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The rumors hit school like they always do, fast, sloppy, and cruel.
Emily Prentiss missed two weeks, and by the time she comes back, people are whispering. Chemo. Wig. Maybe dying.
JJ doesn't listen to any of it. Or rather, she does, she just doesn’t believe most people deserve to say her name.
They weren’t there the day Emily fell asleep in biology, the sweat visible on her skin as she tried to hide away in her hoodie. They didn't see the way she was leaning on the window like it was the only thing holding her up. They didn’t walk her to the nurse’s office when the teacher finally noticed, didn’t sit outside on the too-hard bench while Emily tried not to cry behind the thin divider curtain, her voice hoarse as she muttered, “I’m fine,” through gritted teeth.
JJ was.
JJ remembers the way Emily’s hand shook when she passed her a bottle of water, how she barely managed to twist the cap open. The way she flinched when their hands touched, like whatever kindness JJ was offering was more painful than whatever it was that was making her sick. She remembers how Emily wouldn’t meet her eyes, just stared at the floor, avoiding all kind of human contact.
JJ didn’t push. She just sat there. Still. Present. A soft anchor in a moment too sharp for words. And when Emily finally whispered, “Sorry,”, like she'd done something wrong by being sick, JJ's heart broke a little, because Emily Prentiss didn’t apologize when she was late for class, or if she snapped at someone, or when she got caught drinking on school grounds. But she apologized for this. For sweating through her sleeves and missing half a class. For needing help.
JJ didn’t say “don’t be”. She didn’t lecture or reassure or try to fix it. She just reached out, slow and deliberate, and rested her hand lightly over Emily’s. A quiet touch. No pressure. Just there. They were never best friends. Not before. They were barely friends, really, more like acquaintances with mutual awareness. But Emily had always intrigued JJ. They were so different it almost felt scripted.
JJ was student council. Homecoming committee. Polished smiles and color-coded planners with highlighters that matched her folders. She wore soft sweaters that smelled like fresh laundry and always knew the theme of Spirit Week. Captain of the soccer team, teacher’s favorite, the kind of girl who made ambition look graceful.
Emily, by contrast, lived in the margins. She spent more time in detention than out of it. She had money, the real, generational kind but never showed it off. Her boots were well used, but clearly expensive if you knew what you were looking for, her eyeliner onn point, her black clothes were rumpled like she couldn’t be bothered but still managed to look deliberate. Goth in every way but the music. She read Kurt Vonnegut, doodled strange constellations in the margins of her notebooks, and hooked up with girls behind the gym like it was nothing.
They existed in the same orbit, parallel lines that never touched. Not until the nurse’s office. Not until that day in biology. Not until the slow, crumbling days that followed, where Emily didn’t quite bounce back and JJ couldn’t quite look away. She was hooked. It wasn’t clean or poetic. It didn’t come with clarity or some grand epiphany. Just a tug. A magnitism that only grew more intense as Emily grew weaker and JJ kept noticing it.
Even if her first glimpse of Emily Prentiss up close had been messy; sick, stubborn, shaken, it stuck. Maybe because of that. Because Emily hadn’t pretended. Because there was something raw in her that JJ wasn’t used to. Something true.
So, she started showing up.
She waited in front of Emily’s locker in the mornings, pretending she’d just happened to pass by, even though her homeroom was on the other side of the school. Sometimes she’d have an extra granola bar. Sometimes a dumb joke. Sometimes nothing at all, just a nod and that half-smile she hadn’t quite learned to hide yet. Emily never said much. Not at first.
But she didn’t tell JJ to leave either. And that was something.
So JJ asked;
I can carry you bag if you want?
The spot on under the big tree is free. You can sit with me, or we can sit quiet, if that’s better.
Emily never answered directly. She just looked at her, her eyes tired, and filled with disapointed. And also surprise, like she couldn't believe JJ was sticking around. So, she let JJ carry her bag. She sat beside her at lunch, never quite facing her, always just a little turned away, but she stayed. And she didn’t stop her when JJ started walking her to class. She didn’t roll her eyes when JJ brought her a cherry coke and said it matched her nail polish. She just raised one brow and took it anyway. It wasn’t friendship. Not yet. It was something quieter. Something steadier. And maybe that was what Emily needed most.
“I’m not dying,” Emily says one day while sitting cross-legged on JJ’s bed. She was wrapped in a blanket. Her voice is low, hesitant, like the words still feel fragile in her mouth, like they might dissolve if she says them too loud. "I have cancer, but it's not terminal." Her hair’s starting to grow out, it’s not pretty by any means, but JJ thinks it fits her. Real somehow. It doesn’t frame her face so much as expose it; sharper now, older, like something has been scraped away from the inside out and hasn't quite healed over.
JJ doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t blink. Just answers with a quiet, solid: “Good.”
Emily’s eyes flick to her, quick, searching, almost like a dare. “That’s all?”
JJ shrugs, calm and effortless, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “Surviving wasn’t a requirement for my friendship.”
And for a second, there’s nothing. Just stillness. A breath. A stuttering inhale like the start of something uncertain. Then Emily laughs, sharps and surprising, in a way that JJ has almost never heard, it sounds real. It's the first time JJ have heard Emily laugh like that, completely unguarded and free. Like everything might actually turn out just fine after all. JJ doesn’t laugh. She just watches, a small, steady smile tugging at her mouth, like she’s witnessing something sacred.
They don’t talk about the test results lying safe in a manila folder downstairs, still unread by anyone but Emily and her mom. They don’t talk about the way Emily’s hands sometime shake when she reaches for her water or all the ways JJ pretends not to notice. They don’t talk about the days Emily didn’t (couldn't) answer her texts or the nights JJ stared at her phone until her eyes burned, waiting for reassurances that never came. Instead, they sit on JJ’s bed, wrapped in cozy blankets, surrounded by plushies and soft teddy bears JJ had long out grown. The room smells faintly of JJ’s laundry detergent and Cheetos that lay in a bowl on the nightstand. Emily’s socks don’t match, one striped, one solid black, and her knee is brushing against JJ’s in that accidental-but-not way that neither of them comments on.
The television remote sits between them, untouched until JJ picks it up and holds it out. “Wanna watch something scary?” she asks, voice light, like it’s always been this easy. Emily exhales, still catching the tail end of the laugh, her smile warm and worn-in. “God, yes.” She takes the remote. Their fingers brush. They don’t talk about it. They just sit there, in the comfort of each other.
--
They start spending weekends together.
It’s never officially decided. There’s no dramatic invitation, no scheduled agreement, no "Hey, you should come over." Just one Friday where Emily stays through dinner. They watch a movie after, some ridiculous horror film with bad CGI and worse acting, and then it’s late, and the guest bed is already made.
The next Friday, it happens again. And then again. And eventually, JJ stops asking. She just makes up the bed automatically, folds down the blanket, places a glass of water on the nightstand out of habit. Sometimes Emily brings a change of clothes. Other times she borrows a hoodie from JJ’s closet and pretends she didn’t mean to.
They don’t talk about the hospital unless Emily brings it up. That’s the rule; unspoken but firm. And sometimes she does, voice quiet, usually late at night when the lights are already off and her guard is lower. In those moments, JJ listens without interrupting, her hand resting close but never pushing. She doesn’t try to fix anything. She just stays.
But most days, Emily doesn’t talk about it at all.
Instead, they talk about books.
Emily makes JJ read the weird ones: twisty stories full of unreliable narrators, dystopias with too many footnotes, protagonists who make all the wrong choices and still get the last word. JJ rolls her eyes through half of them and highlights the passages that make her swear out loud.
JJ, in turn, forces Emily through a rainbow of romance novels with glittery covers and meet-cutes and monologues under the rain. Emily groans at every second-chance trope and every secret crush, but she never skips a chapter. She even tears up once, silently, secretly, when the love interest adopts a stray dog with a limp.
They argue about movies too. Emily claims to hate rom-coms, says they’re predictable and emotionally manipulative. But she never turns them off. JJ pretends not to notice how still she gets during the kissing scenes, how she always laughs at the terrible one-liners, how her eyes soften when the couple dances in the kitchen.
They bicker like old friends over everything and nothing. Over cereal preferences and plot twists and the correct way to pronounce “Reese’s.”
Like now.
On JJ’s bedroom floor, surrounded by candy wrappers, a half-finished puzzle, and an open bag of Cheetos they’ve both been pretending not to eat. Neither of them is really trying to complete the puzzle, it’s been missing corner pieces since they opened the box. But neither of them has gotten up, either.
JJ pokes Emily’s knee with one finger, sharp and deliberate. “You’re the worst.”
Emily doesn’t even flinch. Just leans back on her palms and grins, smug. “Still here, though.”
And the room goes quiet, just for a beat.
JJ looks at her then, really looks. At the barest curl of her smile. At the healed-over shadows in her eyes. At the way her fingers tug gently at the edge of the same blanket she always insists she doesn’t need. She looks like she’s growing into herself again, like something tired is finally easing off her shoulders.
“Yeah,” JJ says softly. “You are.”
She doesn’t mean it like it sounds, but also… maybe she does. Maybe it’s the truest thing she’s said all day.
Emily doesn’t answer. But her smile lingers a little longer this time. Like maybe she heard it the way it was meant.
And neither of them moves. Not yet.
--
It changes one day in the backyard. The sun is bright, and the air is warmer than what could be considered comfortable. The ice in their drink melted ages ago, and they probably should have gone back into the house. Instead, they're laying sprawled out on a blanket, tucked away in a shaded corner of the backyard. The sun is about to set, it's nice. Soft. Emily’s eyes are closed, one arm draped lazily over her forehead, the other resting near JJ’s, pinkies close but not touching.
JJ watches her for a long time. Not staring, memorizing. The line of her cheekbone. The shape of her body. The smell of her perfume. (She isn't supposed to wear it, but she has never been good at following directions). She thinks about how close she came to never getting this. To losing Emily before she even had the chance to love her properly. She thinks about hospital beds and unanswered texts. About silence and fear and the horrible ache of waiting.
And how fragile it still feels, even now. “I’m scared,” JJ says softly.
Emily turns her head, blinking slowly, “Of me?”
JJ’s throat tightens. She shakes her head. “No,” she whispers. “Of what happens if you leave.”
Emily doesn’t answer right away. She just breathes, steady and deliberate, her gaze steady on JJ like she’s trying to feel every inch of what was just said. Then, slowly, she reaches for JJ’s hand. It’s not dramatic. Not trembling. It’s instinct. Her fingers slide between JJ’s like they’ve done it a thousand times before in dreams neither of them ever dared to name.
“I’m not going anywhere,” she says. “Not if I can help it.”
JJ nods, just once. Then she leans in and kisses her. It’s careful. Brave. The kind of kiss that asks, Can we? and answers, Yes, we already are.
It’s enough. And when they pull apart, Emily doesn’t let go of her hand. Not even for a second.
--
A few months later, the doctors use words like clear margins and low risk.
Emily uses the word relieved like it’s a borrowed sweater; still unsure if it fits, still checking for tears in the stitching. JJ uses the word girlfriend for the first time in public.
Emily blushes so hard she trips over her locker door. JJ calls it a win. They don’t make promises they can’t keep. Don’t talk about always or forever like they’re owed it.
But every Saturday night, without fail, they meet in JJ’s room. Same blanket. Same bowl of popcorn. Same stack of old DVDs. Same laughter that bubbles up in the quiet, when they least expect it and need it the most.
And love. Not loud. Not showy. Emily begins to draw again; first it's dark stuff, like she needs to remove the last of the darkness from her skin, but then it changes to more joyous pictures, she switches to watercolors, and she scetches JJ in class, it's bright and happy. JJ writes poems she’ll never show anyone else, scrawled in the margins of homework, behind recepts and napkins. She is just so filled with feelings and she needs to get them out.
And somewhere in all of it, in the mist of healing and the occasional hospital visit they build something. Not perfect. But real. Something that feels like forever. Not the loud kind. The kind you can fall asleep inside. The kind that stays.