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His first thought as the knife sinks inside is… oh. Nothing else, just oh.
Groff is talking, sneering, and the knife is traveling as JJ stares into eyes that look just like his own. He feels it then. He fucking feels it. And it hurts.
He watches the knife drag higher, feels it twist, and thinks oh.
He grunts through the pain. Grits his teeth because – ‘stop crying, boy!’ – and tries not to make a sound even as he feels his organs shred beneath that small knife.
Groff disappears, and JJ stares down at the blood blooming on his borrowed clothes. Kiara is behind him, her body pressed tight to his as she tries to lower him to the ground. But he stares at that blood, feels all that pain, and… oh.
She’s promising it’s okay. Even when the cries break through his lips. Even as the blood spreads. Even as his vision wavers. Even as the white hot pain spreads and spreads until he feels like he can’t breathe. Like he’s drowning.
“You’re gonna be okay! Let me see it.”
He cries out at the change in pressure as he lifts his hand. He expects the pressure to come back, for her tiny, perfect hands to take over. But they shake. And the blood spreads.
And he hears it. This tiny, broken sound that confirms what he already knows.
“Oh…”
Oh.
The thing no one tells you about becoming a treasure hunter when you’re 15 is that, despite every lucky call, you’re not actually invincible. Every bullet that misses, every punch that you dodge, every enemy you make brings you one step closer. Not to glory, not to riches. But to this. To the end.
Kiara is whispering, begging. Don’t move. But he barely hears her.
He feels like he’s beneath the water, like he’s sinking into a wave too big to surf this time.
She’s crying. She’s terrified.
And he gets his head above water. Just enough to suck in a breath. Just enough to whisper, “Kie, hey.”
She’s spiraling, she’s sinking, she’s drowning with him.
“It’s okay. It’s gonna be okay. JJ, please, it has to be.”
Everything is blurry, out of focus, everything but her. Her quivering chin, her teary eyes, her shaky voice. Even now, he thinks, she’s so beautiful. Even now, he thinks, I don’t want to go. Even now, he thinks, I got my wish. I already got it.
And JJ knows how this is supposed to go. He’s watched this movie a thousand times. And every action movie ends one of two ways. The hero gets the girl. Or the hero dies for her.
A jail cell or an early grave – he’s always known his fate. The Maybank curse.
“Hey, hey, hey, hey,” the word comes out jagged, pained, but it does its job. It lifts her eyes from the blood, from the wound, and gets her to focus on him again. He’s in pain; he doesn’t want her to be.
“I never told you my wish.”
He sees it on her face again, oh.
She knows what it means for him to tell her now. She begs him not to. But JJ has seen this film before. So, he tells her.
“I already got it. I already got my wish. Everything I wanted.”
And she begs. But he’s drowning, and even she’s starting to fade. And she begs him to stay. And fuck, he wants to stay. He wants to stay more than anything.
But he’s drowning.
So, he says, “Take care of the others.”
It’s unfair. And it’s cruel.
And it’s the part that every action movie gets wrong. Because death and goodbyes are not beautiful. They’re painful. And they’re final. And he’s fading fast.
And he loves her so fucking much.
His vision tunnels until she’s all he sees. The pain fades. His lungs feel heavy. He’s drowning. But she’s all he sees.
And, despite it all, he smiles. For her. For the life they had. For the life he hopes she has after him.
Because he loves her. And she loves him. And in her arms, he’s safe. He’s safe. He’s safe.
“I love you, Kie.”
He sinks beneath the wave and hears, “I love you too. I love you.”
Oh.
Daddy smells like motor oil, cheap beer, and cheaper shampoo.
Momma smells like flowers, laundry detergent, and pancake mix.
JJ wiggles deeper into the space between them on the couch and breathes them in. The scents don’t go together; they clash. So do Luke and Georgia.
But Momma smells like goodnight kisses and syrupy breakfast. And Daddy smells like playing in the ocean and bear hugs. So, JJ rests his cheek against Momma’s arm and drags Daddy’s big hand into his lap.
Daddy snores. Momma drools a little. JJ doesn’t sleep.
He gets restless quickly and wiggles his way back out from between them. Daddy is crooked, his neck tilted awkwardly as his eyes peek out between thin slits. Momma sits unnaturally still, her mouth hanging open.
Little orange bottles and white cans litter the coffee table. Little white baggies.
JJ hoists himself to his feet on the couch and grabs Daddy’s head. He straightens it, then presses a sticky 4-year-old kiss to Daddy’s cheek. He does the same for Momma, pressing a kiss against the bruise blooming on hers. He brushes her hair from her forehead the way she does for him at bedtime, then settles his toy shark into the crook of Daddy’s elbow.
He flips through one of the books Momma reads him at night. Plays war with his stuffed animals, making exploding sounds before tossing them in the air. Colors on the back of his door with his crayons. Makes music with the bottles on the coffee table, giggling as the pills inside rattle around.
Momma and Daddy sleep.
He finds his sailboat on the bathroom floor, his blue eyes going bright as he eyes the bathtub. He turns the water on, but it doesn’t fill. It sinks down the drain.
There’s a stool in the corner for when Momma makes him brush his teeth. He drags it over and turns on the sink. It gets hot too quickly; he yelps as he jerks his hand away, red and burning. But it drains too.
He eyes the toilet, then glances at the door as he rubs his tiny fingers around his wrist. No, Daddy doesn’t like it when he plays there.
The door to the porch creaks as JJ steps out. His covered feet are a little cold, but he forgets about it quickly. He drives his sailboat all over the porch, mouth humming like a motor as he jumps it over Daddy’s tools, bottles of Momma’s medicine, an old fishing rod.
He pauses, head tilting so his white-blonde hair flops to the side, and looks from the fishing rod out the screen door.
The sun shines at him from the water, an inviting glow that thrums in his skin. Because JJ loves the water.
He loves baths with Momma, sitting on the surfboard with Daddy, fishing in the marsh, running through the sand, swimming. He loves looking over the edge of the boat into the water and seeing the fish swim below the surface.
He looks down at the sailboat in his hand and smiles.
The ground is damp with morning dew, and it seeps into JJ’s footy pajamas as he runs down toward the marsh. The air is cool, but the morning sun is warm. He tilts his face up and closes his eyes. Water brushes against the shore, the sound of it drawing JJ back to his goal.
He doesn’t mind the cool water rushing up the legs of his pajamas. Because he smells the salt in the water, feels the sun on his skin, and sees his sailboat floating on the surface. He drives it around with his hands, pushing it left, then right, then letting it go to see it rock on the tide. And he smiles.
The tide takes it further, then brings it back. He giggles and stretches, gives it a push. It goes further, leaves a wider gap for his fingers to reach. That’s okay. He steps deeper into the water, pushes harder.
The ground beneath his feet is squishy, slippery. He’s giggling as he drives his boat into the water; it’s at his waist now. It splashes up his chest, hits his face. He sputters, then giggles.
Then splashes. And sinks.
No one pulls him out. No one smacks their strong hand against his back until he throws up salty sea water. No one brushes the hair from his eyes and promises ‘you’re okay, you’re okay.’
He just sinks, foot caught in something even as he kicks his little legs.
He can still see the sun. It’s blinding through the water. His sailboat dances on the water’s surface above him. He tries to reach it, sucks in a breath that burns and chokes him.
Momma?
Daddy?
His little hand reaches, fingers brush his sailboat, and then… oh.
Luke’s mouth is dry, his eyes feel heavy, and there’s a pounding in his head. He reaches blindly for Georgia, his hand patting the couch next to him. It’s empty but warm, like she hasn’t been gone long. Unsteady, he pushes himself up and blinks around the room, “Georgia? J?”
He hears her then, her voice a desperate wail, “Luke! Help! Someone help!”
Luke trips over the coffee table, eyes wide but unfocused. Part of him thinks it’s a dream, a bad trip, but he hears her again from the far side of the yard.
“Please, baby, please. J, JJ, please. Come on, baby.”
He doesn’t know how he gets to her. One minute, he’s in the living room, the next he’s on his knees as salty water seeps into his pants.
“Please, baby, breathe,” Georgia pleads.
The world swims into focus them. No, not the world. JJ.
His lips are blue. His skin is white. His chest doesn’t move.
Luke just stares. He blinks – is he still dreaming? – and when he touches the boy, he’s cold. Icy.
His boy. His boy.
“Luke!” Georgia looks as wrecked as he does, as confused, but she shoves his arm, “Do something!”
He’s too skinny, too pale, too small. His lips are too cold when Luke presses against them. His head tilts too readily – the boy hates being forced to do anything – and though his chest rises with the breath, it does nothing. Luke gives another and another.
Georgia’s hands shake as she pushes them into the boy’s stomach, his chest. She’s trying to do compressions, he thinks numbly, but they’re all wrong, not strong enough.
He bats her hands away and presses his own to JJ’s chest. He doesn’t know what he’s doing either, and there’s a crack when he does it. His hands go still, his breath comes shaky, “Sh-shit. I thi-think I broke a rib.”
Georgia leans over and presses her lips to JJ’s. She cries into his mouth before breathing into it.
Luke stares. Her lips are pretty pink, even now, but JJ’s are blue.
“Pl-please,” Luke gasps suddenly. And he doesn’t know who he’s begging. JJ? God? The universe? But he is begging now. “Please! Breathe, damn it!”
His lips slot over JJ’s again, his breaths more insistent. He doesn’t see the fingers twitch or the lashes flutter.
But he hears that first breath. Sharp and loud and sudden. And then there’s water and bile and spit. The boy cries, he sobs, he shakes.
Luke jerks the boy against his chest and realizes the sobs he’s hearing are his own. JJ is tiny and wet and shaking. But color is coming back into his lips and his cheeks.
He was drowning in water, and now he drowns in this. In the scent of Momma’s hair as it falls in his face, in Daddy’s smoky breath that he can still taste in his mouth.
He whimpers when Momma hugs him too tight; something in his belly hurts now. But she still smells like afternoon naps. Daddy still smells like monsters chased out from under his bed.
The sun is still warm. His sailboat is still bobbing on the surface of the water. And he’s breathing.
He fists his tiny hand into Daddy’s shirt as he cries. Each breath hurts. But their hands slide through his hair, brush tears from his face, hold him close.
“You’re okay, you’re okay, you’re okay,” Momma breathes into his hair.
“That’s my boy,” Daddy presses rough kisses against his cheeks and squeezes him too hard against his chest.
And oh. Oh, he’s safe. He clings to them. He’s safe.
Momma will be gone by the end of summer. She’ll leave a letter he doesn’t know how to read, a picture of her holding him from his third birthday, and a new sailboat after Daddy tosses the old one; this one will end up in the trash too.
So will the letter.
John B announces three weeks into third grade that JJ is his best friend. He ties his broken shoelace around both their wrists and hobbles after JJ on the playground with his shoe half hanging off his foot.
It’s the clearest JJ’s lungs have ever felt. He breathes easy; he smiles even easier. It’s simple, being John B’s best friend. It’s simple in a way nothing else is.
Because being Luke Maybank’s son is hard. It’s eggshells and beer and locking his door and crying and hugs that feel so good they hurt.
Being the class clown is a full time job. JJ jokes and laughs and makes a spectacle until every eye in the classroom is on him. Until the clown is all they see.
But being John B’s best friend? Is the easiest thing in the world. Even when it’s hard, when JJ can’t hide the bruise around his wrist in the shape of his dad’s hand… John B just ties a bandana there and holds his hand.
Because best friends are forever. Best friends are for life.
JJ’s still drowning, sinking lower and lower on the days he’s home. But John B’s hands tug him right back to the surface. Always. For life.
Accepting Pope is easier than accepting Kiara. He’s quiet, is the thing. Quiet and compliant and friendly. JJ challenges and Pope gives in; he gives in every time until JJ starts to feel guilty. So, JJ gives back.
Pope offers extra snacks, so JJ punches the boy who looks at him funny on the playground. JJ ends up in time out, so John B makes a mess and ends up on the other side of the room. Pope claims he needs to study and sits in the middle with his books. They can’t speak, can’t even really look at each other, but JJ thinks, this is what it means to be best friends.
It means sacrifice. It means never leaving.
It means breathing.
Kiara doesn’t give in to JJ’s challenges. She glares, she snipes, she smacks him with her long, curly, beautiful, annoying hair when she whips her head around to sneer at him. So, he challenges her harder.
They compete to be the fastest runner – she’s a head taller, better fed, and much faster. He lies and says he twisted his ankle, but he’ll get her next time.
They challenge each other to a kicking competition. The socker ball shoots back and forth for three recesses in a row before they realize they’re evenly matched. Neither looks happy about it.
He insists on a surfing competition. They’re only nine and his board is much too big – he borrows it from his dad and hopes he doesn’t notice it’s gone from the shed. Kiara’s good, is the thing. So good. Impossibly good. But JJ beats her anyway. He rides in the final wave and smiles so bright that all his friends have to look away from the pure sunshine radiating off of him.
“I win!” He says smugly.
Kiara just rolls her eyes. Smiles before trying to hide it, “I’ll get you next time.”
She smiles a little wider.
He’s drowning. He’s drowning. He’s drowning.
His shoelace friendship bracelet leaves indents on his wrist when Luke rips it off. JJ hides his hand in his pocket for four days.
On the fifth – a Friday – Kiara stomps right over and grabs his hand. He flushes but doesn’t pull away.
She ties something on his wrist, an assortment of blues and greens and yellows. He stares at it, runs his fingers over the string, then spots something similar on her own wrist.
There’s a lump in his throat. He can’t breathe.
Pope and John B wear them too. Each is blue and green, but there’s one extra thread per person. John B’s got a red so light that it might as well be pink. Pope’s has orange. JJ’s is yellow – ‘like the sun,’ she whispers before ducking her head. Kiara’s got yellow too. A different shade, like gold.
He tugs on it when he passes her on the way to his desk.
She tugs on his when he’s getting fidgety in class.
His dad still yells when he gets home – about messes, about chores, about everything – but JJ’s fingers slide along the material at his wrist.
He’s safe. He’s safe. He’s safe.
John B: dude im worried
John B: seriously
John B: if you don’t answer im coming over bro
John B: JJ please just answer me
Pope: John B’s blowing up my phone. You okay?
JJ’s phone lights up again and again. The words spill across the cracked screen, hidden in too-tall grass.
At 14, he almost reaches Luke’s height now. He’s skinny still, despite the muscles trying to pull through from days spent working on boats, mowing grass, and helping out with his dad’s odd jobs around the cut. But muscle can’t survive on its own, not when the body housing it is starving.
“Where the hell you think you’re goin’, boy?”
Luke’s hand swings toward JJ in an attempt to grab him. His eyes go a little crossed as he stumbles. He rights himself, then steps in a squishy patch of mud, and drops to a clumsy knee.
JJ wipes the back of his hand across his mouth and leaves a smear of blood there. He stares at Luke, at his father, and feels nothing but revulsion.
“Anywhere but here,” he manages to rasp.
He feels around in the grass for his phone. Then, he shoots his dad a look; Luke’s still struggling to get to his feet. Hell, he barely seems to know where he is right now.
He could leave him here. Let him sink slowly into the marsh. Let the water bubble up around him until even that goes still.
It would be better, he thinks. It would be safer. JJ could leave. Go to Yucatan. Or the Chateau. Hell, he could camp out in the back of Heyward’s Seafood and it would be better than this bullshit life with this bullshit father.
JJ’s bottom lip shakes. He chews on his cheek. Then, he reaches for Luke.
He slides his shoulder under his dad’s arm and hauls him up to his feet. He’s heavier than he looks, especially when he’s so high that he’s basically dead weight. They take a few steps, and Luke’s face contorts as he mutters, “Useless little fucker.”
Not too deadweight to wound, apparently.
JJ goes still.
His lip is split, he’s pretty sure he cracked a rib a few days ago, and Luke’s currently high on drugs he bought with JJ’s money.
He lets Luke fall then, slipping out from beneath his arm to watch him crash to the ground. Laughing, almost hysterical with it, he breathes, “Fuck you.”
“What’d you say to me?” Luke slurs as he pushes himself to his feet. He’s covered in mud, and the sight would have been funny if it wasn’t so damn sad.
“I said,” JJ says slowly as he straightens up, “Fuck. You.”
He can’t quite keep the tremor out of his hands even though he manages with his voice, “You- you stole from me, dad! You son of a bitch! You stole from me, and you hit me, and you-”
He really should have seen the hit coming; the hit always comes. But he doesn’t. And he goes down hard on his hands and knees.
“Ungrateful piece of shit!” Luke slurs as his boot connects with JJ’s gut.
The boy sinks into the mud. He can feel it sloshing into his boots and between the seams of his clothes. He can taste it.
He curls into a ball and tries to block the next hit. It catches his jaw so hard he thinks he might have chipped a tooth. He tastes salt, and for a split second he thinks it’s tears, but then he chokes on it.
He struggles, kicking and scratching, but there’s a hand in his hair and he can’t lift his head. There are words bouncing off the water, but JJ can’t hear any of them. Saltwater fills his ears, his nose, his mouth. It slips down his throat.
And he thinks, oh. He thinks, I’m drowning.
Somewhere deep, he thinks, I’ve been here before.
He can’t understand a word Luke says; he’s not even sure there really are still words. Because he’s beneath the water. He’s drowning. He’s always fucking drowning.
He can hear his momma calling for him, can hear her begging. He can feel her lips against his own, warm where his are cold.
His eyes are open, but he can’t see. He can’t see. He’s drowning. He can’t breathe.
There’s pressure on his chest. She’s still begging. She’s crying.
Lips. Pressure.
Big John’s missing. John B’s alone.
Lips. Pressure.
Kiara’s gone. John B’s alone.
Lips. Pressure.
Pope’s busy applying to scholarships. John B’s alone.
Lips. Pressure.
JJ’s drowning. John B’s alone.
Lips. Pre-
JJ’s whole body jerks with the breath. He rolls onto his stomach – when did he even get on his back? when did he get out of the water? – and he throws up. There’s nothing more than water. But it feels like it will never stop, like he’ll never stop being sick.
There’s a hand in his hair, gentle, concerned.
“That’s it, boy. Just breathe,” Luke’s voice is shaky. His hand is careful.
JJ jerks away sharply at his voice. He crawls backwards and almost ends up right back in the water. But Luke catches his wrist and pulls him back onto solid ground.
They stare at each other; neither knows how to look away. And then JJ’s world goes dark.
The world comes back to JJ slowly. Hands on his cheek and jaw, a soft voice, the smell of sandalwood. Instinct has him ready to pull away, but he knows that voice. Knows it enough to feel safe. Knows it enough to worry.
He swallows, but it hurts. It hurts his throat, his lungs, his head.
“Easy, bubba,” the voice whispers.
Oh.
It takes effort, too much effort, but his eyes finally flutter open. They burn like he’s still in the water, like he’s still drowning. Because he’s always drowning.
He blinks until John B comes into focus. He’s smiling – because when is John B not smiling? – but it’s crooked, unsure, scared. It wobbles as he breathes, “Hey buddy, welcome back.”
“What the fuck happened?” JJ asks.
He knows. About the water. About the fight. About the lips and the pressure and the breathing. But… he looks down at himself, down at the floor of the Twinkie, up at John B.
He glances toward the drivers’ seat and half expects to see Pope. His eyes shift to the passenger seat too even though it’s been months since Kiara sat there. Then back to John B.
“I was hoping you could tell me that,” John B breathes. He helps JJ sit up and sees the moment JJ realizes they’re parked right outside his house. The panic is immediate, but John B settles his hands on JJ’s shoulders, “He’s not here. I promise, J.”
It’s more of an acknowledgement than either of them ever gives. It makes JJ’s bottom lip quiver.
He can still feel Luke’s hand on the back of his head, pressure holding him beneath the surface. His fingers shake until he shoves them through his wet hair and then into his pockets.
He can’t tell John B. Not this.
Because he also remembers nicotine lips and hands on his chest. He also remembers regret.
Luke’s his dad.
He wants to deflect, to make a joke, to make John B look away. But there’s still salt in his lungs and mud in his hair.
He almost flinches when John B hugs him. But the arms are steady and strong and familiar. So, JJ sinks into it. He breathes out against John B’s shoulder and slips his own thin arms around John B’s back.
He’s safe. He’s safe. He’s safe.
Luke won’t touch him for almost six months. He won’t even look at him. And the Chateau will become even more of a home for him as the Pogues come back together; Kiara comes back on a random Saturday and just never leaves.
It’s JJ’s favorite Saturday in the world.
He knows it’s a mistake to give his dad the money. It’s an even bigger one to try and take it back.
But JJ is just so fucking tired.
It’s like he told John B – he’s tired of being messed with. Beaten down. Treated like shit.
His life these last few weeks since they found that Grady White has been nothing but pure chaos, even by JJ’s standards. He’s been shot at, gone to jail, and stolen from a drug dealer. He can’t even count the amount of beatdowns he’s taken lately thanks to Rafe Cameron and his merry band of Kooks.
But this is worse.
Because his dad’s hands are around his throat. And he can’t breathe. He can’t breathe. He can’t fucking breathe.
He’s drowning.
He’s above water, but he’s drowning. In the haze of beer, nicotine, and motor oil. With hands around his neck. The same hands that had once pulled him from the marsh… the ones that had later put him back in.
He wonders who will breathe air back into his lungs this time.
He wonders too, as he feels his face go hot and his breath waver under the force of his father’s fingers, how long it will be before they realize he’s gone. If ‘we’re sick of your shit’ means forever.
He’s barely 16; he doesn’t want to die. Not now. Not here. On this stupid fucking porch with his dad’s projects and his dad’s beer and- he doesn’t want to drown anymore.
Clawing at his dad’s face does nothing, but the knee to his side does. And the second those hands loosen, JJ sucks in a breath so deep he almost chokes on it. He’s alive. He’s alive.
“All you ever did was try and scare me! Well, guess what, Dad?”
He’s still repeating it in his head – I’m alive, I’m alive, I can breathe – when he finds himself holding the wrench. His hand shakes as he clenches his teeth and tastes blood. But he’s not afraid.
Not of Luke anyway. If JJ’s afraid now, it’s only of himself. Of what his hands are capable of.
Because in this moment, his dad is beneath him in the dying grass for once. He’s bruised. He’s weak. He’s afraid.
So, JJ lifts the wrench higher. He thinks about it. About how good it would feel to take the power back for once. About how easy his life would be if Luke wasn’t in it.
His hand shakes harder.
He could do it. He could. Someday… someday he might have to.
But today, JJ is 16. And alone. And there’s only ever been one place he feels safe.
JJ sniffs and lets the wrench drop, lets go of his father’s shirt so he falls limp in the grass.
“I ain’t scared of you anymore.”
He wanders for hours after. There’s air in his lungs again and bruises on his torso. Not his neck though – he checked – for as much as it hurts to swallow, there’s not even a single bruise there.
He’s been in the hot tub for an hour when Kie and Pope show up. He’s also been drinking for that entire hour.
Because he can feel the air in his lungs, but he’s still drowning. JJ doesn’t remember the last time he really breathed. The last time his head was above the water.
Before he was arrested. Before they found the compass. Before he saw Pope Heyward with his family for the first time in fourth grade and realized it wasn’t normal for his dad to leave bruises on his arms.
His brain is hazy as they yell at him.
We’re sick of your shit. We’re sick of your shit. We’re sick of your shit.
It runs on repeat. So, he jokes. He laughs. He talks about the Cat’s Ass and pours more champagne. He hides behind his sunglasses and the water and his humor. And he’s drowning. He’s fucking drowning. But he’s smiling. And they’re yelling. And he can’t fucking breathe.
He calls them family, and it’s true – loving them is the only true thing he’s ever known.
And part of him thinks they might hate him, that he pushed too far, ruined too much. He thinks his dad might be right; that he’s worthless, a piece of shit, the reason people leave.
They should hate him. He hates himself.
He gulps air that feels too full of salt and regret and thinks he’ll always be drowning. Always sinking. Deeper, further, darker. And no one will ever know.
But it’ll be okay if they “just get in.”
Kie does.
He breaks. His lungs expel all that water, all that salt, all that regret.
“I just wanna do the right thing.”
Her hands are cool against his warm skin. He can’t breathe, but he’s trying and she’s holding him. And, “I know. I know.”
He rests his head against Pope, breathes in the scent of them.
Oh.
His mom had smelled like broken dreams. His dad smells like nightmares. But Pope smells like hope and love and sacrifice. And Kiara smells like second chances and friendship bracelets and locked doors. They smell like home.
He goes through the motions on unsteady legs. Lets Pope push him into the bathroom to clean up and change clothes, lets Kie tuck him in on the pullout. He stares at the ceiling, sees the remnants of the glow in the dark star that broke in half when they tried to pry it off two years ago.
He thinks he falls asleep alone on the pullout, but when he wakes up, there’s an arm around his waist and a hand in his hair. Pope snores behind him, but Kiara is looking right at him. Even in the dark, he sees her cheeks go a bit pink at being caught. Still, her hand stays in his hair.
Her eyes shift down to his neck; she frowns, “Where’s your shark tooth?”
He shudders. The cord had been so tight to his neck, pressing into his skin beneath his dad’s fingers. He closes his eyes.
Her fingertips are cold when they brush his neck; his breath catches in his throat. She goes still. Too still. He wonders if she sees it then, if his skin has finally revealed the marks that he can feel inside. When he opens his eyes, he knows she sees them.
Her knuckles brush his Adam’s apple. Her bottom lip quivers. He thinks she might understand, that she might see it then. That some part of him is still in the marsh, that some part of him won’t ever come out.
He squeezes his eyes shut when she moves closer. Her lips brush his forehead, featherlight. His eyelashes feel wet suddenly.
He opens his mouth to make a joke, to tease her about taking advantage of his inebriated state or to say ‘you totally want me, how embarrassing.’ But then her chin rests on top of his head and her nails scrape across his scalp.
The sound he lets out might be a sob. Or a moan. Or worse, a whimper. But she just whispers, “I’ve got you.”
And… oh.
Kiara’s still facing him when he wakes up, but she’s asleep now. Pope too – boy can sleep through anything.
JJ fishes the shark tooth from his pocket. He rubs it between his fingers, remembers opening it on his 11th birthday. He’d had scraped knees and a fractured wrist from riding his bicycle off the ramp they built in John B’s backyard. He’d had bruises too; those hadn’t been from the fall.
But Pope had handed over the box he’d meticulously wrapped. Kiara had hugged him. John B had clasped it around his neck.
It had been his best birthday. His favorite gift. The one thing he never took off… until last night.
His fingers shake as he tries to put it back on now. He can still feel it against his skin. Choking. Squeezing.
He can still feel it against his skin the first time too. Loving. Comforting.
His breath stutters in his chest when hands reach over and take the necklace from him.
Pope doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t touch his neck the way Kiara had. He doesn’t cry, even as his eyes linger on the marks that are half-hidden beneath JJ’s tan. He just carefully closes the clasp and turns it so the shark tooth rests on JJ’s neck.
In the morning, before John B comes storming in for the gun, before the world explodes around them again, Kiara brushes her fingers over the necklace.
She smiles.
He breathes, shaky, then sure. He’s safe.
He smiles back.
JJ would make an amazing action hero, he thinks. He’s seen enough movies for it. He knows all the right lines, all the right moves. He knows how the stories always end. In blood and glory. Destruction. Then victory.
He knows that heroes die young, but he’s headed there already. There or prison.
He’s tried the jail thing already with ‘It wasn’t him! It was me!’ With a stolen ambulance and a prisoner who knew his name.
It’s easy to imagine it on the ship, on The Coastal Venture. He talks about taking the armory, storming the bridge, taking down the Cameron family for good. And they put him on time out. They stick him on the B Team and leave him to drown in his own sweat in the back of a storage container.
Kiara stays too. She’s hot. She’s annoyed. He likes her best like that, he thinks. Annoyed. Rolling her eyes. A little reckless.
When he tells her his dreams, it’s not because he thinks they’ll really happen. It’s because he knows they won’t.
Maybanks don’t leave Kildare Island. They don’t go on trips around the world. They stay in tiny houses filled with broken bottles and unrealized dreams. They stay and they rot and they become monsters. And then they die.
But, for just a moment, when their eyes meet, when she smiles and says – “Got room for one more?” – JJ wants this dream to be real, to come true.
He wants her to come.
“You got your passport?”
“You don’t have a passport.”
“Hell no, I don’t got a passport. Kookiest thing ever.”
He’ll remember this moment, he thinks. Ten years down the line, when he’s rotting away and she’s saving the world, he’ll remember her laugh, her smile. He’ll remember the way she made him hope, for just a second. The way it felt like, for five minutes, he wasn’t drowning.
The thing about hope though, the thing he knows but forgets sometimes, is how much it hurts when it goes away.
It feels good when his plan succeeds. When they lock the crew in and make their way to the cross. When they do their handshake and grin about the surf trip that almost feels real now. It feels good, and he feels like the hero in one of his movies. Like, for once, he’s actually useful. Like maybe he’s not a waste of space. Maybe… maybe it’s okay if he lets himself hope.
He gets knocked down. His vision blurs as his head bangs back against the side of the ship. But he sees her. He sees the captain, the machete, Kiara.
He’s not thinking about being an action star anymore. He’s not thinking anything except ‘not her, not her, not her!’
“Kie! Kie!”
The elbow to his jaw makes him slow, unsteady. He wobbles on his feet, eyes blurring, body swaying.
The machete swings. She ducks. He doesn’t.
He doesn’t feel it this time when the water slips down his throat. He doesn’t choke on it; he just breathes it in.
He floats, feels nothing.
He’s drowning. He’s always been drowning. But he can’t feel it this time.
He doesn’t feel it when she pulls him against her. When she slaps his cheek. When she cries. When she presses her lips to his hair and begs him to stay with her.
They start to sink, both of them. He’s sinking, and she can’t hold him up, so she sinks too. And he doesn’t feel it.
Prison or an early grave.
He sinks. And sinks. And sinks.
“Please, please! Please, get up! Get up!”
The world is spinning. No. Rocking. Spinning and rocking. It’s spinning and rocking, and everyone is screaming. And it’s bright. And it’s loud.
And he chokes. Spits. Coughs. It’s familiar and painful and confusing.
He sees their smiles and hears their cheers, but all he can feel is the water choking its way out of him. It spills down his chin, a wave of water that feels like it’ll never stop.
He feels pressure too. On the back of his neck. On his shoulder. It’s cool, it’s persistent. It grounds him.
His head hurts and his vision is still blurred, but he follows that pressure. Finds a tiny hand, beautiful, covered in rings, surrounded by bracelets that remind him of hope. He follows the arm up, up, up. And… oh.
Oh. Kiara.
Her smile is wobbly and wet and wide and beautiful and, “Hi.”
His head still hurts, his brain is still foggy, but she’s beautiful and he’s alive. And he might be drowning, but he thinks it’s worth it to earn a smile like that from her.
So, he does the only thing his foggy brain can manage and says a flirty, “Sup?”
And fuck, her smile is even brighter then. And she holds him to her chest and something presses to the wound because – oh yeah, he got hit with a machete – and it hurts, but it’s good.
Because he’s breathing. And he’s alive. And they lost everything, but his friends are smiling at him like maybe him being alive is worth something.
Maybe he is worth something.
“You were going under,” John B tells him later.
They’re sitting shoulder to shoulder against a tree as Cleo starts a fire. Sarah’s down by the water, her lips curving down as she shields her eyes from the setting sun and looks for any hint of a ship. Pope’s talking Kiara’s ear off about something, but JJ can feel her eyes from across the beach.
“I kinda gathered that when I threw it all up on the lifeboat,” JJ quips easily. He lets himself look, but her eyes shift back to the ocean before he can catch her gaze.
“No, J,” John B knocks his knee against JJ’s. Now, he’s looking at Kiara too. His brows go down when he frowns, and he murmurs, “You were both sinking.”
JJ’s brows twitch. Kiara is focused on Pope now. Or pretending to be, anyway. She doesn’t see JJ’s frown or the way he shakes his head despite the ache that makes him want to vomit from the act.
It takes a minute to tear his eyes from her, to focus them on John B, to really hear what he’s saying, “Me and Kie?”
“Yeah,” John B grabs JJ’s chin without warning. He tilts his face away and brushes the hair away from his wound. It’s forceful, like he knows JJ will protest otherwise, but it’s tender too, the way best friends always are.
JJ can feel John B’s breath on his cheek as he leans in and pokes around the wound, “We heard her screaming as we came around the boat. She was… she was leaning back in the water, like…” he hesitates, “Like she was letting go.”
“That’s smart,” JJ says. He watches the water lap at Sarah’s feet from the edge of the beach. “It would have been stupid if we both went under.”
John B’s fingers go still. The grip on JJ’s chin loosens and then goes hard, almost too hard. He jerks JJ’s head to the side, and JJ’s vision goes a little blurry before focusing on John B’s face which is suddenly in front of him again.
“What did you just say?”
He sounds angry. His fingers feel angry. And though JJ knows he’s safe with John B, he pushes his hand off and frowns, “What?”
“She was going down with you, man. She let go-”
“Yeah, you said-”
“Not of you!” John B hisses. He lowers his head and chases JJ’s eyes, “Kiara was sinking with you, J.”
JJ’s brain is fuzzy. It’s the hit from the machete, he thinks. Or the water that still clings to his lungs. Or, maybe, it’s not any of that.
His eyes shoot back to Kiara. She’s still not looking at him. But now he can’t help but look at her. Even when John B sighs. Even when John B tries to bring his gaze back, he finds himself watching her from the corner of his eye.
He doesn’t look away until John B’s hand is on the back of his head, until he’s forced. And then he focuses, because there’s something in John B’s expression, some devastation that JJ doesn’t understand. And maybe it’s because he’s mildly concussed. Maybe it’s because he’s still half drowned and confused.
But then John B whispers, “It wouldn’t have been better if she let you go.”
JJ blinks. He opens his mouth – to protest, probably – but then John B’s hand is over his mouth. It’s warm. JJ thinks about licking it just to get him to let go. Instead, he stays. He’s still.
“It wouldn’t.”
And fuck, how can JJ argue when John B’s looking at him like that? When he’s staring at JJ the way he had in the back of the Twinkie 2 years ago. JJ’s hair had been wet then too, his lungs full of salt water, John B’s eyes full of tears.
So, JJ nods. And John B lets go.
The sun goes down. The Pogues get quiet. No one is sleeping; JJ’s been told he’s not allowed to.
He watches Kiara. She steals glances at him right back. They’re on opposite sides, four bodies between them. He bites his lip. She bites hers.
He knows without looking that she’s following him. She’s quiet about it even though no one is sleeping at their makeshift camp. He sinks into the sand. She sinks next to him.
JJ opens his mouth, but the words die on his lips. He doesn’t know if he wants to say thank you or call her an idiot. He loves her, is the thing. Loves her fire and her anger and her happiness and her loyalty. He loves her for not letting go. He loves her so much, he wishes she had.
John B is his best friend, but Kiara is… she’s Kiara. She’s a third of his heart, is the thing. And yeah, he knows he might need to rethink those fractions now that Sarah’s gone full Pogue and Cleo seems to be here to stay. But hell, JJ’s never been that good at math anyway.
He looks at her. She looks at him.
Her hand is in the sand between. He settles his on top. They both stare at their hands as she flips hers over so they’re palm to palm. Her hands are tiny, and her fingers fit easily between his own.
Oh.
They’re on a deserted island. No food, no shelter, no anything. But JJ thinks this might just be the safest place he’s ever been.
He squeezes. She smiles. They both look back at the water.
JJ’s pretty sure he hasn’t taken a full breath since the moment they left Poguelandia. The closest was when Kiara crashed against his chest on that dock. But then John B was gone, they were being shot at again, and there was an eviction notice on his door.
His friends came home to family, to love. To money and new clothes and resurrected fathers. He loses them to it. Loses himself to the rest. To family curses and loneliness. To warm beer, cocaine remnants on the coffee table, and padlocks on his front door.
For three weeks, he wanders like a ghost around Kildare. He fights against this thing growing between himself and Kiara, pretends he doesn’t know that John B is lying to them about everything, ignores the gaping wound inside of him where his dad used to be.
He loves Kiara. Always has. Loves her enough to know she deserves better than to sink with him. And she will sink with him. Because he knows she loves him too.
That’s the part that makes it so hard to breathe, the part that he chokes on when he lets himself imagine it. Imagine what a life with Kiara could be, how good it would feel.
But she’s beautiful and alive and has the whole world laid out before her.
And JJ’s been half-dead his whole life. He’s been drowning since the age of four, half of him still down in that marsh staring up at the sailboat bobbing on the surface.
Kiara will not drown with him the way Georgia drowned with Luke. So, he pushes. And he lies. And he’s mean. He’s every worst thing he could be; he wants her to hate him. But she doesn’t. Even after the money clip. Even after ‘It’s not gonna work, okay?’
He drowns and drowns and drowns for three weeks until John B says, “My dad killed two guys.” And suddenly, he’s breathing.
It’s awful. It’s cruel. And John B looks devastated. But JJ’s breathing – John B needs him to be breathing, so JJ breathes. He pats the porch, wraps his arm around John B, and promises they’re going to fix it.
The Chateau burns to the ground. It takes their childhood with it.
JJ chokes on soot and ash and watches the only true home he’s ever known – he tries not to think of Poguelandia and the fact that he might be the only one who misses it – go up in literal flames.
He can’t bring John B’s home back, can’t take that burden from him, but he can sure as hell get on that plane and help save his best friend’s dad.
“We’re gonna have to do this without her,” Pope says when Kiara never shows up to the tarmac.
And JJ gets it, he does. He’s lived his entire life weighing the odds between what he can live with and without. He could live with the abuse because he couldn’t live without his dad. But this? Kie?
Nah, she’s a non-negotiable.
There’s a beat of silence. Two.
“No. Gimme the keys.”
He’ll help save Big John, he will, but he can’t leave her. He won’t.
John B’s face goes all stupid and goofy when JJ says, “Besides, I kinda owe her.” And JJ wants to hate him for it, but he loves this idiot. And he loves that girl. And he loves Big John.
So, though he can’t really breathe right now, he’ll save them. All of them. Starting with Kie.
The truth is, he doesn’t save her. Well, he does. He sneaks in, hops over some railing because this just feels too much like a spy movie not to, and he unlocks the door. But she runs to him. She kisses him. She breathes life into him.
Because she says, “I love you.”
And this time, he lets her. This time, he realizes the thing she’s been trying to say all along – she was never sinking with him; he was rising with her.
He wasn’t sucking the air out of her lungs; she was breathing it into him and begging him to let her pull him from the water.
So, he lets her. And he whispers, “I love you too,” all breathless and quick. And she kisses him. And he loves her. And fuck, it feels so good to love her.
And the girls are cheering and some voice in his head is whispering ‘oh, oh, oh.’
He holds her hand in the back of Barracuda Mike’s plane. They’re both laughing. They might both be crying. But they’re together. And they’re safe.
South America will threaten to drown every single one of them, even when they emerge with the fortune they fought for. They’ll be changed. Harder. And softer. More together than they’ve ever been after weeks forced apart.
They’ll build a home out of the remnants of JJ’s past. Too much money will go into it, but they won’t care, not once it’s done. Not once it’s home.
Every bit of spackle on the wall will threaten to choke him. Every swipe of paint will make it a little easier to breathe.
The house of his nightmares will become the safest home he’ll ever know.
Sarah isn’t breathing when JJ gets her to shore.
Her lips are blue. Her skin is cold. The rain is still pelting them, even as he leans over her to try and take the brunt of it. He pats her cheek, he shakes her, he lays his head on her chest and listens for her heart.
Oh. Oh… no. No, no, no.
“Sarah, come on. Come on!”
He looks back at the water; it rushes quickly up onto shore. But he can’t see the ship. He lost sight of it hours ago. Was it hours? He doesn’t know.
He’s lightheaded, he’s got too much saltwater in his belly, and his eyes are burning as bad as his throat.
But Sarah isn’t moving.
“Come on, don’t do this,” he begs.
He took a CPR course once – he had to so he could be a lifeguard over the summer – but he got kicked out for goofing off.
“Shit, shit, shit,” he mutters as he tries to remember. But he’s cold. And he’s shaking. And a sob travels up his throat.
And then he looks at her.
He remembers the bruises on her neck when they got to Poguelandia. He remembers her face when Ward ‘blew up’ and when he took the bullets for her. He remembers the way she’d winked at him when she realized he and Kiara had finally figured it out.
He remembers, ‘Yeah, you’ll be a great dad.’
He clenches his jaw, sucks in a breath, and then places his lips on hers.
They’re colder than he expects.
He tips her head back and squeezes her nose before blowing in a breath. And then he pumps. He knows it’s too soft, and though it scares him, he applies more pressure.
“You have to live,” he tells her as he pumps his hands hard against her chest. “Sarah, you have to!”
It’s almost comical how hypocritical he is.
He’s been drowning since he found out about his family. Maybe a little bit since the enduro. Wrong choice after wrong choice. Fight after fight. Pushing everyone away. Breaking every promise he’s ever made.
It doesn’t matter that he does it to try and save them. It doesn’t matter that he does it because he’s never felt truly safe a day in his life. Because he still does it. Still hurts them. Still hurts himself.
“Please,” he cries onto Sarah’s cheeks and presses his lips back to hers.
He’d thought about kissing her once when he was 15, when the worst thing in the world was Topper Thornton’s annoying ass smirking at him across The Boneyard. He’d wondered then if she would have let him, if she was one of those Kooks who would have found a thrill in rolling around with trash from the cut. It had been a fleeting thought, just another way to wound himself.
This isn’t what he’d wanted.
“Sarah, please, please. John B needs you,” he pleads against her lips before sitting up to pump her chest harder.
He knows how bad a broken rib hurts; he doesn’t know if a pregnancy can survive that. He doesn’t know if a pregnancy can survive this either.
So, he’s careful. But insistent.
Because he wants to live. And he needs her to live too.
For John B. For Kiara. For all of them.
He wants to take his life back from Chandler Groff. From Luke Maybank. He doesn’t want to be their son. He just wants to be… JJ. Whoever the hell that is.
He’ll figure it out, he thinks.
If he can just get Sarah to take. One. Goddamn. Breath.
“Stop being a stubborn bitch, Sarah, and breathe!”
She chokes while his lips are on hers, spits the water right in his face. And he laughs even as he turns her on her side and rubs her back, “There it is. There it is. Let it out.”
She cries when her stomach is empty. JJ cries with her. He hides his face in her hair and squeezes her into his chest.
“Th-thank you, thank you,” she sobs.
He pulls back, his lips shaking as his eyes skim her face, and then breathes, “Thank you.”
They’re not safe, not yet. But they’re alive. And they’re together. And JJ thinks, yeah… that’s a start.
The thing about action heroes in the movies is that they always get one of two endings. They get the girl. Or they die for her.
JJ gives up the treasure to save his girl. His wish.
He tells her he loves her as he bleeds out in the middle of the desert.
Because there was never another way this story could end. Not because he’s a Maybank. Not because Chandler Groff carried out Blackbeard’s curse on the Genrettes.
There was never another way this story could end because no treasure, no money, no gold had ever mattered the way Kiara Carrera mattered. Because JJ had been drowning since he was four. Because he’d been saved by a shoelace friendship bracelet once. By a hug in a hot tub. By a kiss in a cabin. By cold lips in the desert spitting water into his face.
Because she’d pulled him from the water once and held his hand on the beach.
But the thing about action heroes. The thing about movies.
Sometimes… they get sequels. Reboots. Sometimes, the hero gets a second chance.
He feels the sun first. The heat of it is stifling.
It’s nothing like the sun in the OBX. The heat here is oppressive and heavy. It closes in around him, makes him sweat, makes him burn.
He feels nothing. And then he feels the sun.
He feels the sun and then he feels the ache. It’s deep. Deeper than the anchor. It’s skin and tissue and organs. It’s pain. Pain begging to be healed, begging to be felt.
His throat burns. Salt and sand and dirt. He can taste it on his tongue, feel it in his throat. He’s sure it lives in his lungs too, thinks he might choke on it, cough it up. He doesn’t.
His lips are dry. Something wet brushes them. He tries to open his mouth; he can’t. His tongue moves beneath his lips, dry and insistent, but it can’t push between them.
There’s a humming in his ears. It’s gentle. Musical. No rhythm, no beat.
The pain in his side gets worse. It feels like the knife is back inside, like it’s moving, traveling.
The hum in his ear gets louder.
He tries to scream. But he can’t open his mouth, can’t move his tongue just right. The sound catches in his throat, comes out as a broken whimper.
Something soft presses to his forehead. It moves. Opens, closes. Lips. A kiss?
“…okay,” he hears.
He tries to move his head toward the sound, the word. But he feels paralyzed.
Fire spills down his side, drips across his belly, and lands in the sand. The pain then is sharp. A single pin prick, then something tugging. His mouth tears open, wide and sudden, and he screams. It happens again and again.
Sharp stab. Tug. Scream.
Sharp stab. Tug. Scream.
Sharp stab.
“I know, baby, I know.”
“You’re doing good, bubba,” another voice tells him before another scream tears from his throat. “Just a little longer.”
His mouth opens. For another scream, another breath, another something. And the world disappears.
His eyelids are heavy but movable when he wakes up again. His eyes move behind them first, left at the sound of Pope’s voice. Right when John B answers.
He hums in the back of his throat; it burns. Someone is there instantly. They lift his head, a warm hand on the back of his neck, and cool water pours slowly into his mouth. He chokes on it, coughing hard.
No, no, no, not the drowning, not again.
“Shhh, you’re okay, baby,” Kiara’s fingers are gentle on his cheek. He can feel her rings, her friendship bracelets soft against his cheek. “Nice and easy.”
His throat starts to move this time as they pour again. He sips slowly and she breathes, “There you go, Jayj.”
“You think you can open your eyes for us, buddy?” Pope asks. He sounds worried; it makes JJ’s brows furrow.
“’m trying,” he mumbles.
Relieved laughter bubbles out of Sarah.
Cleo breathes a sigh of relief and then mutters, “Took you long enough, Rude Boy.”
His eyelids flutter. They’re heavy, so fucking heavy. But he keeps trying.
The fingers of his left hand flex and he realizes someone’s holding it. John B, he thinks. Pope’s got a hand on his shoulder, his fingers squeezing occasionally. And Kiara’s stroking his hair, kissing his forehead, his cheeks, his lips.
Before he can even get his eyes open, he’s trying to follow her lips as they move away.
Sarah snorts and mutters something that sounds suspiciously like, “Good to know even death doesn’t kill his libido.”
“Death?” He manages to get an eye open then. Just one. “That was real?”
He keeps blinking even as his friends all exchange looks. And by the time he finally gets both eyes open, Kiara has the saddest expression he’s ever seen on her face.
His own face falls, “I’m dead? Is this… fuck, is this like heaven or somethin’?”
He tries to lift himself up on his elbows, but the pain in his side is sharp. He cries out as he falls back and mutters, “Or hell?”
“This is the Moroccan desert, bubba,” John B answers when Kiara’s lips start to shake but nothing comes out.
“And you are very much alive,” Pope says as he pushes down on JJ’s shoulder. JJ settles back onto the ground and blinks the blur from his vision when Pope adds, “Hence, the pain.”
“Because Groff stabbed me,” JJ says. He lifts his eyes to Kiara’s face. There are tear tracks on her face when she nods.
He studies her, from the quake in her lips to the tremor of her fingers in his hair, “And I died. That was real?” He asks again.
Kiara sucks in a breath. Then nods.
This time when he tries to sit up, John B slots his arm behind JJ and helps. It hurts – bad – but he needs to face her. To see her.
His mouth is still dry when he slides his tongue across his lips and asks, “How am I- How long?”
“A few days,” Cleo says. She’s got a sling on her arm; she looks a little sick.
They all look a little sick.
“How long?” he asks again.
“Five days,” John B confirms when no one else speaks.
JJ’s eyes move slowly around the patch of desert. There’s a patch of dark red sand, bloody bandages, string. He looks down then, hand shaking as he pulls up his shirt. There it is.
The stab wound is freshly stitched, the skin raw and red. He wants to touch it, but his hands are sandy and Pope’s fingers catch him around the wrist. He drops his shirt.
Five days but his friends look older. Worn in a way he’s never seen them.
Kiara wears it the worst; it’s something in her eyes. They all have it, that thing, but it’s freshest on her. Because she watched it happen, he realizes.
John B and Pope look nearly as weary though. Exhausted. Devastated.
“How did you-”
He stops, tilts his head to the side when he sees it. The crown.
It looks… different. Less special somehow than it felt when he was on top of that statue.
“We got Groff,” John B says. He lifts his chin a little, but JJ sees it wobble. “He’s with Rafe back on the ship. We wanted to-”
He bit his lip. Pope takes over, “It was more important to get you back. It was the only important thing.”
JJ chews on his cheek as he looks at his friends. His family. And then he looks at her. Really looks at her.
And quietly, he whispers, “Kie… I’m sorry.”
She breaks then. Sobs into her hands. Then his neck when he pulls her in. He hears Pope’s quiet ‘your stitches!’ but he just wraps Kiara tighter into his arms. She kisses all over his face as she cries. Whispers her own apologies, her love, her regrets.
Lips brush the back of his head and then John B is wrapped around them both. “Fuck, bubba, you really did it this time.”
Pope grumbles about stitches and ‘be careful’ and ‘guys, this isn’t the best idea’ even as he buries his face into JJ’s neck.
Sarah and Cleo jump in on the love too, though they’re both actually careful about his stitches – Cleo’s got some of her own, after all.
They hold him, and he holds them. And he’s breathing.
And oh. This.
He remembers that day in the marsh. The day he fell in and felt like he never really came out. He remembers the salt in his lungs, the way he’d clung to his father, the way his mom had pressed kisses into his hair. He remembers drowning, remembers watching the sailboat bobbing above him in the glare of the sun, remembers choking and crying and kicking and being stuck.
The Maybank curse.
The Genrette curse.
The Groff legacy.
For fourteen years, he lived in that marsh. Sinking. Drowning.
Lips kiss him from every side now. Cheeks and hair and his mouth. ‘I love you’s are pressed into his skin, breathed into his hair. Arms and hands hug him, stroke his hair, squeeze his fingers.
They smell like desert, like sweat, like sun. But mostly, they smell like home. Like safety. Like everything he’s spent his entire life trying to find.
He’s alive. He’s finally, finally, finally safe. And he’s going home.