his hands.

He lurches over the side of the bed and dry heaves. JJ’s still body lingers behind his eyelids.

He’s got–

He’s got to get up. Got to get this off. Off of him.

He stumbles to the bathroom, fumbling around in the dark. Flips the light switch on and winces at the sudden light in his eyes. Squints and hits the faucet. Water comes pouring.

It’s loud.

He puts his hands underneath it. Grabs the bar of soap off the counter and scrubs. Scrubs, and scrubs, and scrubs, and scrubs, getting underneath his fingernails and in between his fingers and all around his thumbs and up and down and up and down his wrist.

He’s half-certain the water sliding off his wrists and down his fingertips is pink. Half-certain JJ’s blood is still on him. Blood that had kept trickling and oozing as he moved Kiara’s hands away from the stab wound, blood that kept gushing even after JJ had gone still.

Pope scrubs his skin raw, until it burns, until he’s positive the water is running clear. Scrapes his fingernails up and down his skin, peels the memory of death off, and then stands there in silence with his hands beneath the faucet for–

For a while.

Until his fingers prune. Until the water isn’t hot anymore. Until someone knocks on the door and asks in a tired voice,

“Who’s in there?”

He shuts the water off. Darts for a towel and pats his hands dry. Swings the door open and barrels past whoever’s there without even glancing at their face.

A hand wraps around his wrist. He looks over.

Sarah.

“You okay, Pope?”

“Sure,” he tells her, quick and easy. “Sorry for taking so long. Night.”

Sarah takes a deep breath. She looks at him uncertainly, but nods her head slowly, anyway. “Goodnight, Pope.”

He walks away. Heads back into his room. Stares at Cleo, snoozing under the covers, then heads to his desk.

The paper’s already sitting there with a pen on top of it. He’s been meaning to do this every day for the last month. He keeps picking up the pen. Keeps putting it to paper. Keeps dropping it and going back to bed. Dropping it and walking away.

He picks up the pen.

Puts it to the paper.

Writes.

JJ,

It’s Pope.

I don’t know why I’m writing this. I think I hope it’s going to help. I think I have a lot of things to say that I never got to say to you. I think…

I don’t know what I think.

It’s been a while since Morocco. We’re back at home. Not home, home. But home. Kildare. Staying at Tannyhill and yeah, I know. I know it’s fucking crazy. Don’t even ask how it happened. I’m still not sure myself. We’re fugitives here, so we’ve gotta hide out. Nobody would expect Rafe to work with us so we’re safe here, even if it fucking sucks.

He’s still the worst. And being here is fucking weird. Lots of different ways I feel about it, and none of them are good.

But this is better than prison, I guess.

They come pretty close.

Speaking of. You asked me why I did that. Why I assaulted a police officer for you. Why I risked my future for you.

Why’d you?

When we were sixteen you took the fall for me. I know why you did it, but sometimes I think I don’t. I don’t know why you’re always sacrificing yourself. Since before I knew you, probably. I don’t understand how you’re the most impulsive person I know, and a selfish asshole sometimes, and also the most selfless man I’ve ever met.

I wish I could spend more time on that. Talking to you about it. Figuring you out. I’d like to have known everything about you. I thought we’d have more time.

There are things I was mad at you for.

I can’t even remember what they were.

I’m only mad that you’re gone.

Miss you.

Pope.

They hold a service.

It’s bullshit.

They’re out on the water. Pope had helped John B. weave twigs and branches together into a small, wooden little raft. They put a candle in the middle of it.

Kie holds it in her hands and starts talking.

She stares at the water below them.

“JJ was–”

Her voice cracks, and there’s already tears streaming down her face.

“He was my best friend. I don’t think I ever, um, I ever really let anyone know me like JJ did. And there were…” she pauses. Slides her fingers over the side of the little raft, up and down a little branch. “There were still things I had to say to him. Things I wanted him to know. Things I knew I could trust him with because JJ was the most loyal person I ever knew.”

There’s a silence around them, save for the caw of a seagull, save for the sound of the waves gently lapping against the boat.

Kie takes a breath.

“He died in my arms and I couldn’t save him and I’m never going to forgive myself for that.”

John B. speaks. “Kie, you couldn’t—“

“I’m never going to,” she repeats. “But I’ll try. Because I know he’d want me to.”

“He would,” Sarah offers, and rests a hand on her shoulder. “Of course he would.”

“JJ’s gone. And he’s never coming back. And the world is a worse place for it.” She takes a deep, shuddering breath. “I’ll miss him forever.”

Then she lifts her head and gazes at her friends. “Does, um. Anyone else want to say anything?”

“I can’t,” Sarah shakes her head. “I’ll start crying.” Then she pauses. Seems to change her mind. Takes the little raft from Kie’s hands and takes a deep breath.

“JJ,” she starts. “I wish I’d met him sooner. He was one of the best friends I’ve ever had and one of the best people I’ve ever known. And he saved my life,” she whispers. “Saved their life.”

She presses a hand to her stomach, silent for a moment before carrying on.

“Our kid is going to grow up thinking—knowing—JJ Maybank was a hero. And they’re gonna grow up knowing he’s watching over them forever.”

John B. leans forward to grab her hand. He twines their fingers together and she sniffles, leans her head on his shoulder.

“I just wish they’d get to meet him.”

She looks up at John B., who reaches for the raft.

“He was my brother. I knew him for ten years. Best ten years of my life.” When a tear rolls down his cheek, Sarah reaches up to wipe it for him. “I loved him. He was the best of us.”

A moment of silence.

He hands the raft to Cleo.

“JJ and I had a lot in common. Sometimes it felt like I knew him forever.” Cleo gazes out at the ocean while she talks, hands curled tight around the little raft, shoulders squared. “I always knew what he was thinking. And he could always piece me together, even when I didn’t want him to. He was good at that. Reading people. He knew you, even when he didn’t. And I wish I had known him longer. Rude boy,” she murmurs, voice hushing to a sudden whisper, “I’ll miss you.”

Cleo hands Pope the little raft, and he stares down at it, feeling faraway.

He doesn’t say anything for so long that John B. pipes up.

“If you can’t–”

“No,” Pope breathes. In, out. “No.”

He shuts his eyes.

Thinks of JJ.

“When I was in sixth grade JJ made a joke in the middle of class. I laughed at it before the teacher told him to shut up, and he whirled around and smiled at me. Like he couldn’t believe I’d laughed. And after class ended he caught me in the hall and asked me if I was free to go surfing after school. And I didn’t know it then, but that was the best day of my life.”

A seagull lands on the edge of their boat. It caws, then tilts its head. Peers at Pope with its little black eyes before it pokes at the railing with its beak.

“JJ pissed me off more than anyone has ever pissed me off,” he says, and there’s a little muted chuckle around his friends. “But anything he ever did, he made up for it. Tenfold. He loved his friends, all of us, more than anything, and he made sure you knew it. And I think we’re all really lucky. To have known JJ. To have been loved by him.”

He steps forward and his friends follow. He dangles his arms over the boat's edge, raft in his hands. Kie leans over and lights the candle.

“I think he was more a Pogue than any of us,” he murmurs.

He lowers the raft to the water’s edge.

“Goodbye, JJ.”

He puts it in the water.

Leans away.

The seagull flies off, and the raft drifts away. Further, and further, until it’s out of sight.

Until it’s gone.

JJ,

We had your service back at home today.

Weird to do one of those without a body present.

Just lit a raft and let it drift in the ocean. That’s probably some form of littering. Definitely illegal. I think you’d be upset we didn’t do more.

Sorry.

Still trying not to go to prison.

Sarah threw up in the water not even two minutes after your raft was out of sight. It kind of killed the vibe, not that there was much of one to begin with.

It had been almost nice to talk about you like that, though. To remember the best of you. And then Sarah got sick because of the baby and it was like a reminder. Life is still happening.

The world is still turning.

It shouldn’t be.

Pope.

It’s one of their worst ideas.

Maybe the worst.

Which is why it’s only the both of them, sneaking to Poguelandia at 3 in the morning, dressed in black clothes with bandanas over their mouths.

Kie sneaks the front door open and Pope shuts it softly behind him. He follows her up to JJ’s room, and it feels almost like he’s intruding, because this was her space as much as it was JJ’s, but.

Here he is.

“All his shit’s on the right side of the closet,” she tells him as she makes her way to the desk. “I don’t really... I don’t care what you take. I just wanted, um. He gave me this bracelet when we got together and I took it off before we left because I was afraid something would happen to it.”

She opens a drawer and starts rifling through it.

“Y’know, I think he told me it was for good luck.” She rambles as Pope creaks the closet door open. It’s immediately obvious where Kie’s clothes end and JJ’s begin.

He lifts a hand and, slowly, trails his fingers over the shirts.

“Good luck, or protection, or something like that. I should’ve taken it with me.” He can hear her moving things around, throwing stuff behind her. “Maybe it would’ve kept him safe.”

“Can’t do that, Kie,” he chimes in, finally. “You can’t go down that road.”

“Like you haven’t?”

He doesn’t say anything.

JJ’s face lingers behind his eyes. The blues of his irises had stood out blanketed in white from head to toe, like the sky peeking through behind the clouds. Pope had let him run off, no gun, unprotected.

Let me protect you for once.

He’d failed him.

JJ had trusted him, and he’d failed him. Irreversibly.

“Fuck.” Kiara’s voice cuts through his thoughts, pulls him back to the present. “Let me know if you see it in there, okay? It’s green, with little daisies on it. I can’t find it. I need–” She pauses. “I need it.”

“I’ll keep an eye out,” he tells her. He shuffles through JJ’s shirts, not even sure what he’s looking for, if anything at all. And then he stops.

Dark green.

He pulls it out and off the hanger. Stares at it laid between his hands. Reads the little white lettering on the chest, spelling in bold:

Heyward’s Seafood.

Pope lifts a finger, trails it over the letters. Brings it up and traces the neckline.

He remembers the day they’d gotten this shipment in. His Pop had dropped the box on the center of the kitchen table, shaken his bowl of frosted flakes. Pope had glared at him and he’d only beamed.

“New shirts in,” he’d told him. “Give some to your friends, huh? Good for somethin’. Free advertising. What colors you want?”

“JJ likes blue.”

“And the other two?”

“Oh, uh,” Pope had floundered. “Don’t think they care.”

His Pop had looked at him a little weirdly before he carried on. “I’m not seeing any blue, though I thought I’d ordered them… JJ like any other colors?”

“Green.”

“Great. Medium, right? Seen you two share clothes before, that’s your size.”

Pope felt strangely like he’d been accused of something, which didn’t make any sense. Pop’s only made a statement—a true one, at that. Still, his face flushed with warmth, and he croaked, a little stilted:

“Uh-huh.”

“Okay. You take these, put ‘em in your bag. Give them to your friends today, and take that–” he gestured to Pope’s button-down, “off. Put this on instead.”

“Pop. Really?” Pope held his arms out as he deposited a bundle of shirts in his hands, and Pop only nods.

“Least you can do for me, all the nonsense your friends pull you into,” he huffed, but his eyes showed no anger. “Least they can do.”

Pope had walked into school that morning sporting an orange Heyward’s Seafood shirt, and when he’d pulled the green one out of the bag and tossed it to JJ, he’d sprinted to the bathroom and changed.

And then he’d yelled at people to go there for the rest of the day. It was obnoxious, and annoying, and stupid, and embarrassing.

Pope had told him to shut up every five minutes, but he stopped trying to hide his smile whenever JJ wasn't looking.

He looks down at the shirt.

Brings it closer to his chest.

“Kie?” He finds his voice, somewhere amidst the surge of grief building in his chest.

“Yeah?”

He blinks down at the shirt. A tear lands on the collar, saltwater bleeding through the forest green. He swallows. Can’t find his voice anymore.

“Pope?”

His best friend.

Alone. In Morocco.

Gone, for the rest of his life.

There’s a gentle touch on his back, a hand on his shoulder. Kie’s face pops up in his peripherals but she’s blurry through his tears.

“Oh, Pope,” she whispers, her other arm coming up to pull him in, and he falls into her.

She leads him down to the floor, where they sit against the wall. Kie with her arms around him, Pope burying his head in her shoulder. He hopes he doesn’t ruin her shirt with all the crying.

He can feel teardrops in his hair.

“He’s gone,” he cries, and Kie sniffles, pulls him closer. He clings to her in a way he hasn’t in years. Sometimes he forgets how close they used to be. They’d drifted, a little, after their breakup. After everything. Kie traces her hand up and down his back.

“I know,” she whispers, voice breaking. “I know, I know. I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry,” he says. Sorry for leaving him. For not being there. For not saving him. For everything.

Kie says nothing.

Only pulls him closer.

JJ,

I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.

I miss you so much.

Please come home.

I know you can’t. I know you can’t, but please.

Please.

Pope.

It’s 3 PM, or something close to it, Pope’s pretty sure.

He’s spent the last 2 hours scrolling through his photo roll. Looking back on old texts. Clinging to all he has left of JJ.

It’s not enough.

It couldn’t be enough.

Pope has a tendency to favorite his–well, his favorite photos. It's easier to look at the ones that mean the most. Snapshots throughout the years that he’s held onto.

The most recent photo of JJ in his favorites is from only a few weeks before Morocco. He’d taken it from a distance, so the quality isn’t everything, but the grin on his face makes up for it. At the peak of a wave, hair blowing in the wind. JJ, perfectly in his element.

He’d looked–well. Beautiful. Sort of ethereal. The kind of way Poseidon might have looked, ruling over the seas. Like he belonged there and he knew it.

The one before that is of him and Cleo. They’d somehow both fallen asleep during movie night. Pope had gotten up to refill his bowl of popcorn and came back to Cleo leaning her head on JJ’s shoulder, his face squished against her hair.

He hadn’t shown it to either of them, for reasons he’s still not sure about. He’d just taken the photo, quietly, and thrown a blanket over the two of them before he settled on the other couch to let them sleep.

Earlier: New Year’s. JJ with two party hats on his head and one underneath his chin. Throwing his head back to take a shot. It’s not nearly the most flattering photo he’s got of him, which is maybe why he likes it so much. Dark room, colorful party lights painting his face in vibrant colors. Stupid grin.

Just JJ.

He spends a while like that. Scrolling. And scrolling. And scrolling. Getting teary-eyed over some of them and laughing so hard he’s crying for a different reason at others.

He makes it all the way to sixth grade. Pope got his first (non-flip) phone when he turned twelve. He’d only had his phone a few months before he met John B. and JJ. The moment it happens is nearly instantaneous: photos of the sky and the sea and his parents turn into photos of JJ and his parents and John B. and the sky and JJ and his parents and JJ and the sea.

One of his favorites–his Mom took it for him on his thirteenth birthday: both of JJ’s arms wrapped around Pope, legs squished against his torso. Clinging to him like a koala.

Pope had just wanted a nice photo.

JJ had other plans in mind.

“Pope. JJ. Look at the camera, boys, please! Thank you.” Mom’s voice rings out, one hand over her eyes as she squints down at the little black phone in her hand. “Okay, nice and close so you fit in the frame, now.”

Pop’s still inside, guarding their large assortment of crane machine prizes. Only reason they’re out here is because Mom noticed the sunset and had ushered him and JJ out of their seats, mid-bites of pizza, determined to get the nicest photos she could of Pope on his big day.

He’s still not sure why it matters that much. Every photo he sees her post of him on her Facebook is the worst photo she’s ever taken. Not that she takes bad photos, but. Mom. Really. Does Uncle Roger need to see a photo of him with ice cream smeared on his cheek? Even if his smile is the “sweetest you ever did see?”

But Pope’s a good son, or at least he tries to be, and even if he gets all huffy and puffy about it in private, he still likes that Mom loves him so much she wants to boast about him all the time. So he stands in the parking lot of the arcade, sun in his eyes, one shoulder around JJ and as big of a smile on his face as he can muster.

But JJ won’t stop moving.

“JJ,” he whisper-shouts, nudges his shoulder. “Stay still. For five seconds.”

“Can’t get comfortable,” JJ whisper-shouts back, shifting. He slaps Pope on the shoulder as his arm comes up around him, and Pope rolls his eyes. “Fuckin’ shoes don’t fit me anymore, I’m tellin’ you, man.”

Pope lurches forward and smacks him on the wrist. JJ lurches back with wide eyes. “Hey!”

“No swearing around my Mom! How many times do I have to tell you that?”

“She can’t hear us,” JJ huffs, pouting like he’s really hurt, and Pope rolls his eyes again. He taps his fingers over the little pink mark on JJ’s wrist.

“You’ll live.”

“Hmmph.” JJ huffs, but settles into place. He leans against Pope’s side, one foot tucked behind his ankle. Pushes most of his weight into Pope.

Pope lets him do it. “Just smile nicely, please. No sticking your tongue out. My Mom’s gonna be upset.”

“Your Mom’s never upset. She’s like the nicest woman ever.”

“She won’t be upset in front of you, but she’ll be upset. Can you just behave?”

“For Mrs. Heyward? Of course.”

For the third time, Pope rolls his eyes.

He squeezes JJ’s shoulder and looks at the camera, beaming at Mom, and hopes and prays that JJ has a decent enough smile on his face to please her. She leans down a bit and taps the phone a few times, glancing over at them every second or so, before she straightens with a smile.

“These are perfect. You look so cute, baby, all grown up. Thirteen, I can’t belie–oh!”

Mom’s smile turns into more of a grin while Pope’s life flashes before his eyes. JJ’s on him, all of a sudden, limbs wrapping around him while he jumps on his back. Pope buckles for a second under the weight, grabbing for JJ’s wrists in sheer panic because he doesn’t want to drop him on his head.

“Woo!” JJ cheers, holding on tight. Pope’s heart hammers in his chest, only calming when he finds his footing. He straightens his back, takes a deep breath, stares with wide eyes and a smile he’s struggling to hold back while Mom starts taking more photos. “Onward, Pope!”

“Onward where?” Pope asks, huffing. JJ pats his head, one hand clinging tight to his shoulder, fingers curled around his shirt.

“Inside! I have pizza that needs eating.”

“Why do I have to carry you inside?” Pope tries and fails to look up at him. All he can see are a few stray strands of dirty blond hair. “It’s my birthday, you know.”

With a sudden huff, JJ’s jumping off of him. Then he’s leaning over on one knee, staring bravely ahead, a look of determination on his face.

“Hop on, birthday boy. I’ll take you to your destination.”

“No. No way, JJ. That’s so embarrassing.”

“Oh, come on, Pope. Live a little.” He swivels his head over to where Mom’s heading over, shaking her head and smiling. “Right, Mrs. Heyward? Don’t you think Pope could use a little fun?”

“A little fun never hurt,” Mom agrees, and Pope feels like everyone’s against him. Then she tilts her head. “But don’t you dare drop him, young man.”

“Mrs. Heyward,” JJ says, looking at Mom with the most serious expression Pope’s seen on his face maybe ever, “I would protect your son with my life.”

Mom’s lip quivers and she’s smiling again. “I know you would. Go ahead,” she nods to the front doors. “I’ll be right behind you in case he falls.”

“If I fall, I’m never going outside again,” Pope mumbles, and JJ glances at him.

“You trust me?”

Pope slides his hands onto his shoulders, nerves jumbling in his tummy. But he meets JJ’s eyes, and he’s looking at him like he really would protect him with his life. Like a knight in shining armor, the one that saves the princess in all the fairy tales. But Pope’s no damsel, so he’s not sure the metaphor applies.

Still, it’s a little easier to breathe.

“I trust you.”

He slides onto JJ’s back, clings to him for dear life, and JJ rises, slowly, steadily, until he’s standing. Pope can feel where his hands hold onto the back of his legs, touch warming his skin.

The nerves are back, but he’s not sure why.

It doesn’t matter, anyhow. JJ starts running and Pope’s head bounces with the movement and he’s laughing so hard nothing matters.

It’s the best birthday he’s ever had.

Pope throws his phone in a random direction. It ricochets off the wall, bounces off the bed and lands on the floor with a thump.

He stares at the ceiling.

Scrubs at his face with his hands. Tries to stave off the tears.

Doesn’t work.

Fuck.

JJ,

Remember my thirteenth?

I remember you skidding to a stop in front of our table and Pop staring at you. And at me. At the both of us like we were insane.

And then he laughed, and shook his head, and he called us crazy. And then I watched you devour five slices of pizza and a thing of wings and when I dared you to down a milkshake, you did. And then your stomach hurt so bad we had to take a break for an hour before we got back to the games.

And the whole time you were like, “Pope. Just go play. I’ll be okay, man. Sorry, Mr. Heyward, if I ate too much. He dared me, y’know? I just had to. Thanks for bringing me out again. Pope, listen, I’ll be okay soon. Go play by yourself, I don’t want to ruin your birthday, dude.” Just, all of that. Over and over.

Like you couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t want to leave you by yourself. Even if it was my birthday.

But even then I knew I didn’t want to leave you. We’d only known each other a year but you were already my best friend. And what’s the fun in playing skeeball if I’m not kicking your ass at it?

So I waited. And we talked. And Mom and Pop talked with us. And I learned a lot about you and I think they did too and Monday morning Mom sent me to school with a slice of birthday cake and a new pair of shoes for you.

I hadn’t seen you cry before that day. And we’d hugged before, once or twice. But that time, when you hugged me, it was more like you were trying to squeeze the bones out of my body. And, like, dude. I need those.

But it was nice, after you loosened up a little, and you tucked your head in my neck and apologized for blubbering all over me and for getting tears on my shirt. You hugged me like you were trying to, I don’t know. Cling to me. Like you were trying to hold me.

So I held you, too.

I wish I could hold you, now.

Pope.

Pope’s sitting on the dock, hands under his thighs, legs dangling over the edge. Cleo’s laying down beside him, head on his lap. Staring out at the water.

Neither of them have spoken a word since she came out and joined him.

It feels like he’s running out of things to say to her.

Hi, baby, how are you today? Bad? Still grieving your father figure and our best friend? Oh, yeah I’m still fucked up over all of that, too. Great talk.

So he doesn’t say anything. Just sits there with her. Stares out at the world around them. Enjoys her company. Enjoys that she’s here.

He shifts, slightly. Lifts his hand, brings it to her hair. Runs his fingers along it. Watches how she leans into the touch. Feels his heart break a little about it.

“I miss Terrance,” she tells him, and he shuts his eyes. Doesn’t know what to say.

She carries on. “I miss JJ.”

Pope’s feet aren’t even touching the water, and he feels like he’s drowning.

She moves his hand out of her hair, and he feels a soft pair of lips pressed to the curve of his knuckles. She kisses him there, soft and sweet. “I miss you.”

He sniffles. Opens his eyes and stares up at the big blue sky. Puffy white clouds drift on by, and if it were another day, he’d like to lay out here with her for hours and take turns finding shapes and faces in them. Trading stories about what they find.

He reaches for her hand, tangles their fingers together. “I’m right here. You got me.”

“Do I?” She asks. Sits up, slowly. She brings her other hand to his face. Drifts her thumb softly over his cheek. He leans into her touch. “I’m not sure you’re all here, Pope.”

He looks away. He’s not sure he is, either.

“I’m not upset,” she continues. Trails a path down his skin, traces the curve of his jaw. “I’m not sure I’m all here.”

Pope’s shoulders sag. He turns and reaches for her, pulls her to his chest. She settles there easily, smoothly, a motion they’ve memorized. Her forehead rests against the side of his neck, nose pressing into his collarbone. Her hand moves to rest on his chest.

“He died, Cleo,” he tells her, “and I think part of me went with him.”

“I know. I know, Pope,” she whispers, and squeezes his hand, gently. “But–you can’t–”

“Can’t what?” He’s bristling, on the defense, immediately, and he knows it isn’t fair as it happens.

She shakes her head. Pushes off of him. “Can’t go with him. Not all the way.”

He tenses. Watches her turn away. “And why shouldn’t I? When I couldn’t even protect him?”

“You didn’t kill him, Pope. Groff did that. And we’re gonna get him for it. You know that.”

“Right. Cause everyone else who’s tried to kill him has been so fucking successful.” Pope pushes himself up, standing. He paces, fingers flexing at his sides. “I just–I keep seeing his face. In my head. Over and over and over. No—no light behind his eyes, Cleo.”

“You think I don’t? Pope, I see them both.” God, Terrance. Is it fair for Pope to be struggling so much? When Cleo’s facing more loss than he is?

“I never said you didn’t,” he mutters, angrily, then puts his face in his hands. “I don’t want to be mad at you. Why am I mad at you? I don’t want to be mad.”

“You miss him, and he’s not coming home, and nothing’s gonna fix it,” Cleo tells him. Walks over to him, lingers at his side. “But you’re still alive. And he wants you to live.”

Pope takes his hands off his face. Looks at her. “It’s not–it isn’t, Cleo. It’s not living if JJ’s not here.”

“Bullshit.”

“Bullshit?”

“Bullshit. Your heart’s beating, no?” She puts a hand to his chest, presses firmly. Then she taps his nose. “Still breathing?” Grabs his wrist, presses a thumb against his pulse point. “I feel a pulse.”

He snatches his hand out of her grasp, starts walking away. Back toward the house. “He was my best friend, Cleo. I can’t just keep living like nothing happened.”

“I’m not saying you should,” she says, following him. “But you can’t let it consume you, Pope.”

He whirls around. “Like Terrance’s death isn’t consuming you?”

She stops.

Pope’s breath is coming out heavy. He’s not sure when that started. “You nearly got yourself killed going after them while I was underground. I had no way of helping you. And I know that–I know you need to avenge him, but you can’t follow him, either! You can’t be–fucking–reckless about it. He died for you. You can’t die for him now just because you think it’s your fault he’s dead.”

He doesn’t know what he’s saying. He doesn’t know why he’s saying it. All he knows is that Cleo’s here and JJ isn’t and she’s telling him to move on but she can’t move on so why should he and why should any of them and how can any of them and is this really living?

“I’m going inside.” Cleo barrels past him. He whirls around and watches her leave and he feels, so suddenly, like everything’s going wrong, like everything he touches he burns, like he couldn’t do a fucking thing right if he tried. “Bye, Pope.”

“Cleo. Cleo!” She doesn’t stop. “I didn’t mean–I–fuck.”

The door swings shut behind her.

Pope stands in the yard. Alone.

JJ,

You called me the smartest person you know once. I think I’m actually a moron.

I snapped at Cleo and said some stupid shit I didn’t even really mean and the worst part of it is I have no fucking clue why I said any of it. She wasn’t even upset with me. She was being nice and caring and supportive and understanding and all I could ever ask for. The best I could ever have.

I love her so much.

I wish you were here.

You’d call me an idiot and tell me to go after her. Tell me to fix things.

You’d know exactly what I did wrong, too, and why I did it, probably. Even when I could never figure it out.

I feel like I’m losing it. I wake up in the morning and I can’t even look in the mirror most of the time. I feel far away. I feel like I’m chasing after you even when I know I’ll never catch you. You’re always going to be out of my reach.

Forever.

I’m so angry about it.

Why are you gone? Why aren’t you here?

Why the fuck aren’t you here?

Fuck. Fuck, JJ. God damn it. Fuck you.

Pope wakes up at 3 am. Throws up in the toilet. Flushes and leans against the tub, cold porcelain chilling his bare skin.

He stares up at the bright, white fluorescent light. Feels like he’s in a hospital. He hates this stupid fucking house.

He remembers the first time he got wasted. Remembers emptying his stomach in some random classmate’s shitty bathroom, JJ’s hand on his back, little words of comfort in his ears.

Remembers him flipping everyone off as they left the bathroom. His arm around his waist, leading him out of the house. He never let go, not once, not until he was home, safe.

Remembers the talking-to his Pop gave him, how JJ stood there and tried his best not to look like it didn’t crush him that he was so upset with him. He lingered outside and waited until Pope texted him in bed, thanks, see you tomorrow, to leave. Watched through his window as JJ walked away.

Pope gets up off the floor. Washes his hands. Scrubs them until they burn.

He walks to his room. Makes his way to his desk.

Finds his last letter and grabs the pen. Clicks it.

Makes a few adjustments.

Fuck. Fuck, JJ. God damn it. Fuck you.

I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. I’m sorry.

I’m so fucking upset. You’re not here and I can’t breathe and I wake up and I think about you and I fall asleep and I think about you and when I dream I dream of you and when I’m awake you’re there, in the front of my mind and the back, your face always in my peripherals, even when my eyes are closed.

I keep thinking about you at 12 and 13 and 14 and 15 and 16 and 17 and 18 and 19 and you didn’t make it 20 and you won’t see 21 or 22 or 23 or 34 or 45 or 56 or fucking anything ever again. No more birthdays. No more candles. The only anniversary you have left is your death.

I can’t even visit your grave. I talk to you and you’re not here. I’m writing these stupid letters that don’t mean anything because they’re the only thing that stops me from feeling insane and they’re hardly even working anymore.

I keep thinking about everything I never said to you. I thought we had more time. I thought I had forever with you. I know everything we do has always been dangerous and for some reason, I still never thought any of us would die. Especially not you.

You’ve always been invincible to me.

I’m not mad at you. I can’t be mad at you. That’s not fair.

You didn’t leave because you wanted to.

I’m just mad, but it’s not your fault. And I’m sorry I said fuck you. Not a nice thing to say to your best friend in general, let alone when he’s dead.

I miss you. I miss you so much I think it’s killing me.

Pope.

“When Sarah died, it was like… I don’t know. My whole world came to a halt. Just like that. She stopped breathing and I forgot how to.”

John B.’s sitting beside him. He’s got one hand on a beer and the other’s propping his face up–turned towards Pope, but gazing away. Looking at Sarah in the other room, where she’s braiding Kie’s hair with a look of utmost concentration on her face.

“And it’s weird, when I think about it. Like when my Dad died,” he carries on, lips pursing as he thinks, “it–it was awful. I mean, absolutely miserable. He died in my arms, you know, there’s no–you can’t compare the grief.”

He glances over at Pope, and Pope looks away. Across the room, at his hands, at the table. Studies the condensation on his beer.

“But it is different. Like, uh, you know. Opposite but equal? Not really opposite, but you get what I’m saying, right?”

“Sure,” Pope tells him, even if he’s not certain he does.

“My Dad died and it was like my childhood went with him. Like the person I was started to crumble. You know, like, how would I live my life going forward without my dad in it? How am I supposed to do that? To carry on? But when Sarah died…” He pauses, slowly shakes his head. “I couldn’t see my future anymore. It stopped being a possibility.”

There’s something sick twisting in Pope’s throat. He reaches for his own beer, takes a hefty gulp, tries to swallow it down.

It doesn’t work.

He’s not sure when it happened–if it was the moment Pope cupped JJ’s face between his hands and realized he was already growing cold, or if it was after they’d packed the last of the sand over his body, or if it was when they watched that little raft float away with the ocean waves–but Pope’s future had sort of… drifted out of reach.

All of his dreams of the future. College, his career, a life worth living.

It had all ceased.

Except–he knows it’s still there, somewhere, in the back of his head, like a little voice, an occasional reminder: you still have dreams, Pope! You still have a future! You still have a heart in your chest and lungs that breathe! You’re still here, even if he isn’t!

But it’s infrequent, and he remembers it less and less, and every time he does the voice gets a little quieter, and it doesn’t matter anyway, really. Even if it were to scream, none of it means anything. Not anymore. As soon as Pope had really processed that JJ would never be in his life ever again, everything else went with him.

And there isn’t a part of him that really cares. He can’t care. It’s not like he’s just given up on the world and his life and the future he might live, it’s that it’s gone. It isn’t there anymore. It can’t be.

And Pope, he–

He’s not sure what to do about that. If he wants to do anything about that.

If maybe this is just the way it is, now, and he has to be okay with that, forever, because that’s the price he has to pay to not leave JJ behind.

That’s okay. If that’s how it has to be. That’s okay.

John B. looks over at him. “Does, uh. Does that make any sense at all or am I just talking nonsense?”

“It does.” Pope thinks it makes too much sense. Pope thinks he shouldn’t be grieving JJ the way John B. grieved Sarah, even if it was for only a minute or two. Even if Pope has to grieve JJ like this for the rest of his life. Pope can’t be thinking about this. It’s dangerous to read into this.

Pope thinks–he thinks–

“I get it. I do.”

John B. shakes his head, takes another sip of his beer. “It’s like I died with her.” He stares down into the beer bottle, and Pope stares down at the floor and tries not to think too hard about how JJ should be here. Sitting on the couch between them, making them laugh in between the heartfelt moments. Easing the tension in his chest. “I know that’s fucking… corny, or whatever. If grief can be corny. I don’t know. It’s true.”

Pope takes another drink of his beer, and then another, and another, again. Presses his hand to his chest to feel for his heartbeat, in a way he’d seen JJ do a thousand times, focuses on the thrum of his heart beneath his ribcage. Tries and fails to ignore the wave of guilt that his heart is beating at all.

Pope is alive.

JJ’s dead.

“And JJ, I–” His voice cracks, and Pope watches John B. reach up to wipe at his eyes. “God, I don’t fucking know, man. It’s similar to both, in a way. It’s like my ten-year-old self died with him, and I know I’m gonna keep living without him, of course I am, I mean, Jesus, I have a kid on the way, but it feels like a betrayal to.”

Pope puts his beer down to reach over, fingers wrapping around John B.’s forearm, and his friend looks at him, and he smiles through the tears in his eyes. Claps his hand on top of Pope’s.

“It’s dumb,” he tells him, “but that’s what it feels like.”

“It’s not dumb.” Pope shakes his head. “It isn’t.”

John B. takes a deep, shuddering breath, shoulders shaking with it. Pope thinks he should probably breathe with him. Deep, thorough. Settle his heart, clear his head.

He doesn’t.

“Are you, um,” John B. rolls his eyes as he says it, “I know the answer before I ask but are you doing any better?”

No. Pope can’t sleep at night and when he does he has nightmares. Every step he takes feels like a step away from JJ. Every new sunrise is another day that JJ’s been dead. He’s seeing JJ in places he can’t be. He’s looking for JJ and he can’t find him anywhere. He’s fucking his relationship up with Cleo for reasons he can’t ascertain.

He’s going fucking crazy.

Pope doesn’t say any of this, and he shrugs his shoulders, instead. A nonanswer.

“Checks out,” John B. murmurs, and he puts his beer down, brings his hand up to his forehead to rub at his temples. “Fuck.”

“Migraine?” Pope asks and rises. Squeezes John B’s arm. “I’ll get you some medicine.”

John B. nods his head, and Pope makes to leave, but before he can go a hand on his wrist stops him. He turns around and John B’s frowning again.

“Pope, I know nothing can fix this,” he starts, and suddenly Pope doesn’t have the energy for this, anymore. He wants to sink into the floorboards, wants to stop talking all about how JJ’s dead and gone forever, now, wants to fall asleep and pretend he isn’t, anymore, “But, uh. Check in with me, every now and then, please? I–” his lip quivers, and he blinks, looks away. “I can’t lose you, too.”

Maybe Pope’s not doing as astute of a job at pretending like he’s not losing it as he thought he was.

He feels nauseous, as he says it, but he wants to reassure his friend. Wants to make things better where he can’t. “You won’t,” he tells him, and he means it.

Mostly.

JJ,

Remember when Sarah got shot?

John B. mentioned all that time ago that she’d died. For only a minute or two. However long. But she was dead, and he told me that while she was, he may as well have been, too.

So I’m thinking I might be dying. Or that I should be. Deserve to be, maybe.

I shot a man that day. I haven’t really thought about it. I’m sure I will eventually, but in the face of your loss it’s barely registering in my head. I killed a man. A whole life gone, just like that. To protect Cleo. I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

I’d do it for you, too.

I should have done it for you.

I failed you. I’m sorry.

I keep thinking about the minutes leading up to your death. If I’d gone with you, or if I’d let you keep the gun. I rationalize all of it in my mind: I’d have shot your dad before he killed you. If I let you keep the gun, I’d have outsmarted that hunter and somehow he wouldn’t have been able to hurt me or Cleo. All the different ways everything ends okay. All the ways I could have saved you.

In my last history class before, well, everything, we had a unit on philosophy. Briefly discussed the idea of multiple lives. How likely it was. What people thought that might mean for us, if we get to try again. Does that make living less worthwhile? Or more?

And I don’t know if I believe in that theory. Not sure what I believe.

I only know it was in this life that I made the wrong choice.

I’m sorry. I hope you know that. I’ll be sorry until the day that I die.

Part of me–I think most of me–is still in Morocco. Sitting in the sand and waiting for you.

Are you waiting for me?

I think John B. made me realize something. I’m putting the pieces together too late. I don’t want it. It can’t be true. Because if it’s true, I don’t know what it means. I don’t know what anything means.

JJ, I think I

There’s something I should have told

I think maybe I lo

You’re in my heart. I wish you were at my side.

Pope.

Pebbles in the water.

He’s picking them up and tossing them as far as he can, watching them fly through the air before they land in the marsh.

The ripples never make it all the way out to him.

He’s trying to stay out of his head, and for the moment, it’s working. Working so well, rubbing his thumb back and forth over the smooth stone of the pebble he’s holding, that he’s a little lost somewhere else. Somewhere in between his head and the real world, some third place where everything’s a little quieter and all that matters is the stone and the water and his hand. Everything narrowed down to just this.

Simple.

He’s watching the ripples of his last pebble dissipate when a sudden rock goes whirling past his head and lands in the water with a loud plop.

He swivels around and Sarah’s standing there with a hand perched above her eyes, staring into the distance like she’s watching something soar. Which, well. It landed.

“Y’know it hit the water already, right?” He asks, and she shakes her head, keeps staring out.

“Mm. Nope. Still going.”

“I saw it–”

“No you didn’t, Pope. No you didn’t.”

Pope parts his lips to argue with her about it some more before he decides it isn’t worth it. Gazes out with her and doesn’t fight the smile when she makes some weak attempt at mimicking the sound of a splash. “Psshhhh. Wow. That went really far, huh? Way better than all of yours.”

“I’m impressed,” he tells her, glancing over when she comes up and sits down beside him. “You’re a real natural.”

“Yeah, I pitched for my softball team when I was a kid,” she tells him. “Muscle memory, huh?”

“Really?” He tilts his head. “I didn’t know that.”

“I mean. I was like, seven, so I’m not sure it really counts for much, except it clearly does,” she nods, seriously, gesturing toward the water again. “If you’re the best, guess you’re always the best, huh?”

“You think so?” Pope asks, and picks another pebble up. “Same time. Let’s see who gets it further.”

Sarah picks one up and they both wind their arms back. “On three, okay? One, two, three!”

They both launch their pebbles. Sarah’s hits the water first, but Pope’s follows only a second later. She narrows her eyes at him and grabs another. “Your pebble was lighter, that’s not fair.”

“You didn’t even look at my–”

“I demand a rematch.”

Pope laughs and picks up another pebble.

They do that for a while. Sarah ends up beating him for the first half before he climbs his way back up, and they end it at a tie. Then they start trying to see who can throw it higher. It’s a little harder to judge.

Eventually they get bored of the water and start chucking them at the trees, which is fun, too, until Sarah throws a rock and it ricochets and bounces back at them like a boomerang and Pope ends up with a scratch and a growing welt on his forehead.

“Sorry, sorry,” Sarah’s repeating, over and over, while she wipes at it with a hand towel. They’d migrated to the bathroom after the incident upon Sarah’s insistence that she patch it up for him. Pope winces and tries his best to sit still.

“It was an accident, Sarah, you’re fine,” Pope tells her, for the seven thousandth time, and she pulls away to start rifling through the medicine cabinet. “Better me than you.”

“I think I could survive a rock to the forehead,” Sarah mumbles. “I’ve survived a lot worse.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Pope clarifies, and Sarah makes an ah-hah! noise and pulls out a little tube. She comes back over and pops it open, hovers over Pope’s forehead and says,

“Neosporin. This’ll sting.”

Pope braces himself and closes his eyes while she squeezes it on. “Ouch.”

“Sorry.”

“Me too.”

“What are you sorry for?” She pulls away and Pope opens his eyes. Reaches up to touch at his wound and huffs when Sarah smacks his hand out of the way. “Don’t touch, dude.”

“I don’t know. Everything?”

“That really clarifies things for me.” She grabs two boxes of bandages out of the cabinet and holds them in front of herself. “Alright. Dinosaurs or flowers?”

“Why does Rafe have children’s bandages in his house?”

“‘Cause it wasn’t always his house,” Sarah chides him with a hand on her hip, “and when I was still here, I liked both.”

“Is it weird being back?” Pope asks. She purses her lips. “Uh, dinosaurs.”

Sarah plucks a bandage out of the box and puts them back in the cabinet before she turns to Pope again. “Yes,” she answers, peeling it open. “I keep turning corners expecting to find my Dad there.”

“Jeez,” Pope mumbles, and stays still while Sarah leans over him. “That must suck.”

“It does.”

A moment of silence. Sarah looks down at him with her lower lip pulled between her teeth, working with utmost concentration while she smooths the bandage over his wound. Pope takes a breath and says,

“I keep seeing JJ everywhere.”

She pulls away. Leans against the sink. “Like, uh, metaphorically, or are you actually–”

“Metaphorically,” he murmurs, poking at his bandaid. Sarah frowns, but doesn’t say anything. “Like, uh. Every time I go into the yard of this stupid place I expect to see him sitting in the grass with a beer in his hand. Or, like, I’ll go into the kitchen and expect the place to be a mess because he’s trying to piss Rafe off on purpose. I just… I forget. I forget that he can’t be here. That he never will be.”

Sarah walks over to the window and peers through it, her hands clasped behind her back. Softly, she says, “I don’t think he’d like it here very much.”

“No.” Pope smiles, even though it’s not really funny, because he’d rather have JJ here and pissed off than not here at all. “He’d hate it. He’d absolutely hate it. He wouldn’t shut up about how much he hated it.”

“John B. keeps complaining, too,” Sarah says, looking back at him. “I’ve told him I get it, but, like, every morning he rolls over and he’s like, ugh, Sarah, these blankets are too nice. It’s freaking me out.”

Pope smiles. Stands and walks over to her. They look out the window together, out into the yard. Pope watches the reeds by the bank blow with the wind. “They’d complain about it together, if he was here. I haven’t mentioned it much, but I’m itching to get out of here, too. JJ would probably convince me to abandon ship and crash somewhere else by the second night.”

“Yeah, he really knew how to work you.”

“Knew me like nobody else,” Pope murmurs, his breath fogging the window. Shifts his gaze up to the sky, blue and bright without a cloud in sight, and JJ’s eyes are the only thing he can see. The only thing he’ll never see again. “Sarah, can I ask you something?”

“Go ahead.”

“It’s a little much.”

“Whatever.”

“When you died,” he starts, and Sarah takes a breath, “did you. Uh. You know.”

“You mean, like. Did I go anywhere?”

“Yeah.”

He looks at her. Sarah keeps staring out the window. She tucks a lock of hair behind her ear and shakes her head. “No. No, I didn’t. I didn’t see anything or anyone. I don’t remember dying because I wasn’t really… awake,” she tells him. “I was in pain and bleeding out and then I fell asleep and then I was in pain and awake and John B. looked like he’d been to hell and back.”

Pope doesn’t say anything. Isn’t sure what to say.

“Pope,” Sarah reaches out for him, a gentle hand on his wrist. “This might be the one question you’ll never find an answer for. I’m sorry I can’t help you.”

“I’m sorry for asking,” he tells her, and she shakes her head.

“Don’t be. Nobody has to be sorry. Life’s life, yeah? Even when we wish it wasn’t.”

Pope exhales something shaky, and looks outside again. Sarah brushes her shoulder against his.

“If it’s anything at all,” she says, and her voice is softer, now, “the happiest I saw JJ was always when he was with you.”

It’s something. It could’ve been everything, if things were different. He doesn’t know if he likes or hates what she’s telling him.

“Not Kie? Or John B?” He asks. She shrugs.

“I think Kie and JJ were still figuring themselves out,” she answers, “and John B. was like a brother to JJ. They fought like brothers do.”

“I fought with JJ, like, all the time,” Pope reminds her, and she smiles.

“How many of those fights lasted more than a day?” Pope thinks back, and then struggles to come up with an answer.

“I don’t know if I’m saying it right,” Sarah says, then, and leans forward, rests her elbows on the windowsill and her forehead against the glass. “I just mean… when I think of JJ,” she exhales, and looks at him, “at his fullest, at his best. When he’s the most himself. It’s always you he’s next to. Do you know what I mean?”

Pope swallows.

“I do.”

JJ,

I’m not used to talking about you in past tense. I don’t think anyone else is, either.

We all keep slipping up. None of us bother to mention it.

We’ve got a lead on Groff. I think we’re leaving tomorrow. It’s finally hit me that either we’re coming out of this dead, or he is.

I never thought so much of my life would be about death.

I don’t know so much about it, anymore. I used to want to know all about it. Everything I could. I liked the thought of being able to dissect and discover and learn. Sometimes people die, and nobody knows why. I wanted to be the one to figure it out.

But I’m tired of death. I’m tired of thinking of it. I’m tired of feeling it and smelling it and tasting it and seeing it. Everywhere I go, it follows.

You follow.

I’m afraid if I go down the path I wanted to take when I was sixteen, before any of this began, if I even try to course-correct, that ten years from now I’ll slice someone open and after I reach inside to figure out what parts failed them, when I look back up it’ll be your cold face I find.

A cold face and a still heart. Open, empty blues.

I just keep seeing you. In the sand beneath the earth.

It makes me sick.

I wish I didn’t know so much about death. I wish I’d never learned about it. I wish I’d known it would come to haunt me. I want to forget everything.

There’s no fixing this. I keep coming back to that. I can’t fix this. It doesn’t matter how much I cry, and it doesn’t matter how much I scream, and it doesn’t matter that I feel like I’m going to die, that this is going to kill me. The guilt I feel every time I see your face in my head, the anguish when I see your smile, the misery when I remember your voice.

It doesn’t matter. I miss you and it doesn’t matter. I mourn you and it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t fucking matter, because you’re gone, and I can’t undo it.

Every morning the sun rises and I’m angry about it because it doesn’t make sense that the world can keep turning without you. Feels like the sun should’ve exploded when I fell to my knees to check your pulse and couldn’t find it.

But it doesn’t matter. The world does keep turning. And I’m going to miss you for the rest of today, and all of tomorrow, and the day after that, and then the day after that, too. Every day, for the rest of my life. And the sun will keep rising. And you will still be gone.

I miss you so much and I can’t do anything about it. It just sits in my chest. Like a rock weighing me down. It’s too heavy to shrug off, but I wouldn’t want to, anyway.

I think I’m just angry that I have to miss you. That I have to remember you. That I can’t call you in here and listen to you talk about whatever’s on your mind for the rest of the night.

I don’t know if I believe in an afterlife, but I’m starting to hope there’s something after this. That can’t have been the last time I’ll ever see you. I need to see you again.

But I’ll never see you again. And you’ll never know how badly I want to because you’re not here to know. Because you’re not here.

I’ll write to you anyway.

And in my lighter moments, I can pretend like they’re doing something. I can pretend like you’re getting them. I hope they’re entertaining. I’d love a reply back when you’re not busy.

I miss you.

Talk later.

Pope.

There’s a gun in his hands.

When he pulls the trigger, blood splatters on his face.

In the back of his head, there’s a memory.

Sunlight streams through the kitchen window, enveloping the room in warm light. His friends are chattering around him, making the table and pouring drinks into glasses. Bacon sizzles on the pan on the stovetop.

He’s cutting a tomato and the juice squirts out, onto the knife and the counter and his hand and his face. JJ’s there, all of a sudden, in his face and laughing. The sunlight paints him, golden and beautiful, a statue he’s seen in a museum, before. He’s pushing into his space to wipe the juice off his cheek with a napkin, touch gentle. His fingers linger, thumb swipes over his cheekbone, and when he tells him to be more careful, it’s more like a whisper.

It plays in his head the rest of the night.

When Groff falls to his knees and clutches at his stomach, blood seeping between his fingers, Pope holds onto JJ. Clings to the memory of his laughter and the smile he’ll never see again. His warmth, contagious, leaking through his skin and into his heart. His touch, everywhere, hands on his shoulder and his face and his back. Fingers between his and curled around his elbow and patting his cheek.

JJ, alive and breathtaking, loud and unafraid, happy in spite of it all.

When Groff slumps to the floor and his breath comes out in heaves, when Pope lowers the gun, when another life ceases, another ending begins,

JJ’s face lingers, behind his eyelids.

Pope drops to the floor and there’s arms wrapping around him from every side, warmth and comfort and love, and all he can think about is the empty space in his chest, the missing person in the room.

Groff dies. Pope kills him.

And JJ stays dead.

JJ,

I’m going to be upfront.

I killed Groff.

I don’t think you’d be that upset about it. If it wasn’t me, it would’ve been another one of us. I was just the one holding the gun when it happened.

Still. Feels pretty substantial. Figured you deserved to know.

I don’t know how I feel about it. Well, I do. And I don’t. I think I’d have preferred it if I didn’t have to. I don’t like it. I killed someone.

Again.

I don’t feel great.

But then I remember the tear tracks that were drying on your cheeks when I shook you. I remember the smell of iron that I couldn’t get rid of for a week. I remember sobbing in the desert when I came back to myself, after I said goodbye to you.

So I’m glad he’s dead. He can’t hurt anyone else.

I just wish we weren’t so late.

We’ve got the Crown, now. We’re getting Poguelandia back. I’m happy, I think, but I also can’t find it in me to really feel it. I keep thinking about going back home and finding your room empty. Keep wondering how I’m supposed to stay there without you in it.

I don’t know if I can.

I thought all the good news might help, but I’m not sleeping any better. Cleo’s staying in another room while we work out whatever the hell is happening between us. I miss her. I don’t know how to apologize. I don’t know how to move past you. I don’t want to.

I’m afraid I’m going to feel like this for the rest of my life.

Miss you.

Pope.

When Pope walks into JJ and Kie’s room, Kie’s sitting on the bed. Her back is pressed against the wall and she’s holding her knees to her chest. She’s staring out the window and he can tell she’s been crying immediately.

He sits on the bed and runs his fingers over the blanket. Watches her and waits for her to talk, if she wants to.

He hasn’t seen her spend the night in here once since they got back home.

Her hair is down and mussed about her face, and now that Pope thinks about it, he’s not sure he’s seen her out and about at all, today.

He scoots up the bed and sits beside her.

The silence lasts a while.

Until, eventually, she speaks.

“I can’t be in here,” she says to him. Keeps looking out the window. “He’s everywhere I look.”

Pope brushes their shoulders together.

“I tried falling asleep in here the first night back. I made it ten minutes before I thought I was gonna throw up or, like, break something.” She looks down at her hands. “Asked Sarah if I could spend the night in her room. Like, on the floor, or something. I just didn’t want to be alone. But, uh. John B. offered to sleep on the couch so I slept in bed with Sarah and I think it’s the best night’s sleep I’ve gotten since he died.”

Kie looks at him, then. Her eyes are red and teary, and she sniffles. “I know you’re not sleeping, either.”

He looks away. “I can’t.”

“Do you think it’ll always be this way?” She asks, in between sharp breaths. “It feels like the world is ending every day.”

“I don’t know.” He doesn’t know if he wants it to be any different. He wants to feel better and he wants to go back in time. He wants to heal and he wants to make sure JJ doesn’t get left behind. “I don’t think I know anything, anymore.”

Kie slumps over, presses into his side. Puts her head on his shoulder. “Pope.” Her voice gets quieter. “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

Shakier. “I think I’m a bad person.”

Pope knows bad people. Kiara isn’t one of them. “You’re not.”

“How can you know that?” She sounds aggravated and pulls off him, abruptly. Pushes herself off the bed to stand. “You can’t.”

Pope’s a little blindsided. “Kie,” he says, sitting up straighter, “we’ve seen people get murdered in cold blood. It–it fucking happened to JJ. You don’t come anything close to that.”

“I was thinking about breaking up with him.” All the fight goes out of her as quickly as it came. She puts her face in her hands and her shoulders slump. She looks smaller. “I was going to break up with him.”

Okay. He’s a little blindsided again. Pope can see how that might complicate things. But he’s pretty sure this doesn’t make Kie a bad person.

Her hair’s blocking her face. He can’t find where she’s at.

He stands up, makes his way toward her. Puts a hand on her back and leans down to see her better. “Kie,” he starts, waits until she’s looking at him to continue, “that doesn’t make you a bad person.”

“Doesn’t it?” Her lip starts to tremble. “I–I think I’m, like,” she wrings her fingers together, blinks rapidly, “uh, God, I don’t know. Broken, maybe. There’s something wrong with me, Pope,” and she’s walking away from him, again. Turns around and heaves a breath. “He told me he loved me before–”

Her voice cracks.

“Before he died, and I fucking–I was going to break up with him, when we got back home. Because–I don’t even know–and I don’t–what am I supposed to–”

She’s falling to her knees, but Pope’s there to catch her before he hits the floor. Kie’s bawling in his arms and he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do–how to fix this. So he holds her, instead, runs his fingers through her hair and rubs circles into her back.

“You’re not broken,” he tells her, because he knows that much, even if he’s not sure where any of this is coming from. He’d thought JJ and Kie were happy, if a little different from the other romances in their friend group. “You’re okay, Kie.”

“I’m not,” she cries, and then pulls away from him, pushing herself up against the bed frame and wiping, aggressively, at the tears streaming down her face. Hiccups and babbles through another sentence. “I’m not okay because he loved me and I didn’t love him. I tried,” and then her eyes are on his, and he’s leaning forward to grab her hands, tries to ground her. “I tried, Pope, you have to believe me, I tried to love him the way he loved me, I thought I did I really thought–”

“Kie.” He grabs her face with his hands. Their eyes meet. He feels a little frantic, a little terrified, a little heartbroken. He’s not sure what’s happening. He just wants her to be okay. “Please. Breathe.”

But she’s shaking her head, breaths coming out quick and shallow. “I spent–I spent that whole time with him thinking that it would click, eventually, because I thought I loved him but it felt off the whole time and I just–I didn’t want it to feel that way anymore,” she’s explaining, and it doesn’t make much sense but Pope isn’t sure what he can do other than sit here and listen. “So I was going to break it off after the fucking–after we got the Crown and everything was better and then it all went to shit and he–” her eyes squeeze shut and she curls into herself, hands flying to cover her face and knees pushing back up toward her chest, “he died, he told me he loved me and he died.”

Pope pulls her into another hug, lets her fall apart in his arms as much as she needs to. “I’m sorry,” he tells her. “I’m sorry. I’m here. I have you, and I’m not leaving, and you’re not a bad person, Kie, I promise. I promise.”

It takes a while, and he holds her through it. Lets her soak his t-shirt with her tears, lets her get out whatever this is. Whatever it takes to bring her back to Earth, he’ll do.

She calms down, eventually, sobs lessening into something softer, until she’s not crying at all. Almost silent, hiccuping every so often, fighting to catch her breath.

“I’m sorry,” are the first words she says again.

Pope shakes his head even though she can’t see it. “Don’t be. It’s okay.”

“I just lost my mind on you,” she murmurs, and lifts her head up, finally, to look at him. Shame knits her eyebrows. “I think you deserve an apology.”

“If I lost my mind on you would you be upset about it?”

Kie smiles something so small he wouldn’t have noticed it if he wasn’t looking so closely. “No. Of course not.”

“Well, there we have it.”

She takes a deep breath, wipes at her face. “Pope.”

“Yeah, Kie?”

“I have to tell you something.”

Pope bumps his knee into hers. “Are you gonna do that all over aga–”

“No,” she laughs, pushes him away. He pulls his arms away from her but stays pressed against her side. “Asshole.”

“I’m listening.”

The smile slips off her face. She takes a deep breath.

“I think that, um. I didn’t love JJ for the same reason it didn’t work between me and you.”

Okay. He doesn’t know what that means.

“What reason, Kie?”

When she looks at him, her eyes are wide and fearful, and he steels himself. She answers him in a whisper–so quietly he nearly misses it.

“I think I’m a lesbian.”

Pope had expected an answer maybe along the lines of you have these traits in common that I don’t like or something about dating in our friend group doesn’t work for me or, like, anything other than that.

But Kie’s looking at him like she’s about to start crying all over again, so he swallows his surprise, reaches forward, and pulls her into a hug.

Her arms snap around him and cling.

He doesn’t know what to say. Isn’t sure what you say in moments like these.

He tries his best, anyway.

“Kie,” he says, heart cracking in half a little bit when she tenses around him, “you’re one of my best friends, and I love you, and this doesn’t change that.”

She sniffles, and he pulls away to make sure she isn’t crying again. She’s smiling, instead, even if it does still seem like she could start back up at any moment.

She takes a breath and tells him,

“I don’t know what to do.”

He’s not sure he’s the best person to come to for a problem–not a problem–for a situation like this.

He looks away from her, mulls over his thoughts. Kie’s movements grab his eyes–she’s messing with her bracelet on her wrist. Green with daisies interwoven into it.

JJ’s.

Pope wonders if maybe there’s only so long someone can run away from something before they have to turn around and face it.

He doesn’t mean to say it–what he means to say is something supportive and helpful, like a good friend. Something like I’ll help you figure it out, or whatever you need, you have me, or even that’s okay, I’ll be here regardless.

What he says, instead, is:

“I think I’m, like. Into guys. Girls, too. Still. But, yeah. Guys.”

It’s not his finest sentence. Still, it gets the point across.

Kie stares at him with a shocked expression he figures probably matches the one he was sporting thirty seconds ago. And then she laughs, and covers her mouth with her hands like she didn’t mean to–but it’s fine, because Pope’s laughing with her.

At some point, after it’s all out of their system, after there’s no more laughing and all the tears are dried up, Pope tells her,

“He knows you loved him. Even if you didn’t love him like you thought he did, Kie, you loved him. And he knew that. And when he died, he felt it.”

Pope wonders if JJ knew how much he loved him. Sometimes Pope feels like he could’ve done a better job of showing it.

Of saying it.

At least once.

God.

Kie grabs his hand and squeezes it.

“He knew you loved him, too,” she tells him. “You know that, right?”

Pope stares down at where their wrists touch. Bracelets brushing. He takes a breath. “I’m not sure he knew the depths of it.” And then, “I’m not sure I do.”

Kie stares at him, and then he sees it, when it clicks: her expression softens and she brings her other hand to rest on top of his.

“Oh,” she whispers, and then she leans forward, holds him close to her. “God, Pope.”

He feels a little like it should be scary, for her to know what he means. For her to know what he couldn’t.

But it isn’t.

He shuts his eyes. Holds onto her. “I wish I understood it better. Earlier. I wish I understood it at all.”

“Me too,” she whispers, and he isn’t sure how, or why, but he falls asleep like that. Half-sitting against Kie’s bed, half-squished against her. It’s uncomfortable. His bones hurt. He wakes up with a crick in his neck.

In his dreams, JJ’s there.

Always just out of reach.

JJ,

I’m starting to wonder.

About you. About me.

About us.

Memories I’ve forgotten are suddenly at the front of my brain like a bloodrush. The way I’d wait at your locker after Ms. Morton’s class in ninth grade so we could walk to Mr. Bridge’s together. How you’d linger at the door for ten, fifteen, twenty minutes the morning after a sleepover, for so long that I’d just tell you to come back inside and you could stay over another night. The first time we surfed together and when you wiped out, you came out of the water laughing, and the sun glinted off the waves and I saw you for the first time.

The first time you came over after a fight with your dad you jumped at my touch all day. But the second time, you initiated it, instead. An arm around my back and a hand at my hip and your head on my shoulder. A thousand touches, back-and-forth, semi-subconscious: a language of your own.

I’m remembering the way you’d sink into my bed after school every Friday, like your long day of cheating off my papers and making paper airplanes in the back of class was exhausting. How you’d lay there on your phone while I studied at my desk and that’s all we’d do, for a while, and it was enough.

I’m realizing that everything with you, no matter what it was or where, was enough.

More than enough.

Sometimes, when I’m on that precipice between awake and asleep, when there’s a dream unfurling in the back of my head but I can still hear the ticking of the clock in my room, I think I can see you. Smell you. Reach out, and you’ll be there.

Sometimes when I dream, you’re a memory. A blurred mass over the horizon. If I wait long enough, if I sit patient enough, if I hope hard enough, you come into focus. And sometimes you’re all I see.

Sometimes you reach for me. Your touch is warm and soft and tender. Different from the way I last felt you.

Sometimes you put your hand on my cheek and tilt my head. Breathe out into my lips and I want to breathe it back into you, push the air back into your lungs, but then you’re gone, and it’s too late, and I can’t.

You don’t kiss me in my dreams. I can never tell if you want to. Sometimes I try to chase after your touch, but you’ve already drifted into mist before I can feel your lips.

I think my subconscious is trying to tell me something. Not every dream has a meaning, but repetitive ones usually do. I think it’s a wake-up call. A reminder. A truth that my brain knows and my heart won’t accept. Hammering it into me until I understand.

I will never have you. I missed my chance.

JJ,

I’m thinking of you.

I miss you.

Pope.

Sunlight warms his skin. Gold melts into violet in the sky above.

He’s not sure he wants to have this conversation, but he needs to.

It’s just. He’s not sure where to start.

Cleo’s looking at him passively, one knee up to her chest and the other kicking at the wooden beams of their balcony. Pope picks the fabric of the couch cushion apart beneath him while he looks for his words.

Slowly, Cleo reaches over to take his hand in hers. She loops their fingers together, and if Pope didn’t know what to say before, he doesn’t know, now.

Honesty. The truth.

That’s all he can give her. Even if he doesn’t understand, even if it doesn’t make sense, even if it never will.

She deserves the truth.

“I have to start by telling you I love you,” he says, and it’s the wrong thing, because her face falls, and she pulls away. Sounds like he’s breaking up with her but he’s not trying to, he doesn’t want to, but—is there a world where what he’s about to tell her doesn’t split them apart? “And I know it might not… make sense. With what I’m about to tell you. But it’s true.”

Pope loves Cleo like nothing else. Had happened before he’d even realized it—like he’d stumbled his way into one of the best things to ever happen to him. Loves Cleo like it’s what he was put here for.

He reaches for her hand again, and she lets him take it. He squeezes it, and wonders, distantly, if this will be the last time he gets to hold her like this. If there will be no more mornings with her face pressed against his chest, if she will never kiss him quiet again, if he can never tuck her close and bare his all to her and let her love him, entirely, ever again. If she will ever let him love her again.

He clears his throat, and scoots a little closer to her while he still can.

“You love me,” Cleo says, staring down at their hands, “but?”

But. But there’s more space in Pope’s heart than he realized. But his best friend is dead and he’s split in two. But there are feelings he’s only beginning to understand. But there’s a pattern his heart always followed around JJ that sounds the same around Cleo.

Pope looks away from her. Out into the water.

“I remember JJ’s fourteenth birthday,” he starts. “He said he wasn’t going to do anything, which he’d said for every other birthday. But I told him he could just come over, if he wanted, and I’d invite John B. and Kie, and we could just have dinner at my place. I’d ask my Mom to make him whatever he wanted, and we both knew she’d say yes.”

Pope remembers the way JJ had looked at him. Uncertain, hesitant. For the first few years of their friendship he was always hesitant to push himself into his life. Afraid of being overbearing, afraid he’d step over some line in the sand Pope would never dream of drawing. Until he’d finally realized Pope wanted him there.

It was so long ago Pope sometimes can’t remember it so well. A life before JJ was everywhere, all the time. Kicking his foot across the desk during class and stealing slices of orange during lunch and threatening every kid that looked at him the wrong way while they walked across the hall. Waking up on his floor with his face squished against his pillow and falling on his ass after he leaned too far back in his desk chair and beaming at the kitchen table when his Mom asked if he’d like to stay for dinner.

“What’d he say?” Cleo asks, jolting Pope back to the present. He glances at her. Her head’s tilted, curious, a thoughtful look in her eyes. No judgment, which is pretty marvelous, and he’s reminded all over again that she’s the best he could ever ask for. His heart twists a little in his chest–he’s starting to miss her before he’s even lost her.

“He asked if it would be alright just the two of us,” Pope answers, and looks away again. He leans back, a little, sinking into the cushions as he remembers. JJ’s hair was way shorter, then. Sharp, prickly buzzed hairs on the sides of his head and his unruly mess on top. He’d shaved it all off that summer and got frustrated when it grew back out weird. Wore caps everyday for half the year until it stopped looking so different.

Pope thought he’d looked handsome, regardless, long hair or buzzed hair or awkward, in-between hair that kind of made him look like a hedgehog. He’s not sure if he really knew that, then, though. Just knew that every time he looked over at him, whether JJ was laughing or smiling or brooding or kicking shit in the backyard of the Chateau, seeing his face made him feel lighter.

“He asked me that,” Pope repeats, and finds himself grabbing at his wrist, tugging at one of his bracelets. “It was his birthday… but I think John B. and Kie were going through another one of those weird flirting stages, and JJ had said something about it that pissed them both off, and nobody was really mad at anybody, and I knew as well as JJ that if the four of us went out together that everything would be fine. They wouldn’t be mad at him on his birthday. So I didn’t really understand… why.

But I said yes, anyway. Because… I don’t know. It was his birthday. He’s my best friend.” He pauses. “I’ve never been very good at telling JJ no.”

“Is that the only reason?” Cleo asks, and Pope takes a breath. Deep, steadying.

“No. I liked the idea of it just being the two of us. Sometimes, being alone with JJ, it…” He stares down at his bracelet. Soft, green threads interwoven with orange. “I’ve always felt the most like me when I’m with him. And I liked being alone with him. I liked it when I had all of his attention. When I was the only one making jokes he was laughing at. When I was the only one who could get him to grin like that. I liked it when there was nobody else in the room for him to look at.”

“Pope,” Cleo says, voice softer, tentative. “I need to know what you’re telling me. I can’t do riddles.”

He looks over at her, again. Her eyebrows are furrowed, lower lip pulled between her teeth, fingers wringing together. “We went surfing. Like we’d do any other day. And afterward we stopped somewhere new, instead of eating at home. Some hot dog joint that’s closed, now, I think it was called Donny’s Dog and Dash, something like that. Then I gave him his gift.”

“Dude. I can’t tell if this is the best burger I’ve ever had or the worst.” JJ flicks a fry at him from across the table, and Pope nearly launches out of his seat in his attempt to catch it. He leans over and dips it into JJ’s shake, then laughs when he gets the middle finger in response.

The lights flicker above them. When Pope looks out their window, the sun is halfway below the horizon. Gray clouds stare at him from beyond the sunset. It’ll rain soon.

He looks at JJ.

His hair’s falling in his eyes again. Pope doesn’t understand why he won’t shave the top off. Not that he needs to, but every five minutes JJ runs a hand through his hair in an attempt to get it to stop pissing him off, and every five minutes it doesn’t work.

Like clockwork, JJ drops his burger and swipes his hand through his hair, before he shakes his head, viciously, like that’ll do anything to solve the problem. The light flickers above them, again, and Pope kicks JJ’s foot across the table.

“Do you want your present now?” He asks, for the seventeenth time that night, and JJ sighs. His shoulders slump before the rest of his body slumps with him, head landing on the table. His face is squished against it.

“Didn’t I tell you not to get me anything?”

“I didn’t get you anything,” Pope remarks, then takes a sip of his root beer. Muffled around the straw, he carries on, “I made it.”

“Is it a bomb? Did you make me a bomb? That’s not cool, Pope. That’s dangerous.” He sighs. “Very unlike you.”

“JJ. If you wanted a bomb you could’ve just asked for it.”

“That’s a lie. Don’t lie to me, Pope. Not on my birthday.”

Pope rolls his eyes and slumps down in his seat, a little bit. Surfing had tired him out, and the walk to this place had been pretty long from home. He doesn’t want the day to end, though. Maybe they can go to the playground at the elementary school, after this, if JJ’s interested. See who can go higher on the swings.

“Are you staying over tonight?” He asks. They can stay out longer if JJ’s staying the night. If he has to go back home, it cuts their time a lot shorter.

JJ picks his head up. Grabs another fry, sticks it in his cup of cheese. “Uh. Would that be, like. Okay?”

“I mean, I’ll have to ask,” Pope shrugs, “but I don’t think Pop cares, and Mom loves you, so. And it’s your birthday. So. It’s almost guaranteed. As long as we don’t stay up all night again. It’s a miracle they didn’t find out last time.”

JJ winces. “Yeah. Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” he shrugs, then leans over to stick the last bit of his hot dog into JJ’s cup of cheese. JJ watches through narrowed eyes, then grabs Pope’s root beer and takes a sip.

“Mm. Good,” he comments, afterward, and Pope rolls his eyes through his laugh.

“Duh. It’s root beer. Anyway, if you can stay over, do you want to? I have some homework to finish before bed, but after that we can do whatever.”

JJ slides the root beer back across the table and nods, picking at the last of his burger. “Yeah. Sure. If it’s cool.”

“I just told you it’s cool. Now can I give you your gift?”

“Ugh. Fine.” JJ leans back in his seat, crossing his arms over his chest. Pope beams and fishes in his pocket, finding what he’s looking for. He clasps his hands over it and holds them out across the table, but pauses to explain, first.

“Okay. When I went to camp–”

“You mean when our school sent you away to Hell?”

“Okay, you weren’t even there, it wasn’t that bad–”

“Dude. You wouldn’t stop bitching about it for the first three weeks you got back.”

“Oh my God, JJ, shut up and let me explain.”

“Yes, sir.” He salutes him, and straightens in his seat, and Pope rolls his eyes, but he smiles anyway.

“Okay. Well. We went to the beach a few times. Nothing new. But I found something when I was there,” he says. “And we also, like, learned how to make necklaces and bracelets and stuff, which I already kind of knew, but now I understand better. I don’t really… make stuff. But I found this and I thought you’d like it so I did, just this once. Here.”

He unclasps his hands, and JJ leans forward to stare into them.

And then, slowly, he reaches forward. His eyes widen a little, and his lips curl into a smile, and when he plucks his gift from Pope’s hands, their fingers brush.

Pope grabs his root beer, once JJ’s pulled away completely. Needs somewhere to put his hands, needs to do something about the weird. Tingles.

The condensation of his cup only kind of works in getting rid of them.

JJ holds the necklace softly in his hands, like he’s afraid to drop it. He turns it over and around, slowly, looking at the shark’s tooth from every angle. He rubs his thumb over the tooth, and then looks back at him with such wide blue eyes that Pope’s back at the ocean, lifting the tooth out of the sand, washing it in the water.

“You found this?” He asks, and then he adds, “You made this?”

“Yes,” Pope answers, shifts in his seat. Feels a little weird. He thinks his palms are sweating, maybe. It’s not that warm today, so he’s not sure why. It seems like JJ likes his gift, but if he doesn’t Pope thinks he, like, might die, actually. He has to like his gift. “Like I said, I thought you’d like it. I don’t know. Surfing is, like, your thing, more than mine, even though I like it, obviously, uh, but you’re always looking for shark teeth every time we’re at the beach and every time you find one you lose it because you’re. Well. You’re you. But I thought if it was hung around your neck it would probably be harder to lose, right?”

JJ leans back in his seat, and he’s grinning at him. He’s beaming. He’s smiling at him like Pope had just given him a million dollars instead of some shark tooth he’d found on the shore of a beach JJ had never even been.

“I love it,” he says, suddenly, and then unclasps it, moves to put it around his neck. “This is the best gift ever.”

Pope watches JJ struggle to put the necklace on for fifteen mildly awkward seconds before he offers, “Do you want me to help?”

JJ looks at him a little sheepish, but nods, and stands. Pope scoots out of his booth to meet JJ halfway, taking the necklace back.

When he lays it around his neck, his fingers brush his skin, and Pope swallows a sudden burst of nerves. He clasps it, although it takes a try or two more than it probably should, cause his hands aren’t working right? Eventually he gets it clasped, and lets it fall. “Okay, all set–oof.”

JJ’s wrapping his arms around him, tucking his head into his shoulder, squeezing him with all his might. And Pope, well. Pope feels a little bit like he should sit down, because all of the blood in his body is rushing to his face, which can’t be a good thing. That blood’s supposed to go to other places, too.

He hugs JJ back, and the stabby hairs on the side of his head are kind of scratchy against his neck, but it doesn’t really matter. JJ’s clinging to him like he’s the best friend he’s ever had, and Pope loves him like–

Like he’s the best friend he’ll ever have.

“Thank you,” JJ whispers, and Pope shuts his eyes. Hugs him a little longer.

“You’re welcome.”

Pope’s staring out at the ocean, again. Isn’t sure he can handle whatever emotions are playing out on Cleo’s face. “You know, that was, uh. Nearly seven years ago,” he tells her, “and I had no idea what it meant.”

There’s a hand on his shoulder, suddenly. When he turns, Cleo only looks sad. Her hand comes up to his face, swiping away tears Pope hadn’t realized were spilling.

“I love you,” she tells him. “I love you. But I don’t–” she swallows, looks away, briefly. “I don’t know what to do with this, Pope.”

He’s not sure he knows, either.

Pope lets his eyes fall shut. Lets himself lean into Cleo’s touch, even if it isn’t fair. “I loved him.”

“Pope,” she whispers. “I’m sorry.”

“I didn’t know.”

“I know.”

He sinks forward, into her arms, fits his forehead onto her shoulder. She traces, softly, lines up and down his back. “Cleo, I love you.”

“Pope–”

“I do,” he tells her. “I love you. I love you so much. I don’t want to lose you. And I’m not trying to make you stay with me, I don’t know what to do, I can’t expect you to know, either. And I’m fucking confused,” he says, and then pulls away. Puts his head in his hands and stares out at the waves lapping against the shore. “I don’t understand how I–how I loved him this whole time and I had no idea, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love you.”

He swivels around to look at her. Catches her eyes, then leans forward, pressing one hand to her face. She’s looking at him like she’s unsure, but he can’t really blame her, can he? “I don’t get it,” he says, “and maybe I never will, and I feel like it doesn’t make any sense but it’s true. I loved him–I love him. And I love you.”

Cleo’s face falls, and she sighs. Grabs his other hand and loops their fingers together. “How?”

“I don’t know.” He answers her as honestly as he can. He doesn’t know how or why or what the fuck. He only knows how he feels. And what he feels is… a lot of love.

And a lot of grief.

“I’m not trying to hurt you,” he says. Looks down at her wrist, where an array of bracelets sit. He’s not sure which one is from JJ, but he knows one of them is. “That’s the last thing I want. But I can’t live with this and–and hide it from you. I can’t hide it from myself. It’s–” A sudden tremble wracks his body. “It’s fucking miserable.”

Cleo sits back against the couch, and lets him fall toward her. He rests his head on her shoulder, and they look out at the ocean together. “I don’t know what to say,” she tells him. “I don’t know how to feel.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. We can’t control our feelings, Pope. And love is never a bad thing. You’ve got so much of it.” She tilts her head, looks at him, thoughtfully. Smiles something small. “Wish I could love as fully.”

“You do. I feel it.”

She smiles something realer this time before it dissipates. “You gotta grieve him, Pope,” she says. Smooths a hand between his shoulder blades. “I might get in the way of that.”

“You’d never get in the way of anything.”

“I only mean it might be harder to grieve him the way you’re starting to grieve him, if you’re thinking of me, too.”

“I can’t lose you, Cleo,” he tells her. “I can’t.”

“Dramatic. Who said I was going anywhere?”

She sits up, pulls him up with her. Takes both of his hands in hers and looks at him. “Pope. You loved JJ for longer than you knew me. It’s gonna take a long time to heal from that.”

“Why does that mean I can’t love you, too?” He asks. “I loved you before he died. I love you today. I’ll love you tomorrow, Cleo.”

“But you’re grieving a future you’re only just realizing you could’ve had,” she tells him. “A future that might not have had me in it.”

Pope looks away.

He doesn’t want a future without Cleo in it. He doesn’t know whether he’d have put his feelings together if JJ hadn’t died. He doesn’t know what would have happened if he had. He’s not sure JJ ever would have loved him the same way. He doesn’t fucking know anything.

But he doesn’t want to have to choose between the two people he’s loved the most. So he tells her that.

“I don’t want to choose.”

“I’ll still be here tomorrow,” she tells him. “JJ won’t be. But you can’t choose me because I’m the only one who’s left, Pope.”

Pope pulls away from her. Feels a little like he might throw up. “I’d never. Jesus, Cleo. I wouldn’t do that to you.”

“I know you love me. But you’re confused, Pope, and as much as I love you–and I love you–I don’t want you to choose me because… Because I’m all there is.”

“I wouldn’t.”

“Honestly?” She puts a hand on his shoulder, tentative, so he can pull away if he wants. He stays still. “I don’t think you would. But I think you owe it to us to figure that out yourself. Think you owe it to JJ to think about him, too.”

“I don’t even–” He puts his face in his hands. “He loved Kie. I love you. Nothing ever would have happened, anyway.”

“Sarah was with that, uh, Topper guy before John B. And you were with Kie, once. Nothing’s so far-fetched, Pope.”

Pope’s heart feels like it’s sinking deeper into his chest with every new word exchanged between them. “It hurts to think about him. Let alone like… that.”

“Don’t you think you should think about it, then?” Cleo’s hand shifts to the back of Pope’s neck, and she leans in, presses a kiss to his cheek. Soft, sweet. “Pope. You’re heartbroken, and I can’t be the cure for it.”

“I don’t want you to be,” he whispers. “But I don’t want to lose you, too.”

“You’re always gonna have me. I’ll be here the whole way through. ‘N maybe on the other side, this is waiting for us,” she tells him, and then leans in. Kisses him, gentle. Loving.

Pope kisses her back. Cups her face between his hands and kisses her until they’re both breathless. Feels a little like he might never kiss her again. Hopes, a little absurdly, that she can taste the love on his lips, because he’s terrified he’s not saying it right.

Cleo rests her forehead against his, and when she sighs, Pope can feel it against his lips. “And maybe it isn’t.”

He loves her. He loves her.

“I love you.”

“I know, Pope.” She pulls away, shifts, rests her head on his shoulder. He wraps his arm around her, pulls her close. “I love you, too.”

The sun’s beneath the horizon. The last streaks of red are bleeding into purple and blue. When Pope turns his head, he can find the moon.

The wind is chilly on his skin and the breeze carries with it the scent of summer. Autumn’s peeking her head around the corner.

Pope stares into the ocean, and it stares right back.

Wide, endless blue.

JJ,

I don’t know that I know much at all.

If I’m as smart as you say I am, you’d think I’d have figured it out sooner. Before it was too late, at the very least.

I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t died. I don’t know if I would have figured it out. It’s unrealistic, but in my wildest dreams, I get to have you, and I get to have Cleo, too. I am yours and hers and for the rest of my life, for the rest of ours, I am content. I am happy.

It’s selfish, sure.

But they’re only dreams.

I wonder if, after however long it takes for the Moroccan sand to introduce your body back to the sky, whether your shark tooth will have melded with your bones. It’s a morbid thought, but you know me.

Here’s another morbid thought: it sounds, to me, a little romantic.

It’s comforting to know there’s a piece of me out there with you forever. I’d forgotten about it until recently. I think when I die I’m going to demand I be buried somewhere in Morocco, in an unmarked grave. Maybe we’ll find our way to each other in the afterlife, burrowing beneath the earth like moles. Blind and deaf and dumb, chasing only the feeling of love.

I don’t know what comes after this. I don’t know what comes next. I still can’t piece my future together without you. Every time I try to envision it, it comes apart in fragments.

All I know is I wish I had told you this before you died. All I know is I will never get to. All I know is I will live with that regret until the day I die.

JJ,

If you’re out there, somewhere, reading these letters, and you haven’t pieced it together yet,

I love you.

I always have.

Pope.

P.S.

Wait for me.

I’ll find my way to you.