Masterlist <33
My Favorites: ⭐️

PR's Tumblrdome
Alisa U Zemlji Chuda
Sade Olutola

No title available

@theartofmadeline

pixel skylines
Lint Roller? I Barely Know Her
RMH
wallacepolsom

Product Placement
hello vonnie
trying on a metaphor
Peter Solarz
Misplaced Lens Cap
AnasAbdin
Mike Driver
DEAR READER

JBB: An Artblog!
d e v o n
No title available

seen from Germany
seen from United States

seen from Malaysia
seen from Malaysia

seen from Malaysia

seen from United States

seen from Malaysia

seen from France
seen from Malaysia

seen from Mexico
seen from United States

seen from Singapore

seen from Malaysia
seen from United States

seen from Malaysia
seen from Malaysia

seen from Malaysia
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Hungary
@grapejuicestyless
Masterlist <33
My Favorites: ⭐️
HARRY STYLES:
Short Writings:
Love Me Until I Stop Breathing?
Sunflower! Sunflower!
People Pleaser pt.2
I Don’t Need Your Closure.
I Just Want To Be Loved-pt.2
Unforgettable
What Was I Made For?
Just Because!
Every Road Leads Back To You.
You’re The Winner-pt.2
Mona Lisa
What A Waste
I’ll Crawl Home To Her
Pomegranates
Bad People
Our Last Dance ⭐️
But I’m Kind Of Green
Good Luck, Babe!
So Long, London-pt.2
No One Wants To Die In The End.
Happier
I Gave You I Gave You I
We Can Run Away
To Love, To Love, To Love
It Killed You Just The Same
Bed Chem
Paper Crowns
Butterfly Wings
Monkeys Paw
Let Time Pass
Song Blurbs:
You Are In Love
Night Shift
Sick Of The Chase
CONRAD FISHER:
Short Writings:
Can You See Right Through Me?
Kalopsia
Just Because You Cannot Have Her.
Don’t Be A Stranger. ⭐️
Mad Woman.
Back To You.
You’re Everything To Me.
Peace.
Burnout.
Don’t Go.
I’ll Love You, Forever.
Fix You.
The Tide Always Goes Out
Song Blurbs:
Two People
My Love, Mine All Mine.
Sad, Beautiful, Tragic.
I Know You.
Big Black Car
JJ MAYBANK:
Short writings:
Could You Imagine That?
Tiny Moves
Orange Juice
In My DNA
Linger Like A Tattoo Kiss ⭐️
The Things We Miss
Quiet When I’m Coming Home
Leader Of The Landslide ⭐️
Stupid F-ing Tattoo
Wishes Do Come True
Haunted By The Look In My Eyes
What If I Don’t Know?
Pay The Price
Seven(ways to Neverland)⭐️
I Am So Full Of Love
Song Blurbs:
The Last Time
Moon Song-pt.2
STEVE HARRINGTON:
Short writings:
Normal For A Moment
Here We Go...Again...
I do take requests for anyone listed so please feel free to send requests❤️❤️
Here We Go...Again...
Steve Harrington x fem!reader
Summery: You and Steve never seemed to get along, well, not until the world threatened to end. Secret meetings and confessions spilled under the disguise that you'd both be dead by tomorrow. When the end repeatedly fakes you both out, you fall into a routine of forcing things back to normal. So why does now, when you're spilling your guts in the mall bathroom, feel so...different?
The whole room spun, fluorescent lights all too bright for the insistent pounding that thumped against your temples. Your skin felt wet, sticky. Coated in a thick layer of something that tickled your chin as it trickled down the curve of your face. Your tongue caught it by accident. You couldn't breathe, your nose felt like it was impossibly clogged, you had to gasp for air before you turned purple.
It was metallic tasting and all too familiar. You'd thrown enough punches you couldn't take to know what blood tasted like, though you were sure you'd never get used to the feeling of helplessness that came with losing a fight.
But had you really lost this one? Can you even call it a fight if you never got the chance to swing? No, you figured you couldn't. Not when you'd accidentally stumbled into some poorly hidden Russian base under your place of employment. Not when Steve--your coworker--that's all you'd ever consider him, grabbed your hand so tightly when the alarms echoed through the empty halls that stretched for miles, and tugged you behind him closely. Not when neither of you saw the guards until you turned the corner, and certainly not when you felt something cold connect with your temple before the faint muffled sound of Steve yelling something you couldn't quite place echoed through your mind before it all went dark.
Steve--where was Steve?
You tried to move, probably way too quick for your condition, and once again, the room seemed to spin. Everything felt empty. You stomach, you brain, your mouth. You couldn't find the words to call for the boy you swore you hated. It was pointless anyways, because as your vision finally stopped turning ones into threes, you finally saw what made you feel so much more confined than before.
Thick leather restraints kept you stuck to the uncomfortable chair that you were currently pressed against. Your arms were impossibly sticky and warm. For a moment you wondered if you were bleeding anywhere other than your face--which you chose to try and forget about to keep your festering panic at bay.
"Jeez..." There was a deep grumble that came from behind you, followed by the touch of warm, large fingers curling against your limp palms.
"S...Steve?" Your voice came out hoarse, like you'd been screaming for hours. Maybe you had been, to be honest you couldn't quite remember what happened between the moment that dreadful elevator began to plummet to some unknown place to now, where you sat in the middle of some room that wasn't quite a lab--or a doctors office; but definitely shared similarities with both.
There was a beat of silence. You figured he was also trying to make the doubles he was seeing become just one again.
Everything felt fuzzy, your heart lurching in your chest. Your arm was sore, and it was almost...funny?
"Steve a-are you there?" You called out again. The words ripped through your sore throat. Your chest ached, and you were absolutely sure you had a few ribs messed up and resting in places that didn't feel right. Or maybe that was the feeling of the restraints pressing against your body in all your most sore places.
"Yeah..." He breathed, his head lifting from where it hung, the back of his hair brushing against mine. It tickled my ears. "Yeah, I'm here."
You paused, blinking away the feeling of confusion that tried to claw its way back up your stomach.
"Are you...you're not..." Still, you couldn't quite figure out how to ask him if he was alright, even now. Even during a time where usually, you'd spill your guts to him.
"I'm okay." He grimaced, you could hear it in the way he spoke. You could only imagine how the Russians had decided to mess up his perfect face.
You let out a breath you didn't know you were holding. "...Right." His fingers pressed against your palm, bending and pushing until he'd managed to slot them between your fingers.
He squeezed once, then twice, saying: "I'm here." You squeezed back once. "Okay."
"What about you?" He asked, filling the thick silence. I felt his chair shift slightly, and then the restraints pulled. They were wrapped tightly around our bodies, holding us down, keeping us pinned together.
"What about me?" In the short period of time you'd let quiet fall between you, you'd forgotten how painful it felt to talk.
Steve cleared his throat awkwardly, but before he could fill in the blanks that became obvious in my memory, the door slammed open.
A man in a Soviet Union uniform--or something similar to it. You'd never actually seen a Soviet Union uniform before, or a Russian one. you began to wonder if those were the same thing before another man followed, pushing back down that blissful confusion that stopped the endless worrying from consuming you for just a moment. The next man wore white with a dark grey apron. He had black gloves on and thick glasses. It reminded you of every cliche movie villain in a way.
They said nothing at first, just placing down equipment where you and Steve could both see. Maybe to scare you, maybe to warn you--but probably both.
"Holy shit..." You mumbled, leaning back into Steve for comfort, only to find him already leaning towards you.
"Let's try this again, yes?" The first man spoke, his accent smooth and thick like honey. Only, this was like bad honey. The off-brand, unsweetened, bitter honey nobody liked.
Steves tongue felt around his bottom lip, as if trying to make sure all his teeth were still there.
"Who do you work for?" The man leaned closer to Steve. You couldn't;t see him anymore, but you could smell him. That awful, doctor smell that stuck to his uniform.
"Scoops..." Steve chuckled under his breath. "Scoops Ahoy."
The answer made you laugh. God, why were you laughing? And why did everything suddenly feel more funny and less serious? Had the room always been spinning? And since when did Steves shampoo smell so good?"
The man didn't seem to find it funny, his posture straightening impossibly upright. he was stiff, unmoving, his face made of stone.
"How did you find us?" He tried again. Steve remained honest, but unfortunately for him, the stupid uniforms and cluelessness didn't seem to convince anyone else in the room.
He rolled his head, looking to the doctor who--you weren't quite sure was a doctor anymore. They conversed shortly in Russian. You silently wished that Robin had been there to decode whatever the man had just said.
"Hey what's that shiny thing?" Steve asked breathlessly. You could hear the smile on his face, and for some reason it made your stomach feel all warm and your mind all jumpy.
It wasn't so funny anymore when the man pressed the tool to his finger, ripping one hand out of your grasp to do so. Steve scooted back, pushing your chair with him.
"Whoa-whoa!" Steve panicked, and your heart lurched in your chest. Everything was ringing, and the walls seemed to be closing in. Your mouth moved before you could process it.
"There was a code! We heard a code!" You shouted, the sound ripping through your throat. You were surprised you could even project that loud anymore.
There was a heavy pause, but no scream. You couldn't breathe, not until Steve hand quickly slipped back into yours. You sighed.
"What...code?" The man began to drag his feet, and the sweeping of his heel scuffing the floor grew louder as he turned tightly around your shoulder, his breath wafting in your face. It was warm, uncomfortable, and suffocating.
"The week is long, the silver cat feeds when blue meets yellow in the west. Something about China? Look-it doesn't matter because we cracked your code. You broadcast that shit all over town and we picked it up. You think you're so smart, but a couple kids who scoop ice cream from minimum wage cracked it in a day! A day--" Your enthusiastic success story was cut short by a sharp crack of knuckles meeting your jaw. You rolled your mouth open, trying to ease the pain.
Metallic, warm. You sunk your teeth into the mark they'd left on your bottom lip. You coughed, maroon stained your royal blue shorts. You felt stupid, childish. You were a kid after all. Maybe not as young as Erica, or smart and Dustin, but you were still a kid. Still growing, still learning, still spilling more than you could clean up.
Steve rambled in a panic, giggling between sentences, names falling past his lips without thinking of the danger he was causing. Over the ringing that grew in your ears, you heard him say something about Dustin, then Hopper, then...the US Cavalry?
"Steve..." You wheezed, hunching over. You tried to get him to shut up, tried to make him stop telling the bad men secrets we couldn't afford to cover up. Tears burned behind your eyes, hiccups swallowing down your throat, ripping through and back up. Everything ached. Maybe this was a fight. Maybe you'd signed up for it the second you tried to play heroes. Maybe you were just cursed with the fact that you and Steve Harrington never won your fights.
Alarms broke past the insistent ringing that tormented your ears, pulling your head from where it hung limply in front of your chest. Every breath felt like it was accompanied by the sound of a broken exhale, a small shake that plagued each sentence. You felt fuzzy, and surprisingly safe as the restraints seemed to magically loosen. But just before you could fall forward, the sound of a familiar young boy echoed through the room.
"Hey--hey! No--shit, Steve! Help!" Everything spun, and just before the sting of the floor could consume what little strength you had managed to muster up to push forward, the bright lights and nagging voices all went away.
You weren't sure when it all came back. Maybe it was in the movie theatre, when you sat wrapped up fondly in Steves arms, or at the water fountain when you made a not-so-silent exit out of the theatre because the ache in your throat begged you for some kind of hydration to ease the scratchiness.
Your knees hurt, the cool bathroom floor soothing what they could reach, but all attempts were useless. Cuts had dripped down to your socks, blood soaked almost everything you had on. The front of your shirt, your lap, your shoes. Your bloody nose had done its damage to your uniform, and silently, you mourned the once vibrant colors that you once swore on everything you hated.
Steve coughed violently in the stall beside you.
"Do...do you think we got it all up?" You asked, you voice hesitant. A small giddiness settled in the pit of your stomach. You figured whatever they'd drugged you with still lingered, but you could spend all day counting the white spaces between the scattered yellow and blue squares on the wall, and the lights were not so bad anymore.
"I'm not sure." Steve breathed. "I hope so. Ask me something. Something only sober Steve would know." He sounded ridiculous referring to himself in third person. You found yourself laughing under your breath.
"Okay..." You thought. Maybe what his hair routine was, or why he stopped hanging around Tommy and Carol? Something surface level that wouldn't make him uncomfortable. But the giddiness rose into something hotter. Something that bubbled and festered with honest curiosity. You could blame it on the serum, but truthfully, a selfish part of you always wanted to know.
"Have you ever been in love?"
Silence. It stretched awkwardly between the two of you. For a second you almost took it back. Steve and you weren't friends. You were acquaintances. Two people who landed on the wrong doorstep at the wrong time and got pulled into something much bigger than them. Before you could apologize, take it back and search for a lighter question to ask, Steve cleared his throat.
"No--yeah." He sputtered. "Nancy Wheeler. Junior year." He confessed softly. You knew, you always had, anyone with eyes could see it. But for some reason, now, with him so quiet and close, close enough to touch, it stung.
Why did it sting? The fact had never bothered you before.
"Do you still love her?" You questioned just to fill the silence, though maybe deep down you were trying to spare your feelings. Maybe it was to salvage pride, to swallow down the fact that Steve the hair Harrington would always and forever be hung up on the indistinguishable beauty of his ex lover. Nancy was intelligent, witty, kind, and beautiful. You shrunk up against the wall, suddenly feeling small for even wondering at all.
"No."
The answer hung in the air. You sat with it, and selfishly, let the new found warmth stir in your stomach. You and Steve weren't new to oversharing. Usually, by what you would usually laugh and call bad luck, Steve was by your side when the Upside-down decided to split open and infect your hometown again. The overwhelming weight to carry the twisted secret was a lot, and naturally, you let the little things you once held so close to your heart slip out to lighten the load. In some weird, twisted way, Steve knew more about you than most. Maybe that was terrifying, but in moments like these, it was almost comforting. Almost.
So why did this time feel different? Why didn't you feel lighter, but instead heavier? Guiltier?
"Why?" You asked so softly, it could hardly be considered a breath.
The sound of rubber rubbing against the tile flooring echoed through the empty bathroom. Large hands cupped beneath the stall dividers, and suddenly, his knees were pressed against yours, his face, bloody and bruised, but still his, was so close, you could count his freckles.
He took a deep breath and held it.
"Maybe because as much as I used to hate the idea, I've always known it wasn't in the cards for us. We..." He stopped himself, pulling his lip between his teeth before finally exhaling. "All we did was fight. And not productively like we do--where there's arguing to reach a solution, but just to bicker. To fill a silence we didn't know how to fix, I guess. But I loved her. She was my Nancy and, as stupid as it was, I wanted to hold on."
He looked to you, waiting to see your response. Your face was twisted with something he couldn't quite place. Grief? Sadness? Relief? Maybe all of it.
You swallowed, forcing it down your aching throat.
"It's sweet though. To fight. Especially for love. I'm sure it wasn't senseless, every argument has a reason." You fought for him, for his feelings. Even when your heart screamed at you to just please, shut up.
He nodded, then sighed.
"I don't know. I mean, I've come to terms with it. It stung, but wounds heal, right? Plus, I think I've found a girl who might be better for me. I mean--she's passionate, she's funny, she's pretty, she's tough. She spit in the face of a Russian guard for me. Hell--for the past three hours, I've been holding onto the thought that she might have meant it when she told me she loved me and praying she did."
Your eyes met his, and suddenly all the air felt like it had been knocked from your lungs.
The room, that horrible room. You remembered it now. How Dustin and Erica had cut you free. How your head hurt and your body physically couldn't stay upright. You felt yourself falling forward, slowly, but to you it felt intense.
You figured Dustin had caught you, but how could you have forgotten those beautiful, beaten eyes?
"Hey, hey, honey..." He had spoken sickeningly sweetly, concern dripping in every slurred word that escaped his drunken lips.
"S-Steve." Your eyes, disoriented and hazy found his. If you were any more high, any more able, you might have give in to the temptation of running a hand through his hair.
"Yeah, yeah, it's me honey. C'mon we gotta go." He urged, trying to make your limp body sit up straight. To give him any help because right now, his knees were just as weak.
"Steve I..." You choked out. he looked at you so earnestly, like he saw you, really saw you, that you couldn't help it, not when that truth serum was still pulsing through your veins and eating away at your brain.
"I wish you liked me." You spoke soft and pathetically.
His face froze, and then softened.
"I do like you. Like you so much, I want to help get you outta here." He urged again. Your body folded in his arms, and Dustin shouted something that seemed to make Erica begin to panic too.
"N...no." You slurred, grabbing at his shirt weakly. You watched the fabric crinkle beneath your grip. "I wish you like-liked me, be-because I like-like you. A lot. I love..." You hiccuped drunkenly. "Love you."
Your face twisted in horror, eyes wide as they looked back at Steve, who sat there patiently, waiting on an answer. He promised himself he wouldn't be disappointed if you truly had just meant it in a platonic way; if the drugs had just made your mind all foggy and loopy that what you wanted to say came out wrong, but deep down, and probably selfishly, Steve hoped you did mean it.
The dancing around was fun at first. the playful jabs and the grumbles of annoyance when your shoulders brushed at work. He loved seeing the furrow in your brows, loved knowing what made you tick. But there was something he'd grown to love more. The secret, tender moments that only ever occurred after a near-death situation. And yeah, selfishly, Steve wanted that tenderness all the time.
"Steve I..." You looked at him, expecting to find pride--or something worse, painted across his sickeningly beautiful features. You figured he'd gloat. King Steve, he still had it. But there was none of that. Only the sheepishness that came from a boy with a fragile crush. A boy whose feelings were blossoming into something too desperate to name.
Your eyes found the floor. You couldn't look at him, not when it was already so hard to force the air from your lungs.
"I used to be so jealous of you." You laughed bitterly, knees knocking against his. "King Steve. Got anyone with just a charming smile and a cheesy pick up line. I watched you breeze past high school like it didn't matter. And it was so...so annoying because it did matter, because to everyone you mattered. And me? I..." You paused, thinking carefully before you felt his hand, the same warm hand that once held your hand blindly, hold it openly in the bathroom stall.
"I just wanted to have one person look at me the way everyone seemed to look at you. I just...I wanted King Steve to lean against my locker and make stupid jokes at lunch that made me choke on the shitty chicken sandwiches. No--screw that, I wanted just Steve. I wanted him so badly because he was always so nice to these dorky little kids, and even though he never treated me at all--he didn't treat me like I was below him. And fuck high school, I still want him now." You confessed, years of built up longing you hadn't fully pieced together surfacing into one big word vomit tat made you actually want to hurl.
And Steve? He sat there, breathless, wordless, blinking softly at you like you'd told him the most outlandish thing in the world.
And then he was kissing you. Kissing you like he meant it, because maybe he did. He poured everything into it, a deep, gentle kiss that made your lips mold together perfectly. His tongue swiped over the cut on your bottom lip, and he didn't seem to mind the metallic taste from the dried blood.
Your lips were both chapped, dry, and in so much pain, but the way Steve kissed you overpowered it. Because to Steve, all that mattered in that moment was that he treated you like someone he wouldn't mind sticking around for more than a few hours. Someone he wanted for a while now.
You pulled back for air, gasping softly, thumbs swiping away the spit that stuck to your lips. your eyes were wild, yet calm, and somehow, Steves hand was still threaded in yours.
He smiled first. he smiled so big, it became contagious, and suddenly, you were smiling too. You were laughing, and he was holding his stomach. You felt like an idiot. You two were idiots. idiots who danced around each other so insistently, it took a literal truth serum and a vicious fight to force it out of your drunken lips.
"Steve, I--" You began to laugh again, the loud belly laughter fading into fond giggles.
The bathroom door burst open.
"Dude, what the hell?!" Dustin scolded, absolutely exasperated by how quickly we seemed to slip out of his supervision.
Steve looked at you, and you looked at him. And as Dustin got ready to rip you and Steve a new one, there was a silent understanding that something was changing between the two of you.
Normal For A Moment
Steve Harrington x fem!reader
Summery: In the midst of trying to save the world, everyone is putting it all on the line. Nobody is confidently secure. So while everyone scrambles to figure out a new plan, Steve and Y/n steal what little time they have left together.
The sun poured into the dusty room through the bent cracks in the blinds. Having them pulled completely down did nothing to stop the golden beams from spreading a streak of warmth across the tan cheeks of the pair tangled within the all too expensive duvet. Limbs locked together naturally, and soft breaths were exchanged without a care in the world if teeth were brushed or not.
Cavities or not, Y/n found herself staring at the boy tangled in her, his palms spread against the curve of her back, pressing just enough to keep their bodies touching. The smell of his breath didn’t bother her, or the knots that were pulling at her scalp. She loved the red blotches on his face from sleeping on his cheek for too long. She loved memorizing the freckles that dotted his skin and the way his part was always messed up after a good sleep.
Maybe a few hears ago her nose would have scrunched and she would have pulled away. But now, even being a deep breath apart seemed impossible. Once, mornings spent together came easy and often. The only worry in the world was college, but Steve and Y/n had it all figured out. Their future. So sleeping in was never a hard choice.
Sometimes Y/n wondered if she would get to see the nuggets grow old, if she would be able to have them without the increasing worry that something horrible might hurt their sweet childish innocence and kindness. She hoped they had Steves eyes, his attentiveness, his confidence.
The thought pulled her back to sleep, the heaviness of her head resting on the bicep beneath her ear. Her hair tickled her nose, but her eyelids felt too heavy to attempt to move.
The breathy sigh that escaped her tired lips made Steve stir from his slumber. His lashes covered his eyes, but it didn’t matter much. All he saw was the curve of her nose and the content pout of her lips. He dreamed all night of scattering fleeting kisses along each curve of her face, and taking her in his hands just to hold.
It didn’t matter that she drooled a little on to his bare skin, or how her hair somehow always ended up in his mouth, or beneath his nose, because the smell of her shampoo was sweetly familiar, a scent he had only grown to know through their chosen closeness.
No thing could define Steve Harrington like the love he held for her. A sweet love that made him weak in the knees, softening him until he was reduced to just putty.
It was selfish to sleep in this late, with the end of the world so close. But somehow, he figured he wouldn’t mind dying now if it guaranteed an eternity in her arms. It didn’t matter much where. The bed in the room that had been collecting dust from how often they slept at WSQK these days, or the dirt beneath Hawkins. Even the debris in the upside down. Steve figured if he could press her against him and just breathe with her, he’d die a happy man.
When the alarm went off finally, neither of them was in a rush to move. Just looking at each other with a softness that can’t be manufactured. A look that came from a pure love, one like her head on his shoulder while everyone crammed onto Mikes couch, or her carrying a small chapstick for him in her pocket because she knew his lips would get dry and he only liked the watermelon ones. It was driving nowhere at night, far from town just to spend more time in each other’s bubble.
So neither of them moved. Not until the walkie talkie started buzzing with chatter and the itch for a shower grew unbearable. But even then as they began to stir, they stayed glued to each other, molded to each other’s routines like there hadn’t been a life before each other. And maybe there hadn’t. But it didn’t matter now because she was there, curled up against his side, and he was there, holding her close.
Maybe in an hour they’d be back in hell, holding their breath and grabbing each other’s hands. But for right now, they were in no rush to end the small normalcy they had created for themselves early in the morning.
⋆˚࿔ Piece Of Sunshine.
Conrad Fisher x Fem!reader
main masterlist
Summary: After seeing his loved ones together again after years apart, questions about Conrad's love life end up bringing your photo to the table.
Words: 1,9k.
Warnings & Tags: established relationship. season three spoilers (specifically episode three). fluff. hurt/comfort. english isn't my first language (sorry for my mistakes, be kind please).
Based by this request.
Note: Hello again♡ I didn't expect you to like my first fic so much! I was very nervous, and I loved receiving this request. I hope you like this.
Sometimes, Conrad would look across the table and see his mother smiling at him.
It didn’t matter that she had been gone for years now, her absence a quiet ache that threaded through every season since. It didn’t matter that this was her memorial, that the soft clink of cutlery was muted by the weight of grief, or that candles flickered gently in her name while bouquets of her favorite flowers filled the room with the ghost of summer. It didn’t matter that every chair was occupied by someone who had known her laugh, her warmth, and her boundless way of loving and who carried that loss like a stone in their chest.
It didn’t matter that the person really sitting across from him was his father, rigid in his collared shirt.
Because for him, Susannah was always there.
She was in the light. In the sun pouring through the restaurant window and catching the glint of the ocean just beyond the dunes. In the quiet way Laurel had wrapped her arms around him earlier, holding him like a second mother, so tight and grounding, as if she could hold him together just long enough to get through the day. She was in the sound of Steven’s easy laugh, in the way Belly rolled her eyes fondly at her brother’s joke, and in how Jeremiah nudged his shoulder like they hadn’t lost entire years between them.
Being with them again, after everything and despite everything, felt like slipping into a worn hoodie from his childhood. Frayed at the sleeves, thinned in places, but still warm. Still his.
And then there was you.
Maybe most of all, she was in you.
You, who had crashed into his life quietly and all at once, like the tide.
He’d met you just weeks before his mother died. A moment in time he sometimes thought about like a scene in a movie, too perfectly timed to be real. Like fate, or maybe something softer. Kinder. Maybe she had sent you. Maybe Susannah, with all her light and knowing and mother’s heart, had looked at her boy, being a splintered, grieving, impossibly young and already so tired, and thought: he’s going to need someone like her.
Someone patient. Someone with a voice like a lullaby and laughter that filled the cracks in his chest. Someone who ate ice cream even on rainy days and sang along, very badly, to the radio with him, who learned his silences and never tried to fix them, only sat beside him until he could breathe again.
You had been her parting gift. The last bright ribbon on a life wrapped too tightly around loss.
And sometimes, when you smiled at him from across the room like he was the only thing you saw, or when you pressed your hand flat against his chest like you could feel the places where it still hurt, Conrad would close his eyes, swallow the knot in his throat, and think:
Thank you, Mom.
He was still lost in thought about you when Laurel’s voice rose above the soft clink of glasses and low hum of conversation. Her tone was warm, filled with that quiet maternal pride that always wrapped around him like a knit blanket, one he never asked for but always accepted. She was raising a toast to her children, to their futures, her eyes glinting with unshed emotion beneath the dim restaurant lighting. The flicker of candlelight played across her face as she turned her gaze toward him, and the warmth in her voice softened further.
She spoke of him next.
Of all he’d done, all he’d built, far from home. Her words weren’t just kind, they were reverent and admiring. She spoke of his discipline, his strength, and the way he’d carried the weight of grief and still managed to chase down a future through lecture halls and exam rooms. Each sentence felt like a gentle pat on the shoulder, a reminder that he wasn’t invisible in his efforts. That someone, even from afar, had seen him.
Conrad stared down at the glass in front of him, the golden liquid inside catching the light just enough to blur his reflection. He felt the burn behind his eyes, low and steady, and swallowed it down like the rest of the things he never said.
But before the silence of her words could settle, before he could let the swell of emotion crest and fall, Steven’s voice cut in. Playful. Sharp. Curious. A disruption of that fragile stillness.
“So do you have a girl there?” He asked, his voice slicing through the quiet hum of reverence like a pebble skipped across still water.
Conrad blinked slowly, his gaze lifting from the golden ripple of his drink, catching the soft light that danced along the glass’s edge. For a moment, he hesitated, not because he didn’t know the answer, but because saying it aloud felt fragile and intimate, like unfolding a delicate secret in a room still steeped in memories and silence.
Around the table, Laurel smiled warmly, gently nudging Belly with an elbow as if sharing a quiet joke. Jeremiah tilted his head, curiosity flickering across his features. Even his father looked up from his plate, brows arched with a quiet but unmistakable interest.
The attention turned toward him like a slow tide.
Conrad didn’t rush. He never did. He rubbed a thumb against the condensation on his glass, lips twitching just slightly.
“Yeah,” he said, voice low but sure. “Yeah, I do.”
Steven leaned forward, eyes bright and wide with boyish enthusiasm. “Wait, seriously? You’re seeing someone?”
His dad chuckled softly, a sound rich with both surprise and amusement. “And you didn’t bring her? Why not?”
Conrad looked up then, eyes calm but glittering with something warmer, deeper. “It’s her family’s day, too,” he said quietly. “Didn’t feel right to take her away.”
A thoughtful pause followed, the kind that hangs heavy yet respectful in the air. Laurel’s voice broke it gently, honeyed with fondness. “What’s she like?”
And there it was, the question that mattered most.
Conrad didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he reached for his wallet, slow and deliberate, like he wasn’t just flipping through receipts and cards but handling something precious. He slid a small, worn photo from the back sleeve, the one he kept tucked there like a secret, like a prayer.
It was you, standing on the beach last fall, hair wild from the wind, the hem of your jeans wet with saltwater. You weren’t even looking at the camera. You were laughing at something he’d said, eyes half-shut from smiling, your hand lifted in a blurry motion like you’d just tossed a shell back into the waves.
He laid the photo on the table.
A soft collective breath escaped the group, somewhere between a sigh and a quiet ‘oh.’ Laurel’s hand fluttered to her chest, her eyes shining with unspoken emotion. Belly’s head tilted, brows knitting together in a thoughtful frown.
“Wait…that’s this beach,” she murmured.
“That’s our house behind,” Jeremiah added, glancing at his brother. “You brought her here? When?”
“Almost a year ago,” Conrad said softly.
For a moment, no one spoke. The room seemed to pause, the usual clatter of the restaurant fading beneath the weight of his quiet vulnerability. This raw, unguarded glimpse into his life was rare, almost sacred.
Even his father nodded slowly, a silent approval etched into the lines of his weathered face.
“Well,” Laurel said softly, eyes shimmering, “she must be pretty special.”
Conrad’s lips curved into a small, genuine smile, the corners lifting with a quiet certainty. “She is,” he murmured. “She really is.”
A minute later, Conrad quietly excused himself from the table, slipping away from the low hum of conversation and the soft clinking of glasses. He didn’t really need the bathroom, he just needed a moment to breathe, to catch the sharp edges of his thoughts before they cut too deep.
His throat felt tight and heavy, the strange ache that comes when grief and love collide pressing against his chest like a weight he couldn’t set down.
Leaning against the cool, smooth tile wall, he pulled out his phone. Your name was already glowing softly on the screen, as if waiting for him, an anchor in the swirling storm.
He tapped it gently and held the phone to his ear, heart pounding a quiet rhythm.
You answered on the second ring, your voice soft and warm, wrapping around him like a familiar melody that made the noisy restaurant fade into a distant murmur.
“Hey, love. Everything alright?” you asked, your tone tender, filled with a soothing kind of care that made his tight chest ease a little.
He swallowed hard, the ache tightening as he pressed his forehead against the cold wall, eyes closing for a brief moment. “Yeah, I’m okay. Just needed a little break.”
A pause stretched between them, your steady breathing a quiet comfort over the line.
“You sound a little shaken,” you said gently. “Talk to me.”
He let out a shaky breath, fingers curling around the edge of the sink. “It’s just…today. Being with them, remembering her. And now…hearing your voice.”
You didn’t rush to fill the silence. Instead, you let it hold him like a soft, protective cloak, an unspoken invitation to unravel the tight knot inside his chest.
“I told them I have a girlfriend,” he said, a shy, almost bashful smile touching his lips. “Showed them a picture of you.”
Your laughter was gentle and bright through the phone. “Oh? You really did?”
He nodded, though you couldn’t see the movement. “Yeah. Wanted them to know you’re not just a voice in my ear.”
There was a tenderness in your voice that made his heart skip, a soft anchor in the tumult. “I’m very real.”
He brushed a trembling hand over his face, trying to chase away the rawness threatening to spill through his words. “I miss you so much.”
“I miss you too,” you whispered, your voice barely more than a breath. “But at least we’re just a call away.”
His lips curved into a genuine, quiet smile. The heavy weight pressing on his chest lifted ever so slightly. “I’m lucky.”
“No,” you said softly, voice steady and sure. “I’m the lucky one.”
He closed his eyes, breathing deeply, letting the warmth of your voice fill the hollow spaces inside him, the steady pulse of your love a balm to his weary heart. For a fragile, fleeting moment, everything felt like it might be alright.
He lingered in the silence, the phone pressed gently to his ear, as if holding onto you through the line could stop the world from spinning too fast.
“I wish you were here,” he finally murmured, his voice barely above a whisper, heavy with longing.
There was a quiet pause, full of everything that words couldn’t say.
“I know,” you answered softly. “I wish I was, too.”
He swallowed the lump in his throat, feeling the chill of the tiles seep through his skin, grounding him even as his heart soared.
“Soon,” you promised gently, “I’ll be with you for real. No more phone calls.”
A small, hopeful smile broke through the tension coiled inside him.
“Yeah,” he whispered, “I’d like that.”
Part 2 of Leader of The Landslide is in the works for anyone who was asking about it🫰😚
I am stuck on which song I want to base the rest of the plot on. The original was based off of the Lumineers song “Leader of the Landslide” and for part 2 I am still stuck between “Sleep on the Floor” or “You’re All I Got”!
If anyone had any input all feedback is welcomed 🫰
Let Time Pass
Harry Styles x fem!reader
Summery: The one where you grow up. And Harry makes you realize how important time can be. Inspired by an old post I saw on instagram that originated from Tumblr! If anyone knows my reference please tag below!
Time is a valuable construct. But just as necessary as it is, it becomes a dangerous game to play.
For a while, you sit still and watch the world around you move. Yet as a child the days still feel so long and nights are always young. The 7p.m. bed times don’t phase you yet. You scream and cry and beg for another hour on the couch with your older siblings, packed together by your shoulders with your favorite cousins, but you don’t consider how much living you miss.
Because when you are a child, the world still revolves around you. Graduation is a distant memory, you can count on both hands how many years are laid in front of you. The chalkboard is still fairly clean, it reads, “first grade!” and your biggest fear is if you’ll be naughty or nice this year.
You don’t care about boys, or girls, or how to kiss or what to wear. You have freckles in the summer, you love them, and you don’t worry about if your hair looks messy because when you run and play, it’ll fall out anyways. You sit in the backseat, buckled into your booster, and sweat as your father takes a swig of his soda because you are innocent and have not yet learned the difference between drinking and driving and having a drink while driving.
Until, suddenly you’re seventeen. Suddenly you sit behind the wheel of the car you once sweat in the backseat of. There is no man running on the power lines like you once imagined, though sometimes you still stick your fingers against the glass and pretend to run because the company is nice. Some distant melody from a song your grandfather introduced to you when you were a toddler plays on the radio. You hum along and run the stop sign. You can count on one hand how many months you have left until graduation, and the chalkboard now reads, “Senior year!”
You’re getting older, and suddenly time is not nothing anymore, but rather something. You can officially look back at all the memories you haven’t lost, but no matter how hard you wish, the childlike innocence can never return, and your childhood best friends will never come back. You’re getting older, and suddenly the things you once hated, you enjoy now.
You like to feel love. You met a boy in your science lab. He plays with your hair as you lay your head in his lap and promises to love you forever. He asks you to prom, and he matches your dress. He offers you the moon and the stars, promises to shout from every rooftop that he loves you.
He places kisses along your neck, bruises hidden by your collar. You run your pointer finger down the slope of his nose, and you smile at the breathiness in his laugh.
It’s flashy, and it’s everything you’ve ever wanted. Teenage love, young, reckless, vulnerable. You promise to love him forever, and that no matter the distance, you’ll forever be tethered by your love.
But the sky is not infinite. You can only see so many stars at night, and theres only one moon. He ties it to your waist, but he forgets to take care of you, and it pulls you away. It’s puppy love, but it’s all you ever wanted. It’s so perfect and raw and fresh, until it isn’t and the distance grows to be too much.
You can count on one hand how many years of college you have left. How many years you’ll have your summers and can play pretend for just a little longer. You move out of your childhood bedroom. You let your cousins keep your old CD’s. You don’t need them.
Then, he walks into your life.
He’s perfect, in the way his brunette hair swoops around his eyes and the lightness in his laughter. It feels different with him.
You marry him. You wear a white dress, he wears a suit. You feed each other cake and dance to your favorite song. His vows are perfect, and you no longer recall the boy from your hometown who broke your heart.
That’s the funny thing about time. While occasionally, a color or a song may remind you of a distant memory, while you live on your own and explore all the world has to offer, slowly those who left you will leave your mind. You let time pass.
Suddenly you’re nearly fifty. Your oldest is in college now. You can count on two hands how many years of college she has left. She wants to be a doctor. Your youngest just finished the fifth grade. You feel so old.
It’s summer time. You work during the summer now, but get vacations every so often. You use those days to follow your husband on tour when he goes, but as you’ve settled down those years are far and fewer between. He still sings to you, like he used to sing to your kids. You melt at every word.
The cicadas buzz around, chirping into the dimming light. It’s getting late, and your children are eager to leave.
Your oldest kisses you goodbye and leaves to hangout with her girlfriend, while your youngest and middle rush into the yard to play with their new toys. You take a deep breath, and your eyes meet his.
He looks at you with eyes full of love, a tenderness only someone who cares deeply can hold in their gaze. His plate is empty, but he sits patiently waiting until you finish yours, and makes no move to get up until you do.
As you’ve grown, time has become more valuable to you. It’s limited and you realize it more and more. What you once longed for, waited for, becomes a distant memory. Childhood is gone, and adulthood feels overdone.
Your husband doesn’t show you off like a diamond ring, he doesn’t yell from the treetops or promise you anything extravagant. He gives you his most precious belonging. Time. He gives you time, and he sits with you happily, just letting time pass.
Nowadays, your back hurts too much to move. You’ve lived on the same block for nearly forty years. You’ve never changed, yet your neighbors swap like revolving doors. They know you and your husband as the lovely old couple.
You’re shorter now, more fragile. But your husband holds your hand and keeps you safe. Your kids bring your grandkids around.
They’re dressed up in nice clothes and ironed polos. You hand each of them fresh and clean chalkboards, and you write down the year in time to hold it forever.
They love you, they visit regularly. But as time becomes more important to them, suddenly it’s just like how it started. You and him.
You have photos of your grandkids beside the ones of your children on the mantle. You bake cookies for the neighborhood children and hand out candy on halloween. Your husband still sings, he sings to the children and he still sings for you.
Time becomes fragile. It becomes limited. Still, he sits with you, and he lets time pass as you eat. Slower than before, but still steady.
You love him, you’ve never known anything more.
You move out of the old house one day, you can’t live alone. You give it to your middle child and move in with the youngest. She still rushes to finish her food after all these years.
You sit alone now. Your hands are shaky, your time is almost up. You think back to the first time you looked at the sky and noticed the clouds moving. How your heart raced when you saw how quickly they brushed by.
You keep all the old photos up in your small guest room. You don’t have the energy to decorate it anymore. Your grandkids photos are on the dresser beside your kids photos, but you keep a small picture of him on your bedside table, and you kiss it goodnight.
He gave you his time, up until he ran out. You gave him yours, and when he wasn’t there to take it, you gave it to your family.
Time keeps moving, and thats the scary part. It never stops, it never goes back. You can only keep moving forward.
You don’t remember your high school lover anymore. Your memory is poor. You can’t recall the words to your grandfather’s favorite song, and when it gets lonely you miss your father. You get cold some nights and ache for your husband. But life keeps moving.
When you leave, thats all anyone can do. And when the loving warmth of a grandmother is lost, all your family can do is offer each other their time.
I Am So Full Of Love
JJ Maybank x fem!reader
Summery: JJ Maybank never liked Kiara’s girlfriend, or so it seemed, she never expected him to care so much once she was gone, and he never expected her to miss him the same.(Mentions of coming to terms with sexuality and confusion and guilt.)
“I couldn’t do that to her.” Kiara explained as delicately as she could without being consumed by her own guilt.
But how can you gently explain to anyone how you’ve just lost the love of your life because you were too immature to be what she needed.
Y/n was a kind soul, deeply understanding and empathetic to everyone, no matter the background. While to others, the cut and figure eight were a clear divide between societies on the island, the rich, and the poor, the good and the great, she never once looked at the brand on her friends clothes or shamed someone for the amount of money in their pocket. She was simplicity, she was sweetness.
As good and pure as she was, she was also incredibly naive.
Naive, that was the word anyone would have used to describe her. Because she didn’t see the point of the divide between Kooks and Pogues, it also meant that Y/n fell for cruel peoples even crueler actions, and never once complained about the injustices that she faced.
Y/n never complained, and she took what she was given with a smile, even if what she was given was really nothing at all.
“I loved her, how could I not? She was everything I’d ever hoped for when I was younger. I spent every single math class watching the back of her head for years, praying that one day she would look back and just see me. It would be unfair for me to keep her away from a life she deserves simply because I love her.”
Kiara was right in the end, and everyone knew she was. She couldn’t offer anything to Y/n, and while her girlfriend readily gave, and gave, and gave, there was only so much to give before there was nothing left. Kiara recognized the signs of the burn out between them long ago, how Y/n seemed to scramble to find something more precious to give to her, how she devoted each part of herself to Kiara so willingly despite the risks, and Kiara watched as she ran out of love to spare, and her goals overtook her relationship. Her journey became more important than her heart, and she knew it would be unkind to string along someone whose heart was ten times too big for her chest.
“How did she take it?” Sarah asked quietly, leaning closer to the burning fire that everyone sat around. Kiara pulled her feet beneath her thighs, shifting in the old camping chair.
“She didn’t really say anything, actually. I mean, I wasn’t expecting a screaming match or crocodile tears, but, I thought she might have something to say to me. I did love her, I do love her, I did this for her. I at least deserved to hear some kind of goodbye.”
Kiara recalled her reluctant goodbye. One she never dreamed of saying. She used to swear on every star that if it were to end, it would be on her lovers terms. She never imagined she would be the one to cause her dearest Y/n to wander the county with a broken hearted gaze and an empty chest.
But thats the way life goes, and unfortunately for the couple, they were victims to unforeseen circumstances.
Kiara recalled how happy Y/n looked as she knocked on her front door, flowers in her hands, freshly picked on her way over simply because that’s who Y/n was, a girl who loved to give things to people just because she appreciated them. She was glowing, absolutely bursting with a vibrancy Kiara would always miss, but one that was no longer hers. Her knuckles that were stained green and the nails brushed with pollen. She was the sweetest spring after a nasty winter.
She remembered how Y/n wasn’t even the slightest bit skeptical or concerned when Kiara frowned and asked to speak to her. How Y/n sat and rubbed her back when she started to cry, her head laid in Y/n’s lap. In her lap. She cried and choked out apologies before killing her off, pulling away finally to end it and crush her girlfriend’s heart.
Her back was left cold as Y/n pulled away from her like she was poison, her touch distant and cold, and her eyes holding a thousand questions she would never ask.
“I’m sorry baby, I’m sorry. I love you, I’m sorry.” She swore, and the girl simply looked like she was still puzzling the pieces together.
“Don’t apologize, it’s not your fault.” She had assured Kiara, and in a sudden burst of emotion, wrapped her arms around her in a soul crushing hug. The sound of her lungs deflating and her heart cracking would haunt Kiara in her sleep for years, she knew it as soon as she let Y/n love her goodbye.
That was all that was shared between the pair before Y/n slipped away, the flowers still clasped tightly in her palms, the thorns stabbing into her skin at how tightly she began to grip them.
“At least someone got what they wanted though, right?” Kiara laughed bitterly and looked to JJ who sat across from her, seemingly processing the fact that this meant the bubbly girl wouldn’t be coming around anymore.
“Sorry?” He looked up from where his arms rested on his knees.
“Y/n won’t be coming around anymore. Isn’t that what you wanted?” Kiara laughed sadly, as if trying to find humor in her loss. Yet, even if Kiara seemed bitter, not even JJ could find any tears in her sad eyes.
“Why would I want that?” He didn’t find it amusing.
“You hated her, didn’t you?” Kiara’s smile faded slightly, as if part of her was hopeful that her friend would find some mean thing to say to make a poor situation better. As if he could find a flaw in her, Kiara could let her go easier.
JJ sat back and thought deeply, and then, when the idea was constructed and confirmed, he bit his tongue.
Sure, he had never been kind to Y/n, but it was never out of pure hatred. Well, maybe in a way it was, but not for the reasons everyone believed he had.
Kiara had been looking at the back of her head in math for years, tossing wads of paper at her to get her attention and writing thoughtful notes to her for her to receive before she even sat down. She slipped her words of affection in her locker, and offered her rides after school just to be closer to her.
Kiara chased what she wanted and got it, she had it. But what she failed to notice was how JJ’s eyes were glued to the same girls head from another side.
JJ had been watching her since they were kids. It wasn’t just because she was pretty, or kind, but because even in the darkest of times, she was always looking at the brightness of the future.
He’d been watching patiently from beside her in math class, always avoiding her watchful eyes and instead playing it off like he was looking out the window. Some days, when she was late to class, he would subtly scoot his desk closer to hers, and against his better judgment, he would silently hope Kiara wouldn’t come to class so he could partner with her.
But Kiara had her first, all because he had been too scared to get too close. Because in his mind, she was too good to be true, and he would rather live his life believing that than try and find out if he was wrong.
That’s why he hated her. Not because she was annoying, or naive, or too happy. But because every time he saw her, she reminded him of how much of a coward he was.
“Yeah, I guess I did.”
Days passed, and dust sat in silence while pollen gathered on rusted window sills. A mark from her jean shorts stained JJ’s window. The heart stitched into the back pocket rubbed against the worn down wood. From all the times she’d tried to mend something that was never broken. Now, he sat and wondered quietly if he had let her in and stopped searching for answers he wasn’t meant to find, if she would ever stop by again to say hi.
He missed her. He figured everyone did, but despite Kiara’s broken heart, he still selfishly believed he missed her the most.
At first he didn’t get it, the hollow feeling in his chest, the stuttering heartbeats and the shallow breathing. How he constantly found himself tossing and turning only to wake up in a cold sweat at the loss of her image in his dreams, how her nose was never quite right, how he forgot all the parts of her he swore he’d never forget, how everything was fucked over nothing at all. He never had her, she wasn’t his so it made no sense to him.
It got so bad, he took himself to the library. The fucking library. And he searched for answers he was desperate to find. The computers were boxy and dusty, but worked faster and didn’t store memory like the one at John B’s house. He looked over his shoulders, partially embarrassed by how driven he was by the loss of a girl he had just told everyone he hated. But JJ Maybank never knew when to stop, so he dug and dug and dug until there was nothing but molten lava that burnt his hands. And even then, he never learned to stop.
Grief.
The word that popped up onto his computer screen.
Deep sorrow; the experience of coping with loss.
Funny enough, he’d recognized it immediately. He didn’t need the definition. He’d known it all his life, and he’d heard it on her tongue. How she grieved their friendship that never was. He recalls the first of her many visits he took for granted.
He wishes he had reached out, held her hand, even if it wasn’t his to hold. He wanted to feel the softness of her skin against the roughness of his palms and feel the sickness lessen in his skin where it rotted.
He recalled her like the softest thing that ever was, a gentle reminder that when winter passed, spring has to come, that the bad is only temporary. And still he had grit his teeth and bit her neck like a scared dog whenever what he lost got to comfortable.
“I’m not…I’m not into girls.” She spoke softly, her knees tucked beneath her thighs, her jean shorts pressed against the old windowsill. Her voice was soft, scared, tender. The first of many confessions in an old bedroom that belonged to neither of them. The first of many attempts for her kindness to break through his resentment and dreams of a clandestine arrangement.
“That’s bullshit.” JJ snorted bitterly, but the sadness in her eyes made his sharp tongue bleed with how hard he bit down on it. His eyes softened, her node was red. She seemed torn.
“Or, maybe I don’t know. All I’ve ever wanted was a man. That’s all I’ve ever known…but then she kisses me, really kisses me and she touches me like she doesn’t just want what’s between my legs and I think maybe she’s all I’ve ever wanted.” She smiles, her vision unfocused and stuck to the carvings JJ engraved with the edge of his blade.
He wants to tell her he could touch her like that, because when he imagines their arrangement that be desires so bad, he doesn’t list after her like the others. He has no desire to place his hands down her thighs, but rather to lay his head between her breasts and listen to the gentle beat of her heart, to let his hair tickle her chin as they fall asleep entangled in their warm little affection.
But he doesn’t, because she’s scared, and Kiara’s the first to ever change her perspective. To make her wonder if theres more to her heart than just boys, and all he wants is to so badly brush her cheek and kiss away her phantom tears.
“You don’t have to know.” He surprises himself with the gentleness of his voice. Despite his jealousy, his dark disease that rots away under his skin, he masks his anger with a deeper sadness that reflects as numbness across his angry face.
Her eyes flicker up to meet his, and a smile spreads across her face. A smile he so dearly adores.
“What if I don’t ever know?” She asks like he would know, and he doesn’t. Not because he can’t wonder, but because all he’s ever known is her.
“You will.” He promises. His fingers twitch. He almost touches her. Almost. But fear stops him, and instead he lets his stomach twist up in a disgustingly deep grief, a feeling he was so familiar with when it came to losing her he forgot what it felt like because it was all he’d come to know.
“Will you look at me any differently?” She asks timidly. She reaches out to brush the blonde curl out of his face. Her skin is warm, and she rests her palm on his shoulder before sliding it down to interlock their fingers.
She’s like a deer. A shy, but beautiful little thing. Soft and sweet, but destructive when you hit it. He wants to touch her back, but he knows the destruction he would cause. He wants to tease her, but the tears in her eyes scare him, and instead he is forced to share the honesty that he wishes he never spoke.
“How could I ever?”
He thinks of her always, and his fingers twitch, yearning to close the distance between them. He wonders if he she wonders about his sickness too.
She does. Of course she does. She see’s him in everything she does. The waves at the beach, she swears he’s there beneath the barrel of the water, his blonde locks poking out as he crashes down towards the shore. The softness of his usually rough voice. The bitterness in his comments, how he teased her and yelled and tossed his arms around like he could ever scare her.
She looks at him in passing. Wishes math class was still a constant so she could keep scooting her chair closer to his. She wanted him so badly, yearned for his affection, even if it was in private, yet publicly Kiara has swept her away. So she kept her touch fleeting and her eyes wandering.
Everyday she prayed the sickness would be sucked out of her, the way her bones seemed to ache whenever he was away. How could she love someone so mean to her? Yet, she always had, and in their stolen math class glances, secretly she wishes he had asked her first, and instead of the fading scent of Kiara’s sweet perfume she’d grown fond of, it could be the clean scent of his deodorant smeared across her sheets as their limbs became a tender entanglement of sweat and laughter on a hot summer day.
She walks past the docks by the chateau, where the old fishing boat bobbed in the water on calm days like today, and fishing rods lean against rotting wood to dry. Water drips rhythmically, and her eyes catch the building puddle beneath a rusted bucket that rings with every droplet.
Her body hits something hard, a softness cushioning the collision and a soft grunt sounding in the air. She stumbles back, yet a pair of large, rough hands grip her hands so securely, she finds her footing easily.
“Still clumsy I see.” He taunts, and when their eyes lock, it’s the same teasing glance she had been missing so desperately.
“JJ.” She breathes like he’s an angel sent from heaven. Like suddenly the air was clearer.
“Surprised you still remember me, sunshine. Thought Kiara had shaken me out of you.” He grins like a dork, and though the mention of an ex-lover that had ripped out her heart should have hurt, especially with how hard and vulnerable she had loved Kiara, it didn’t. The sting was masked by the swelling in her chest that only ever came when he was around.
“You have a face I could never forget.” She smiles, and her wide eyes search the slope of his nose and the curve of his cheeks. Her sweetness that he cherished so deeply catches him off guard, the warmth from her lips a foreign language from how much time had been stolen from them.
He clears his throat in an attempt to pass the lump.
“You miss me so much you had to come stalk me?” He lifts a brow, and for the first time since she can recall, maybe even since Kiara had ripped her heart out and left nothing but numbness in her ribs, she lets out a laugh. A real, honest laugh. She can’t be surprised though, she can’t recall a time JJ hadn’t made her laugh.
“Maybe I was just reminiscing on our math days. Muscle memory to come bring you your homework I guess.” She smiled brightly, and for a moment, JJ let his act slip, and the teasing smirk became a soft grin.
There was a beat of silence, and then, a deep breath that escaped between her pink lips.
“It’s just nice to get out, you know? It’s been a long couple weeks and I just missed the area. It feels weirdly safe even knowing it doesn’t belong to me, but her.”
JJ thought it was an odd thought to have, how in just barely two weeks a person can completely commit to wiping away their sacred moments at the expense of another. How readily she accepted that she could no longer enjoy the same flowers he did because they were Kiara’s first, and in her mind, she would always let Kiara be happier than she was even if it wasn’t her fault.
He hummed, and his hand twitched the same way it used to when her jeans marked his windowsill. He sighed and looked out at the small boat and the fishing rod he had laid out for this afternoon.
JJ felt something pull at his chest, the way Y/n swayed on her feet like she would turn and leave with her tail between her legs the minute he raised his arm and pointed towards the dirt roads. But as much as he played the part, he would never be that guy, and he never could be.
“Why don’t you come with me today.” He suggested, though, it wasn’t really a question, more like he was telling Y/n she was coming with him.
She looked surprised, her thumb picking at her nails on her pinkies and her lip tugged beneath her teeth.
“JJ, if this is a sympathy thing, really I don’t need it I can just go home.” She began waving her arms around like a mad woman, pointing in directions that made no sense even to her in her flustered state.
JJ raised his pointer and pressed it against her pink lips. They were softer than he recalled from all the times he used to cup his palm over her mouth when her giggles became too bubbly and loud, and sometimes even infectious.
“No, I want you to come. So come.” He nodded, looking at her through his brows, his head tilted down as he pretended to roll his eyes. If only he could have felt the girlish excitement she felt at his sincere words.
“Okay, yeah, I’d like that.” She smiled, her voice softer than before.
For once, when his hand twitched he followed it, and his fingers wrapped around hers tightly, engulfing her palm in his hand. He was bigger than her in all ways, except maybe emotionally, and in some weird way, wanted nothing more than to help her despite feeling sorry for himself.
JJ stole glances as he led Y/n down the dock, his lovesick expression hidden by the way the breeze blew his beach blonde girls over his face. He wanted to wrap her in his arms and kiss her until all she knew were his lips, but that wasn’t fair to her, and he knew it was especially not fair to Kiara, who had been quieter with each passing day. So he pushed it down, and prayed it would go away for just a moment of clarity.
The boat rocked steadily on the water. JJ sat in the back behind the wheel while she sat by the front, the wind blowing her hair back like some cheesy romance movie. The sun hit her skin, sinking in against her freckles and speckling the highlights in her hair. She looked perfect, she looked different, like she carried a sadness so complex, for once JJ didn’t know how to dissect it.
He stopped the boat when he got so far out, nobody could hear them, as if for this very moment in time, they were just a distant memory on the shore.
She stared out at the waves with a thoughtful expression, and JJ wanted to know how to stick his fingers between the curves of her brain.
“Whats going on in that head of yours?” He asked softly, standing up to sit down across from her. Like always, she tucked her legs under her, and sat as small as she could despite the vast space around her she had to stretch out.
She stayed quiet for a moment, and then bit her lip. It was weird, JJ thought it was weird because he knew that look, she showed him her full hand of cards and she hadn’t even realized it because JJ knew that tick. He knew her throat was burning and he knew how badly she longed for the feeling of togetherness that had been missing since Kiara let her walk away.
“I’m just…I’m angry.” She confesses softly. “And I’m not sure if I have the right to be.”
Her eyes met JJ’s, and even now as shes beginning to come undone he swears she only gets more beautiful.
“It’s just so confusing sometimes. It took me so long to come to terms with the fact that I like girls the way I like boys and…I had nobody to tell me it was alright that I was scared. Kiara was already so sure of herself, and I couldn’t tell anyone else because nobody would understand. I felt like maybe I was sick or something. Like I was a problem because I should be proud of it, and everyone should know but I was just figuring it out myself and…maybe I wasn’t ready but I just loved her so damn much.” The truth came spilling out like hot lava, her fear, her acceptance and her pride for her sexuality, yet the loneliness of having not a single hand to hold and the all consuming feelings of utter affection for the woman that opened her eyes.
“Afraid?” JJ couldn’t help but ask. A sob ripped through her throat.
“All I’ve ever wanted was what I’ve been told. A nice house, a husband that loves me and children to care for. I want a real career with a fulfilling reward like a doctor or a scientist. But all of a sudden maybe I don’t because maybe my husband’s my wife and the children don’t exist because all I see is myself traveling the world with Kiara leading the way.” She talks nonsense, her eyes closed while the backs of her wrists work to keep the tears from slipping down her cheeks.
“And it terrifies me because at the same time, all I want is this stupid boy to look at me the way I look at him and I wonder if I really love Kiara or if I love the way she loves me. And I’m guilty all the time, and then just as I’m figuring everything out and spending my time picking flowers for the girl I love more than anyone in the world, she lays her head in my lap and tells me she doesn’t want me anymore.” Her rambling keeps going until it bubbles into desperate breaths and shaky hands. JJ can’t help but reach out for her and pull her in close.
“And the worst part is I’m not sure if I can even feel sorry for her because the whole time while I’m painting rainbows down my arms and finally loving who I love, I’ve been loving this boy too.” She breathes, and suddenly, the tears stop.
“Because as much as I loved her, I couldn’t stop thinking of you.”
JJ freezes, he thinks for a moment he hasn’t heard her right. The same sweet, gentle Y/n who cried about loving Kiara so deeply, who lived in confusion and fear over labeling things she wasn’t ready to label, the same girl who he sat next to every day in math class wishing her lips would be on his had just confessed six words he never thought he’d actually hear.
“What?” He nearly mouthed, all the air struck out of his lungs.
“I love you, JJ Maybank.” She says dejectedly, her shoulders slumping and her cheeks stained from her tears. “And I love Kiara Carrera too.”
They sat in silence for a moment, and then, JJ’s eyes met her.
“Do you remember when you asked me if I’d look at you differently when you first started figuring out you were into girls too?” JJ asked softly. Y/n nodded, wiping her face.
“I told you I wouldn’t, and I meant it. I love you more than anything in this world, as much as I give you shit. Who you love can never change that, because you are so alive and full of it, how could I even try to act differently towards you?” He meant every word.
Neither of them saw her love life as something to be ashamed of. But rather, just a different kind of love, a good different. Maybe JJ wasn’t like her in that sense, maybe he couldn’t like boys and girls like she could, but he knew Y/n and he knew Kiara and he knew just how special both of them were. The people they took to bed could never change his perception of them, and so to see Y/n struggle so deeply after losing the person who made her see who she truly was hurt his heart.
“I have loved you since before I knew what love even was. And I’ll keep loving you until I forget it too.” He confessed, his hands now cupping her jaw so tenderly, holding her together like she might break.
“You are perfect, and I’ve been grieving just the thought of you gone, I can’t imagine how you can’t see how perfect you are too.”
JJ wasn’t the sentimental type, he didn’t have a way with words or know what to say at the right time, but he always knew how to help her, he knew her, and he loved her just like she loved him, and just how she once loved Kiara.
Between heavy breaths, her lips connected with his, a soft, hesitant kiss that you rarely see in the movies, just testing out the waters like it might kill her to swim deeper. But he kissed her back, and pulled her in tightly until her body had to uncurl and wrap around him instead.
When they pulled apart, all he saw was her, and all she tasted was him.
“Will you look at me differently now?” Y/n asked, her voice timid just like it had been all those months ago.
JJ shook his head.
“No, because I’ve always looked at you this way.”
Authors Note: I don’t usually put authors notes at the end of these short writing but I felt this was very important. As someone who has very openly explored their sexuality and experienced periods of time where they felt scared or anxious about figuring it out, it’s okay to not know, and nobody will judge you for not putting a label on anything yet. It’s so important to remember that we all love the same, and it’s such a tender and vulnerable thing to experience. Don’t ever let anyone’s judgment dictate who you decide to love, there’s always someone out there who will support you, maybe you just haven’t met them yet! If anyone is struggling or needs someone to talk to, my inbox is always open and I am always so happy and willing to chat. :) Happy early pride month to all who celebrate!
Lordes new song is pulling me out of my writers block #thankyoulorde #conradWHATWASTHAT?
Anyways Conrad fanfic coming soon
Harry fanfic based on the Holdovers coming soon
JJ Maybank fanfic coming soon
🫶🫶🫶
Monkeys Paw
Harry Styles x fem!reader
Summery: You and Harry had recently become obsessed with the game “monkeys paw” to pass time. The rules were simple, one person has to make a wish and the other has to make it bad.
“Is it my turn?”
There was a soft silence, only the humming of the abandoned bass leaned carefully against the far end arm of the brown leather couch, and the clicking of the long red hand of the clock that always seemed to run just a few minutes behind.
There was also her laughter, her sweet, gentle laughter that Harry often thought about slipping into one of his melodies. A tender secret within his most precious works that could turn any song into a love song.
“Yeah, it’s yours.” She smiled, tucking her bottom lip between her two front teeth, the skin quickly slipping away as her smile became too large for her lip to stay kept behind her teeth. “Make a good one.”
Harry found himself laughing, playing with the rings that decorated his fingers, twisting and sliding them from his knuckles to the freshly manicured nails that his fans had grown quite fond of.
He found himself looking at her. From the way her hair framed her face to the calluses that blistered from the thick strings of her bass. He memorized her freckles between his thoughts, and dreamed of wishes to speak out loud that she wouldn’t try to bend, but rather make true.
“Okay.” He had the thought in his mind, confident that there wasn’t a single way it could be made into something undesirable.
“Go ahead.” She urged, a twinkling challenge in her eyes that proved she was already thinking up something to beat him.
“I wish that all the bad people in the world would disappear.” Harry spoke softly, but confidently. And there was a brief pause between both of their breaths that they held for a while as the request hung in the air.
Then, she caught his eyes, then the fallen expression on her face came back in a mischievous smile, her brows furrowed together in thought.
“Okay.” She breathed out heavily. “Yeah. All of the bad people are gone. I’ll grant your wish.”
For a moment, Harry looked perplexed. He was sure she could read it all over his face, shocked by how quickly and easily she had given up their usual routine of a lengthy, well thought out game that grew into a competition that usually made them have to stay later to finish their work.
Then, she clicked her tongue, and her eyes flickered up to the ceiling.
“All of the bad people in the world are now invisible.” She clarified, and the once confused expression on Harry’s face quickly turned into a goofy, lopsided grin that accompanied his quiet laughter.
Harry wasn’t ever sure if he won in the end, and he assumed the same for her. Really, there were no winners because they never truly played any games strictly by the rules. Both could go back and forth for hours, no matter how twisted the outcome, no matter how dire the wish, Harry always seemed to think of a way to make the good bad, and she could make the pure corrupt.
“Okay fine. I want a turn.” Harry smiled, his voice sharp with determination. He decided as his eyes met hers, that by the time all was said and done, he would finally claim victory and their bickering that lasted hours that they called, “Monkeys Paw” would finally end.
“Make a wish.” Harry urged, nodding his head towards the her as she seemed to melt away into a fit of laughter.
“Okay, no need to get your thong in a twist.” She snorted.
Then, like always, there was a pause. A moment for a wish to be created without any loopholes so obvious the game would become boring.
“I wish…” She breathed finally. “I wish to have someone love me as hard as I love them so that I don’t have to feel ashamed for being too much.” Her eyes avoided Harry’s, but her grin was plastered to her face. Harry’s confidence fizzled, because any wish no matter how big seemed possible to bend, but his heart seemed to pause when she wished for someone she already had.
He bit his lip, watching the way her eyes seemed to squint beneath her furrowed brows, her long lashes covering the color in her irises that Harry often swam in. The way her shoulder slouched and her body sank into the sofa, Harry took note of the way her confidence had also seemed to dwindle in the presence of her vulnerability.
But it was all to win, right?
No, the truth was they both knew there were no real winners. Even if Harry left today with the crown of victory, you never really won. You just felt fucked up enough to think of all the bad ways to destroy the good in the world. You just felt unlucky.
“Okay. Wish granted.” Harry said softly, and when he looked up, her eyes were already on him. “You’ll get someone who loves you. Someone who would completely and utterly adore you just as hard as you love them, if not more.”
There was a pause, a moment where they both held their breath, wondering where Harry’s spiel would go, how he could make it something bitter.
“But that person is me.” Harry finally spoke, and a heavy silence captured them both.
It was as if they were stuck in a dance, twisting and falling between good and bad, both deciding quietly if his statement was really a punishment. The silence from her end and her unreadable expression had Harry thinking the worst.
Then, in a soft breath, she finally spoke.
“I win.” She declared softly.
“What?” Harry smiled softly, almost nervously. He felt his knuckles twitch and his knees get that weird aching sensation when they’re still and bent for too long. They felt weak, like if he tried to walk, he’d simply fall.
“I win.” She spoke again, this time with more confidence. “You couldn’t make my wish bad. So I win.”
Harry nearly asked what she meant again, but he caught himself this time, and instead sat up, his posture stiff and rigid, his eyes widening and lips parting. They sat knees to knee now, her ankles thrown over by his calves, her scrunched up socks rubbing his skin with every gentle shift.
“What?” She laughed in one quick huff, a puff of air escaping her lips until she was breathless. “Was that supposed to be a punishment?” She smiled, but Harry didn’t answer. He couldn’t, he didn’t have the words.
So instead, he took a leap, a chance that would either bring him the most valuable thing in the world, or shatter it completely. He pulled at her ankles until her thighs rested over his lap, spread and relaxed against the warmth of his body. His hands found the curve of her back, trailing up her spine until his palms cupped her jaw and pulled her lips down against his.
She let out a squeak at the contact, but she didn’t pull away. No, instead he felt her lips melt against his like they were always meant to be there, pressed together until all was left was shared air mixing between their dampening lips, pink and swollen from the languid contact.
She pulled back first, not far, but enough to get her own oxygen. They shared the quietness of the space.
“Now I really win.” She snorted, her eyes crinkling up with laughter.
Harry’s palm pushed against her temple gently, a playful gesture as he rolled his eyes and laughed through his teeth.
“You’re such a dork.” He groaned.
“A dork who finally beat you in Monkeys Paw.” She boasted confidently, not minding the redness on her skin from the brush of his stubble against her soft skin.
Harry pulled her back in, holding her close and letting his lips press against hers in gentle touches of tenderness and care.
Before Harry was convinced he ever really won in the end, and he assumed the same for her. Really, there were no winners because they never truly played any games strictly by the rules. Both could go back and forth for hours, no matter how twisted the outcome, no matter how dire the wish, Harry always seemed to think of a way to make the good bad, and she could make the pure corrupt.
But now he knew better.
On paper, she had won. He couldn’t think of a way to twist her wish and make it undesirable. But they never played based on technicality, and they never truly followed the rules. So maybe she could brag about her victory to everyone she knew, but Harry knew the truth.
Harry had won in the end, even if she left today with the crown of victory, you never really won. You just felt fucked up enough to think of all the bad ways to destroy the good in the world. You just felt unlucky. But today, Harry felt lucky.
He felt so lucky, he decided if losing felt like this, there was no real loss, because even defeat felt like victory to him.
And as her giggles grew quieter against the soft press of his lips, Harry only had one last wish to make.
“I wish for this moment to last forever.”
Literally just binge read all of ur Jj fics and OMFG UR SOOOO TALENTED literally everything is sooo good
Ugh thank you so much! This means so much to me you’re literally the sweetest ever!!!💕💕💕
I cannot say it enough thank you thank you thank you😊💕
Seven(ways to Neverland)
JJ Maybank x fem!reader
Summery: “And I’ve been meaning to tell you, I think your house is haunted. Your dad is always mad, and that must be why.” Y/n and JJ grew up together, and while it was inevitable, Y/n and JJ swore they’d never grow up. Not even when life told them it wasn’t possible to be young forever.
“My Ma is always saying dad left because he was a piece of work.” The girl said softly into the cold silence. Waves lapped at the shore calmly, and wind blew through her wild hair. She twisted the loose ring on her middle finger, a hollowed out and ground down acorn that was more brown than green nowadays. She spun the slightly wet ring around on her skin. “But I don’t believe her.”
The girl tucked her chin into her knees, curling up like a turtle in a shell. Her eyes glistened in the pale moonlight.
“Why?” The tow head blonde boy asked, curiosity in his defeated gaze.
“She drinks a lot.” The girl shrugged like it was normal. “She always did, but more now that dad is gone. Her friends do too. They talk about how their ‘glory days’ are behind them…or something like that.” She overshared her mother’s secrets, her young mind not comprehending the idea of dirty laundry and why you don’t air it out.
“Oh.” The boy looked down at the sand. “My dad drinks too.” He looked to the girl, who was now drawing circles in the sand mindlessly.
“Maybe it’s a grown up thing, and we don’t understand it yet.” She said hopefully, but her voice was low and quiet, and she looked awfully sad when saying it.
“Maybe.” The boy responded just as quietly.
“Wouldn’t it be cool if my mom married your dad?” The girl suddenly questioned. “Then maybe they wouldn’t drink as much. They wouldn’t need to, and my Ma’s friends wouldn’t have to sleepover in my bed.”
The boy nodded slowly, considering the idea before tossing it out the window.
“You wouldn’t want my dad to marry your mom.”
Silence filled the beach again, and the boy took some sand in his hand and watched it drain out slowly back onto the ground.
“He’s always angry. Sometimes he’s not, but it feels like he is.” It was the girls turn to look down and try to find some words of sympathy.
“Yeah. Parents suck.” The girl smiled, knowing the feeling of helplessness all too well.
They were only seven, but they knew a whole lot about things they shouldn’t, and they understood that just because the world worked that way for them, that didn’t mean it worked the same for everyone.
“Does he hit?” The girl asked curiously, her smile fading. The conversation seemed so casual, calm. Little children who should have been cowering, already accustomed to the treatment.
“Sometimes.” The boy answered truthfully, and the girl nodded.
“So does my mom.” The girl said quietly, still doodling in the sand beside her feet.
“Do you hate her?” The blonde boy asked after a beat passed, looking to see what the girl would say.
She thought about it for a moment, sucking her bottom lip between her teeth and twisting and pushing against the acorn on her finger.
She shook her head.
“No.”
That was her answer. Plain and simple like there was no other reason for it. She was her mother after all, and she was a kid. She would cling to her and try her best to be great for her, and when her mom would hit, she would try even harder to be great because even if her mom was a bad person, she was a bad person that the girl wanted to love her so badly.
The innocent and the good look up to the horrible and the ugly.
“Would you run away?” The boy pressed further, maybe because he was curious of what the girl would say, but maybe also because he was curious if anyone else shared the same thoughts.
“Would you come with me?” She asked.
“Why?” The boy questioned with his brow raised, his head cocked to the side.
“I don’t like being alone. I don’t like the dark.” She hugged her knees even tighter.
As the wind blew warm salty air onto the shore, waves crashed more violently against the sand, the tide rolling in quickly.
“You’d hate my house then.” The boy joked with a chuckle. It sounded almost bitter. “Dark, quiet, scary.”
“Sounds haunted.” The girl looked back into the boys blue eyes.
“Maybe. But ghosts aren’t real.” The boy shut down the girls observation quickly, picking at the loose threads at the ends of his board shorts.
The girl hummed and silence fell over the two kids again. Messy blonde hair and two tangles braids with dead ends fraying in the wind. A faded pink shirt with cursive writing and a dusty white tank top. They were so young.
“Well, I think your house is haunted. Your dad is always mad, and that must be why.” She spoke up suddenly, kicking the sand and standing up.
“My dad isn’t afraid of any ghosts.” The boy stood up quickly, looking straight back at the girl. They were at the age where he could still stand eye level with her, but he figured in a few years he’d have a few inches on her.
“But he must be afraid of you.” The girl reasoned.
“My dad isn’t afraid of any seven year olds either.” The boy argued a little more firmly, feeling protective of his father, or his lack of, despite all the cruelty he was shown from such a young age.
“Well then, why does he hit you? He has to be afraid of something if he’s hitting you. My mom says it’s because I look so much like my dad. Like I could be the ghost of him and she hates it.”
The boy fell quiet, which was unusual. Everything about the way he acted around her was odd. He wasn’t a quiet boy, wasn’t one to just sit and talk, he’d rather pace around and pick at his nails.
“I didn’t think of it like that.” The boy said softly, looking down at his dusty boots. “Maybe I look like my mom…” He agreed, but he didn’t really know what his mom looked like.
“Well, I bet she was really pretty.” The girl said, her eyes shining despite her lack of a smile. Like she was calm on the inside despite the outer furrowing of her brows.
“You think?” The boy asked, raising a brow and his head.
“I know.”
She was looking right at him, his blonde hair and his blue eyes. His skin was tan, soft looking. He had sun kissed freckles on his nose and pink lips. Anyone that pretty had to have a pretty mom, she thought. But they would never know.
The boy blushed, and he held out his dusty hand until she took it in a loose handshake.
“JJ. JJ Maybank.” He smiled, looking back into her eyes. He was only seven, and he wasn’t like his friend Pope. He wasn’t the kid who read in his free time or who practiced spelling on his weekends. He was out between the sand and the weeds, picking at the dirt and getting his knees muddy. But even he could see the wild look she had, untamed but gentle.
“Y/n. Y/n Y/l/n.” She smiled in return. She had a sweet smile, JJ thought. He’d never thought that before, or if he had he hadn’t thought about him thinking that. She had a really sweet smile. She was sweet. Blush from the wind on her cheeks and coloring the tip of her nose. A missing front tooth, which, by the cut in her bottom lip right where it should have been, JJ figured she’d knocked it out herself.
“Y/l/n.” JJ hummed, putting it to memory.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you.” Y/n hummed, her hair pulled back into two uneven braids, the part in the back a mess. JJ had done them for her today.
“Shoot away.” He replied calmly, smiling and tugging at the end of one braid, watching the girl’s head tilt closer, her feet crossing in an unbalanced step. She slapped his bicep weakly.
“JJ!” She laughed through her annoyance. She could never really be annoyed with him, she believed. She hoped JJ didn’t know it because Y/n figured if he did, he’d push through every fragment of tranquility they shared. He’d find a way to bring her right to the brink of frustration and then make her laugh it all off over and over again.
“What does JJ even stand for anyway.” Y/n huffed, crossing her arms over her chest, wrinkling her waffled shirt. “Probably something stupid.” She smirked, unraveling her hands to tuck them into the pockets of her hand-me-down overalls.
JJ punched her, his lips drawn in a thin line. Y/n rubbed her arm quickly to soothe the sting, her brows kissing at the center of her forehead. “Ow!” She yelped.
That was the thing with growing up, some get stronger, and others get left behind. Not to say Y/n was weak, the bruises on JJ’s arms from her little shoves and playful punches were proof enough, but they were nearly twelve now, and JJ figured he could probably bench her by this point.
“You started it!” He argued, though his palm still smoothed over where he hit her maybe just a but too hard. He’d check to make sure he didn’t leave a mark later.
“Did not!” They fought like children, and smiled freely like they did when they were seven, like they didn’t have all the reason to frown, to cry. To let genetics be hereditary and become the punishers. But instead they swung weakly at each other and laughed everything off until nothing really mattered anymore.
A silence fell between their giggles, a silence only broken my JJ’s pointer finger and thumb playing with the little tail tied off at the end of the braid.
“I don’t know. I never asked, I figured it was just my name. JJ.” He shrugged. “Simple. Like me.”
Y/n nearly snorted.
“You might be a simple boy, JJ, but you are not simple.” She smiled, eyes flickering down to her muddy shoes, bright red converse with holes in the sides so wide, ants found refuge in the warm shelter.
“John?” Y/n threw out an idea. JJ shook his head.
“Nah, we already got a John.” He pointed out, stuffing his own hands into his pockets.
“Well, your dad didn’t know that at the time.” She argued, and still, JJ couldn’t get on board.
“Okay.” Y/n thought, humming and biting her bottom lip, sucking it between her teeth, and swiping her tongue over the faded scar where, she had in fact, lost her front tooth all those years ago. An adult tooth had grown in since, but the scar, now pink instead of bloody, lingered like a faded memory.
“Jackson?” She looked at him, and for a moment, he thought about it. Then, he hummed, pulling his own lip between his teeth.
“Nope, too fancy. Maybe if I was Kook royalty.” He joked.
“So maybe one day?” Y/n teased back, wiggling her brows. JJ gave her an amused look as if to say, yeah right.
They went back to listing names, stumbling down the list until random names became those that started with a J. She tried out George with a J, followed by Jerry, and Jeremy. But all fell flat. It seemed to look as though the boys name was nothing more than two letters squished together.
Then, with a click of her tongue to the roof of her mouth, and a sparkle in her eye, she looked up at the blonde with wonder, the start of an idea.
“Jesse James.” She spoke matter-of-factly, her hands cupping her hips confidently.
“Who now?” He raised a brow.
“The outlaw?” She said in return, like it was common knowledge. Like her and Pope didn’t stick their noses deep into western books all summer much to JJ’s dismay. Not that he hadn’t know she was a bookworm, as if she hadn’t lugged around whatever second hand book she could snatch without the librarian noticing, but the summertime was time for the water, the waves, the tide. Not dusty pages written in small cursive letters with stupid plots less lively than any adventure JJ could drag her on.
And, no, he wasn’t jealous. That’s not why he went on a long list of reasons why he didn’t recognize the name, how it evolved into a complaint of her time spent glued to Pope instead of him, because JJ was surely not jealous.
“He was an outlaw back in the 1800’s. He robbed, killed, fought. Ran a gang with other outlaws.” She explained with a plain expression.
“Oh, so an asshole?” JJ shorted, and the sound made Y/n laugh.
“No. Well—yes, but that’s not why I think it’s so fitting. It’s adventurous, fun. Risky, you know?” She gushed over old literature, and god, if it had been Pope or anyone else, JJ swore he would’ve rung their neck by now, or at the very least ran as far away as possible. But Y/n explained it with a giggle, and JJ simply couldn’t resist listening to each word pouring from her mouth.
“Anyway, I think it’s fitting on a surface level.” She shrugged finally, and then, her eyes flickered over to his. “But I think I like plain old JJ the best.” She smiled sweetly, and then, she licked her chapped lips.
JJ figured if she liked it, he liked it too. He never really longed to know what his name stood for, if it meant anything, but her questions always raised his own. He thought a bit more as they walked between the broken branches and thick grass. He felt bugs on his shins and sweat beading down the back of his neck. He adjusted the old, beat up hat that flattened out his messy blonde hair against his forehead.
“Well, what about you?” JJ finally questioned, itching to hear her philosophies some more.
“What about me?” She continued walking, the sound of running water nearby tumbling down smooth rocks.
“Well, if I’m some outlaw, what does that make you? The damsel?” He smirked, and Y/n couldn’t help but roll her eyes.
Could he really picture her in a corset? A layer over another until she was all fabric and barely any skin and bones. A big skirt hiding the frame of her hips and the sweet curls of her hair. She laughed at the image she painted for herself.
“If anything, you’d be the damsel.” She pointed her finger into his arm, looking up at the ground ahead now, and then let out a peaceful sigh.
“The accomplice.” She smiled, hooking her arm in mine. I let my hand slip out of my pocket so she could pull me closer. “But never the follower.” She raised her brows, a serious gleam in her lively eyes through her long lashes.
“Anyway, crime isn’t for me and it isn’t for you either, blondie. You’d end up in jail, and I’d have to bail you out. Hell, I’d probably be behind bars with you too.” She dreamed up the image, already seeing the way JJ would be leaned back, laughing at her stressed out expression. Cool and unbothered, the way he always seemed to be.
“And I don’t know about you, but I don’t just wanna be the kid from the cut who ended up as just another sheriffs little pet. I wanna be something. Someone.” She clenched her fist in determination.
“I wanna be that girl even in my eighties, dancing in the rain and running up and down the beach like my bones can’t flake away.” She smiled brightly. “And I want to scream, I want to yell! I’d scream ferociously, leaping between the waves like we do now, and I’d finally jump from the rocks, and I won’t be scared because I’ll have done it thousands of times.” She painted her future, her desire.
There was no money, no big house with a picket fence and an army of children. Just the ocean, some laughter, and enough fearless ambition to spill into the next lifetime.
“Sounds nice.” JJ agreed, but he didn’t have the same imagination as she did, he didn’t have it in him to dream a dream as pure and grand. So what, he wished for a little money, it didn’t make him any less noble. He didn’t need to live on figure eight, he just didn’t want to be stuck with three jobs until he turned to dirt.
“It will be. And you’ll know it because you’ll be there with me, and we’ll be the same pirates we are now. We’ll smoke on the roof and wear fancy clothing that we made ourselves. We’ll ride the waves and make lemonade and sweet tea like John B’s dad does. We’ll have mustaches from the sugar, and we’ll be young forever with the grass between our toes!”
She stopped, suddenly grabbing his shoulders at the opening of the thick greenery, the sandy beach an open land that laid out for miles around them. The waves hit the smooth rocks, the rougher ones that stood tall thrashing with the heavy water. Sea salt coated their glistening skin.
“We will be interesting forever.” She promised with a serious smile, like she knew there was no other fate for people like them. “And nobody will ever forget how we lived like real people should and how we never let the temptation of a corporate paycheck take away the big picture.”
Her hands wrinkled the shoulders of JJ’s old tank top, the sides cut so far down, it was nearly just a napkin with a hole for his head. Everything about their attire screamed kids from the cut, there was no fooling anyone, yet they carried themselves with pride, like the lack of civility in their lives was a thrill, the dirt and the worms and the bees and sweltering sunburns were all a gift to have been rubbed across them on their walks in the rain, in their summer time hikes to the secret beaches they weren’t supposed to venture on.
The Kooks had it good, an easy life, but Y/n declared that they were the only ones living.
“Well, we can start on that dream now.” JJ declared hopefully, looking out to where the waved lapped at the shore. His ringed fingers pointed out at the rigid rocks that overhung the deep waters.
“If we’ve got a thousand of leaps to take, you have to start with one.” He looked back at the girl, the way she nervously fidgeted before setting her hands stiffly by her sides.
“And then we won’t be scared.” She repeated to herself, but more to him.
“No, we won’t ever be scared again.” And there was a shared understanding, an understanding that dreams are just dreams until they make them more. If she could do this terrifying thing, all for the rest of her deepest wishes to come true, there was a new found certainty that anything scary could be done.
That she and JJ could do all the scary things the world could offer, even just as the awkward children they felt they had grown into. It was possible.
JJ sat in jail for the first time when he turned sixteen. He hated it. His head hung heavily in the palms of his hands, elbows pressed sharply against his thighs, eyes focused on the dirty floor between his old boots.
It wasn’t his fault—not fully at least. Yes, he agreed he had instigated Popes anger, but to JJ he saw everything they had done as self defense. Pope was a good kid, a smart kid, second in the class—no. First. He was first now. She was first, but now she wasn’t. Funny how things can change so quickly, rearrange to make it seem like nothing changed at all.
The point was, Pope had a future, and JJ sure as hell didn’t. Any dreams he had were replaced when she had shared hers, because he decided then that he wanted those things too. But that hope had long vanished, and now Pope had a real chance to chase his dreams, so JJ took the fall. He sunk to a new low just like the boat, sitting alone in the cell she had once warned him about. Only now, she wasn’t there to share it with him.
He thought about that day a lot. Just a year after they’d taken the leap, started the path to their future filled with laughter and whispered secrets, meticulously planned schemes and toothy grins. JJ woke up early, ready to sneak around the back of her house that sat beside John B’s and knock three times on her window. He’d beg her to go sneak away and let loose with him, and of course, she’d agree.
He biked the short distance, ignoring the storm clouds, ignoring all the signs that led straight to the forming pit in his stomach. The worry, the dread. He hadn’t felt it yet. He only felt the dust clouds kicked up by his feet and the rust scratching his shins from his old bike chain.
The police lined her driveway. Sheriff Peterkin stood with her hands in the loops of her belt. Men stood with their weapons drawn, her mother sat on the gravel, handcuffs binding her violent hands. She looked angry, but her eyes were dark with the evidence of liquor. She looked well-rounded from a far, but JJ knew the truth, and the dirt under her nails made his stomach flip.
In the line up of tin and metal, a van with a label he’d known so well from watching his old classmates getting whisked away. Child Protective Services.
“Y/n!” He’d nearly fallen to the ground at how fast he jumped from his bike, the petals grinding against the gravel. He ran the rest of the way, desperate to know what had happened. He had seen her yesterday, she was happy yesterday, what happened? Why were the authorities at her front door?
“Y/n/n! Where are you?” He reached the back window, only to find the emptiness of the bedroom through the cracks in the glass. It was messy, but untouched at the same time. Every single item thrown around left where it had been yesterday. Her pajamas she had laid out, still thrown over her flattened pillows. Untouched.
He hadn’t seen her leave, didn’t hear her cry. The van was empty, he’d caught a glimpse through the tinted windows. They hadn’t snatched her away yet, so where could she have gone?
“Come on!” He grunted, his palms pressing underneath the stubborn window, the wood groaning as the glass slide against itself. His thirteen year old arms bent under the weight, and he cursed his scrawny limbs. The glass only cracked more as it finally shot up enough for the blonde to wiggle himself into the room, soft thuds and gasps escaping his lips as skin pressed between wood and plastic.
“Y/n!” He pleaded more softly, weary of the fact that he was sure the entirety of the Kildare Police Department was lined up outside, and the breathlessness that came with the pressure on his lungs.
He earned no response, and in a desperate effort to trace some clues back to her, he began further ripping the room apart, spinning in circles for some sort of clue, evidence she still existed, that she wasn’t just some name in the wind, another urban legend spread around Kildare for the tourists to gawk at. Underneath her bed, behind the small table she’d made herself with rotting wood and hot glue, in the piles of clothes thrown around. He spun around and bent over until everything ached and he grew dizzy.
His eyes found the crooked clothing rack, a cheep bar of metal she had found with him in a ditch beside an old thrift store. She had painted it teal in the fifth grade and carved her initials into the posts. Her favorite pair of overalls hung limply from where they were draped over the bar, swaying in the wind with a crinkling sound in the front pocket laid flat out in the center of the chest, still covered in mud from their last adventure.
He investigated curiously, and in his best attempt to slow down in his desperate hurry, he pulled out a small slip of paper with his name scribbled on the front.
“Jesse James.” It read just beneath his real name, though it seemed now that she had become the true outlaw.
He opened it with shaking hands, his brows furrowing. When he saw the familiar scratchy handwriting, he internally let out a sigh of relief. Thankfully, this wasn’t another one of her failed cursive lessons he always failed.
“JJ,” The note began, “The rich are the bane of my existence. I hope one day, when we are older, we are rich in all aspects of life but the literal sense. Maybe it’s just Kildare, but the more money that lines their pockets, the more cruel people seem to get. But we will be kind forever, and we will continue to swing from tree branches and work long and hard for the simple pleasures. I’ve been ratted out; or—my mom has. Ward Cameron passed by earlier to return a shirt I left at their house at the end of the year party. It was one of her bad nights, you know how she gets. Anyways, he must have heard her, seen it. I didn’t even get the chance to wipe my blood off of the window before the cops started pulling into the driveway. I’m running. I’m running far away into the trees where nobody without a heart will be able to trace me. I promise to come back. After all, what is an accomplice without her influence? But I cannot keep our dream safe in a faraway place where they want to take me. If you need me, picture me in the weeds and you’ll hear me in the folk songs at the Chateau. Until we dance again, Y/n/n.”
JJ stood there in the silence, the banging from outside the house leaking indoors, and soon, he had no choice but to slip out of the familiar sanctuary that was her bedroom, the paper hidden in his blistering palms, damp with the sweat the coated his now clammy skin.
They were thirteen then, freshly graduated from middle school and ready to take on high school. She had been leading the class in all ways, kindness, brains, bravery, and now, there was nothing left but the crumpled note JJ had thrown in the fire out of bitterness towards the Kooks and whispers about the girl who disappeared.
To Narnia, they said. The ball of sunshine and endless life had slipped away to a place where only the creative are let in. She would be a pirate there, she wouldn’t have to hide in the closet on beneath the sheets in fear. She was as free as the August breeze, and JJ was as lost as a drunken sailor.
JJ decided he didn’t want to be an outlaw anymore after his first time behind bars. It wasn’t as fun as she had pictured it. Maybe if the trouble was something interesting, a scheme they could have conjured up together, but it wasn’t a sadder reality. Pirates weren’t on peg legs with eye patches and parrots anymore, and the good and interesting were more boring as they tried to come up with philosophies that could never measure up to the youthful spirit she once had.
He wished for all the beautiful things he once had, and often he found himself wondering if they even still existed. His friends were his life, his soul. But he could still see her braids in woven patterns, hear her feet hitting the concrete and whipping in the tall grass in the breeze, and her laughter in those old cheesy folk songs John B’s dad used to play.
JJ found bliss in recklessness. Partially for himself, but also for her. He always believed in the idea that no matter how far he strayed away, pieces of him would always reflect his father whether he liked it or not. So, when presented with the possibility of a gold hunt that led him right into his jail cell, he took the chance, gambling away his safety for the thrill of the chase.
They had gotten so close too, the heavy metal sitting pretty and shiny in his hand. But he never won, no matter how hard he tried or how much he gambled and chanced and risked, he always came up short, the small half of a wishbone, the edge of the party crackers. He felt like an outlaw now, and it wasn’t nearly as fun as it should have been.
How they all ended up on some boat, JJ had no clue. Well, he had some hints, another forbidden treasure stolen just when he thought they finally won, and now, nothing but heavy breathing in a heated storage container that had no food, no water, nothing but pointless rope and endless trash.
The B team, is what he referred to himself as, which Kiara had taken offense to. Sure, it was low of him to refer to her like she was a worse option, but the blonde was itching for some action.
But he was benched. Benched because he was everything she loved. Reckless, unpredictable, free. He protected that sweet sliver of childhood beauty he found when he thought of her memory. Her sweet eyes, her sweet smile. He had never thought about anyone like that before, and not ever since. He hated braids, hated the way they reminded him of her, how Sarah and Kiara would slap his hands away and grumble about how childish he could be. She wouldn’t have gotten angry, she would have laughed. Or maybe she wouldn’t, he didn’t really know anymore and that killed him.
It killed him that he couldn’t know because he didn’t even know if she made it, if the trees were kind to her or if she had swung herself over the edge on a vine stretched too thin.
She would be eighteen now, just like him, though he was a little older. He wondered if she still wore the two loose braids down over her shoulders, taming her wild hair and tucking her curly strands behind her ears. Did she still swear by overalls? Dare to run barefoot over the hard cement and dive head first into thrashing water? Were there still beautiful things to her, or had life finally caught up to her?
JJ didn’t know her face, and he was sure if it weren’t for the hours he spent trying to find her, trying to trace her cheeks even in photographs, he wouldn’t recall it at all. She was five years older, and so was he. He wasn’t scrawny, he’d swore to get strong so that the day she would finally return, he could slam the windows open and keep her tucked safely behind him.
“What are you thinking about?” Kiara spoke up, legs swinging softly from where she sat on top of piles of plastic and wooden crates. JJ sat curled up in the corner, his elbows resting heavily on his knees. He’d never been so sweaty.
“I don’t know.” He shrugged plainly, focusing on the small circles on the floor made of rubber. They weren’t very comfortable.
“You gonna tell me, or should I guess?” She smiled, tucking her hair behind her ears. He saw a flash of someone he once knew sometimes in her. Sometimes it was nice, other times it made him angry. It wasn’t Kiara’s fault though, not her fault she had spent so much time around the lively firecracker of a girl that she had also become another version of Y/n.
“I know I said a surf trip would be good. I mean it would, but do you ever think about what you might do with all that money?” JJ furrowed his brows, licking over his lip, the split in the corner of the bottom lip stinging at the sensation.
Kiara hummed, leaning back and stretching her neck to catch the passing breeze through the small opening in the top corner of the metal container covered by a vent.
“I mean, yeah. A stable home life would be nice. Then, I’d probably do something with turtles. It’s a lot of money so, could probably do a lot with it.” She reasoned, wiping her skin with her palms and blinking the salty liquid away from her eyes.
JJ hummed. She had it all figured out, her real, serious dream that had stability and certainty. All the things Y/n’s dream never had, the very dreams she made JJ want just as bad.
“You know what Y/n would do with all this money?” JJ snorted at his own thoughts, practically hearing her voice ringing through his head. He heard Kiara hum, waiting for him to continue, and he simply smiled wider. “Absolutely nothing.” He laughed to himself.
Kiara laughed too, knowing deep down he was right. Maybe a tree house, or a small plot of land on the outskirts of society where all good things green can grow and only the wild folk dare to stumble, but nothing more than that. A few thousand, if it even were to cost that much, and the rest pocketed, maybe donated. Maybe just enough left over to buy some new shoes, some good shoes for dancing.
“A lifetime supply of overalls and red converse. Maybe even some nicer scarves to tie in her hair.” Kiara entertained JJ’s thoughts. She still thought of the girl every so often too, they all did, but no one more than JJ. After all, nobody had known her nearly as closely as JJ had. A bond that only comes once every few lifetimes, that’s what they had, Kiara was sure.
“She’s probably outgrown the overalls.” JJ added, and silence fell over them. Then, in the still air that coated the small space in a thick layer, laughter bounced between the pair.
Such a funny thought, to think Y/n could ever change. She had been a lot of things, but she was always herself. She found what she loved, and she loved them dearly. There was no changing her free spirit and old habits, it was who she had grown to be, through and through.
“What do you think she looks like now?” Kiara wondered out loud, looking down at JJ to see the way his brows furrowed and he pulled at the corners of his lips.
JJ thought for some time, because though at first he had tried to piece together and image of Y/n all grown up in his head, he’d long given up on those fantasies because they were never her. Only bits and pieces of the girl he could never forget.
“Bangs.” JJ said suddenly, followed by nothing else. He could picture them, hair sun kissed and twisting up in wild curls that were swept to the side. Not full, choppy bangs, but those cut with rusty scissors in the early morning, just framing bits to tug out when she put her hair up.
“Bangs?” Kiara chuckled, her hands subconsciously slipping over her stomach, and her arms tucking into a firm grasp, a hug she was giving herself. “Nothing else?” She smiled, curious because she had thought about it a lot.
Her hair would no longer be in braids, and those sun kiss freckles would have multiplied like the sparkles in her eyes did. She would have an eyebrow slit, or a piercing, maybe even a stick and poke, all of which she would have done herself to make herself stand out. Maybe she would have finally grown out of her nail biting, but Kiara doubted that part.
“Nope.” JJ said wetly, leaning back further and letting out a deep sigh. “Just like she was, only taller and older.”
Part of JJ wondered if it was his heart forcing him to believe Y/n would never change, and then the other part of his would remind his aching heart that it didn’t matter, because he would never know. All he could do was do as she asked so nicely before she left, picture her in the trees, jumping wildly from stone to stone and dancing in the breeze.
“Do you think she made it?” Kiara wondered out loud, her temple now pressed against the metal confines of the container. The breeze soothed her burning skin, and her sweaty palms threaded through her tight waves.
“Y/n?” JJ asked like it was even a question. It wasn’t even a question to him, wasn’t even an occurring thought, not after the first time he really sat down and thought it over.
“She made it.” He said confidently, because he knew the girl, and even if she had lived in the mud amongst the bugs and the thick vines that attempted to grow over her tired body in the night, she would do it happily because she was living.
“Without a doubt?” Kiara shut her tired eyes, her chest deflating with every labored breath. Sweat glistened as it rolled down the slope of her nose, sparkling on the slivers of sunlight.
“Without a doubt.”
When she said she wanted to be a pirate, she had envisioned a life close to home, lounging around on John B’s old boat with her best friends, drinking from coconuts and ripping the skin off of mangoes with her teeth until the juice stained everything she touched. She imagined a life of pure peace, where the little things were enough and money was an afterthought.
But here she was, skin slick with sweat, hair stuck down to her forehead in damp curls, and her shirt clinging to the denim that covered her. The deck was cooler, a free space for her to stretch her eager legs, and though it was confined, she found peace in the open ocean, a vast space of blue expanding as far as her eyes could see.
Now, her back ached, her wrists just as damp as her face, and with each swipe of the backs of her hands against her temples, she simply spread the wetness across her forehead in a streaking mess.
She fed the flames, shoveling coal and other waste into the small opening, trying to fuel the large ship with what little energy she had left to offer.
Her back ached, and her knees were sore. She loved a challenge, yearned for the work because at least it gave her something to do, something to stick her needy palms into, but she was too worn thin to carry multiple jobs all at once. She desperately waited for the girl she had come to call her close friend to return, shovel in hand and thick gloves covering her relatively well-manicured hands. Cleo, she learned to call the girl over her few months spent on board, had abandoned ship, split when she needed her most. Nobody had said anything about her absence, so Y/n was led to believe she had left without warning.
It was hell below deck, a new low, and Y/n knew low. She could list a few things just from the past couple days if she wanted to scrape the surface, but most memories came from her earlier years, when college still seemed so far away, and she swore she would never grow old. She missed when her joints didn’t ache with even the smallest movements. She missed jumping from branch to branch and swinging herself into the depths of the ocean with reckless abandon.
More than that she missed him. Her best friend, and the only person who had ever believed her when she swore to live out her most childish fantasies. Anyone else always looked at her like she had dreamed of being a fairy, a mermaid, a princess. All things unrealistic and unreachable in her living situation and the rules of the world, yet JJ had always seen it as completely plausible.
If she said she wanted to jump to conquer a fear, there he was tugging her along and laughing the whole way down. If she wanted to dance, he would learn the steps, and fall into line with her, spinning and dipping her in the wet pavement that scraped against their bare feet.
So, as she shouted for some sort of assistance in the basement, she couldn’t help but wonder if she should have let them take her away that day. If she hadn’t been so set on remaining untouched, unfiltered, wild and free, if she had let the warmth of a calm, civilized home find her, would things have ended differently? Was it her mistake for chasing after a feeling of childish wonder that had been stripped of her? Was it wrong to want something so badly simply because her own life had been too hard to ever enjoy at a normal pace?
She hadn’t seen the thick greenery in years, the daffodils snd the daisies only vibrant sights when their stems were sliced and their leafs were wilting. She missed the mud between her toes, the summer air lifting her up. When she wore braids not because they kept her thick hair off of her neck, but because she liked the way they looked. When her overalls were a fashion statement, not because they shielded her from the dangers of her work. She missed the bright red fabric on her converse, and the old doodles from her friends on the soles when they got bored. They were caked in oil, and grime, and sludge. Dimmed by the struggles of her reality. She wondered internally if there were still beautiful things.
Then, like her prayer had been caught in the wind by her savior, there was some scrambling that echoed across the floorboards, followed by distant shouting and metal hitting metal.
Mumbling and chaos shook the frame where she stood, distant cries and grunts as bodies slammed together leaving her torn in a moment of desperation. Her heart ached to go, to run and finally catch her breath, to see what disaster had swept over the ship in such a short moment of time, but her brain thought logically, told her to feed the flames to keep everyone afloat. It was a split second decision, the divide between rational and reasonable.
And then she thought about all the good in the past few days. She thought of the glimpses of the world she’d stolen between the bustling mornings and the restless nights, of the small treats she stuffed in her pockets and the beautiful sunsets and clear constellations in the center of a world untouched by light pollution. She thought of Cleo, her only friend she’d found in a life where she only knew abandonment and fear. Where the only affection she had ever accepted had hurt her, and the only good and gentle people in her life had fled, Cleo had appeared like an angel, a thick accent and a toothy grin. Born and raised as a thief, and trained as a fighter. She was smart, and kind beneath her rough edges, and Y/n thought of the sadness in her eyes each time she worked until her bones stung. She thought of how badly she wanted to dive into the waves below them and pull the girl with her to show her how freeing running can be.
Faced with fear, she could not save either of them if she waited for another miracle, another moment to excuse her actions, to make her breaking loose seem justified if it were to all go wrong. If they’d have her head for betrayal, the ocean waited for her on all ends, and she believed in her ability to survive confidently enough to take the risk presented to her.
She took the stairs two at a time, and the door to the outside air swung open with such force, it echoed like a gunshot when metal connected with metal, bolts grinding together angrily, her soot covered hands staining the rusting exterior, the cheap white paint flaking off where her hand had pressed firmly against the door.
“Cleo!” She shouted in the wind, her arms covered in goosebumps as the slick sweat became a layer of gel that turned her warmth into an uncomfortable chill.
She looked frantically, turning corners and sprinting over ramps and down steep stairwells. She hopped over ropes and swung from bars, her dirty sneakers slapping against the floors in heavy steps, and her breathing coming out in short pants through her nose.
“John B!” A quiet shout rattled down the thin hall that lined the perimeter of the deck, bouncing off of the thick walls and hollow railings. It was a name she hadn’t heard in a while. For a moment, she thought she had imagined it, that in her moment of desperation to grasp onto the bits and pieces of bliss in her hellish life, her mind had reeled and found a temporary way to cope. But then it came again.
“Where is he? John B!” The voice called out again, whiny and pleading, and much too loud on a ship crawling with people who were indescribably more dangerous and destructive than the cruel people who lingered in her hometown.
Then came the struggle, more grunting, and the sound of shoes scraping against the floor in a slippery mess. She could hear faint taunts, familiar names of people she longed to see again ever since the day she had left, and the sounds of exasperation over the loud lapping of waves against the side of the ship.
“Kie, now!” She heard suddenly, a deafening shout that silenced all other chaos around her, her breathing slowing in her ears and her heartbeat pounding against her temples.
It was as if time slowed, and all things far away rushed at her in a blink of her eyes. It was slow, yet so fast, her vision blurring into a jumbled mess to the rhythm of her unsteady heartbeat drumming against her ribs, begging to get out.
It was a voice she prayed to hear again, only deeper and raspier, but still the same. A voice that called to her in her darkest moments and pulled her from her slumps, reminded her of all the beauty of instability, of pure trust in luck and intuition. A voice that she had grown to love and hold dear to her, one so precious she found herself covering her ears so that she would never forget the sweet sound of it.
“JJ?” She pivoted quickly, her hip slamming harshly into the metal railing and her shoulder making contact with the opposing wall as she used the accidental thrashing as momentum down the long, swaying strip of flooring she ran on.
She felt crazy, delusional chasing after a sound she wasn’t even entirely sure was real. She had been dehydrated, overworked, underpaid, forgotten about and thrown to the side amongst all the other treasures that laid untouched beneath the deck. She used to scream ferociously anytime she wanted, and now it felt more like her life had become an exhibit at the zoo, a cage for her bosses to look down on, tossing fish to keep her from starving. What had happened to her freedom, her love for recklessness? She decided to hold onto her delusion, to chase it because to be wrong was better than to be certain in her correctness and abandon her love for the chase.
“JJ? JJ!” She shouted, her voice coming out in broken cries, knuckles whitening with how hard they gripped anything with a corner or a curve. Anything that could keep her afloat as she dove into waters so deep, she couldn’t touch anymore.
“Cleo!” Her cries echoed through the tense air, carrying over the grunts and slamming and shouting that passed through coworkers, some she knew, and others she didn’t. If she couldn’t be given the life long dream to reunite with her drive, her motivation to keep going, she prayed to whoever was listening to her that at least her friend would be waiting for her at the end of the hall.
The boat rocked with a shift of weight, a crane groaning under the intense pressure of something indestructible, and in the glistening sunlight, Y/n caught sight of something truly magnificent. A golden cross shining in the halo of sunlight that surrounded it in all of its glory, a true treasure that had been, unbeknownst to her, been stuffed away just mere feet away from where she had been working until not a single inch of her body didn’t know pain.
She stumbled back at the sight, the jewels imbedded into the holy fortune sparkling with a beauty Y/n had never seen in person. It took her back to her days at Sunday school sat right beside JJ. Her mother wasn’t a religious woman, but JJ’s father was, and so with an excuse to be cut loose from the torture of her house—because she refused to call it a home; she too began to believe in something greater than what she was supposed to believe in.
For the first time in her life, her neck craned up to look at the artifact which swung ferociously in the wind, the groaning crane whipping it around erratically, Y/n closed her eyes, and she prayed.
She didn’t ache for the chase, for uncertainty in this moment. She was unchanging in all her beliefs, but for one singular second, she prayed and pleaded that for once, there would be certainty in who she would stumble across.
Then, with a sudden feeling of calamity in the midst of reigning chaos burning over the life she had grown accustomed to, Y/n rounded the corner, stepping down the last bit of the hall into the thicker opening of the side of the deck, lined with a few stray crates to block off broken pieces of the rusted railings.
And there it was, the sudden loss for breath, the heavy feeling that weighed down everything she could once do without even thinking. Her feet refused to move, and her nails dug into the ragged shorts of her overalls. The wind blew her curly, sweaty bangs across her face, tickling her nose. Her entire world shattered and then became rebuilt at the relieving sight.
It was a man she did not know, someone who had joined the expedition under the employment of someone Y/n wasn’t allowed to know. A man who simply worked for another man much wealthier than she was, erratically swinging his curved machete around in an act of violence against two people she recognized clear as day as if time had never passed them by.
Kiara sat bent over, the wind knocked out of her as her cheeks puffed up to try and keep what little air she had left inside of her. Her hair hung over her bright eyes, her pink lips bitten raw, Y/n could make out that detail even from a distance. But there, just s few feet away, stood JJ backed up against the railing, leaning dangerously close to the edge, his hair wild and untamed like the rest of his appearance.
He wasn’t the boy Y/n had left behind. He wasn’t the scrawny tow headed blonde who liked to tease and run, but rather a more muscular blonde with a fire in his eyes, passion that couldn’t be manufactured, but found through growing up. He was just as beautiful as she remembered, just as dear, just as lovable. Even without a single bit of insight on what he had been up to, how he could have changed, Y/n’s feelings for her best friend had been long cemented within her heart. She loved him like no other, to the moon and to Saturn.
She was only broken out of her lovesick visions by the sight of the unfamiliar man growing closer to her friends, his grip tightening around his weapon like a threat, and Y/n feared the worst.
“JJ!” Y/n found her tongue, which had previously gone numb at the sight in front of her. She had shouted out for the boy to warn him, to try and get him to recognize the mans posture, how he stalked over Kiara like a looming threat, but she was foolish to believe that the sight of her, even so many years later when she was sure he would have learned to forget her, wouldn’t stop him in his tracks.
His blue eyes found hers, and she could see how his body seemed to tense, and then very quickly, slump in shock. His jaw fell slack, eyes widening and brows furrowing, almost as if he was in pain, in some sort of conflict. To run into her arms, or to focus on why her shouting was so desperate, so raw and broken.
He wanted to speak, to beg her to tell him if this was all real, or if the heat from the container had caused some sort of heat stroke and he was hallucinating her up to comfort him in a time of crisis. But his breath refused to come out, and in a blur, the blunt end of a blade struck his head, and his feet swept over the edge of the boat, plummeting him into the depths of the sea below.
In that moment, Y/n realized three things. One; she had spent so much of her life dreaming, she had left so little time to go and live those dreams. Two; in every single thing she had ever wanted so badly it had become a part of her dreams, JJ had always been there right alongside her. In most, he even led her confidently, and three; that very same boy she had been dreaming of for endless nights, until her entire youth was filled with only dreams of him, had just gone overboard, and now, so was she.
Her dirty shoes scraped the edge of the railing. Part of her felt like spreading her arms out wide to welcome the wind, but as her wide eyes flickered from the golden hues of the sky to the deep blue that seemed miles away, fear struck her body.
It was a long drop. Much farther down than the rocks she had learned to leap from effortlessly, hand in and with her best friend to guide her. Water thrashed below her then, and it did so now too.
He floated below her, face down and limp and she felt her blood pumping. Back then, he had held her hand firmly and whispered out promises into her ear with each doubt she had. Back then, she believed every word he said when he promised there wasn’t a single possibility she would get hurt because he was right there. And when she leaped with him, he had been right.
“Wasn’t it fun?” He had laughed back then, so excited to have been right. Her face was unreadable, her lip trembling and eyes wide. For a moment, he had panicked, even at twelve years old he understood what it felt like to want to keep something so special safe. He held her face, cradled it in his wet palms until her cheeks lifted into a smile.
“Can we go again?” She had giggled, feeling a familiar warmth in the pit of her stomach spreading.
“Yeah. Yes!” He encouraged, proud of her bravery and her ability to find pleasure in things that once scared her.
He was always more brave than her in her eyes. She imagined if it were her down there, he would have already jumped in no hesitation.
Y/n looked down again, and then back at Kiara, who was back up on her feet, limbs tangled with the man she still didn’t know the name of. She was struggling to a degree, but quickly got some ground to push off of.
“Y/n!” Kiara called out from over the mans broad shoulder, eyes frantic and her skin dusty from the mans shirt and the wooden deck.
She could see her internal debate, both people who were so special to her put in situations where they were nearly helpless. To leave JJ meant he would be on his own, but to leave Kiara opened up so many more possibilities.
“Go! I’m okay!” Kiara promised as he pushed the man away, getting some leverage, and at the desperation in her voice, something inside clicked within Y/n.
The bottom of her worn out shoes scraped against the old metal, and for a moment the wind felt freeing as she leaped out, the warmth from the sun made it feel like flying, like by some miracle she could never fall. But the cool water below crushed her imagination as it wrapped around her body like a cold blanket.
When she surfaced, the world around her spun, echoes of her old pleas to go again ringing through her ears as her limbs cut through the waves desperately, goosebumps pebbling down her arms almost instantly.
“JJ!” She shouted, her voice raw and ripped from all the desperation she felt, how vulnerable and helpless she felt.
He laid on his stomach, submerged with no air like a starfish, only bobbing with the current. He seemed completely washed of all life.
She felt weak splashing over to him. She kicked and cut through the waves like she needed it to survive, and yet her malnourished bones only let her go so far so fast. It felt taunting to her, having to watch him get closer at a snails pace.
Y/n’s arms wrapped around him feebly, his larger body resting heavily on her shoulder. He was broader now, no longer the small boy she had to leave behind. If only he knew how quickly her dreams were crushed in order to survive, if only she’d been more careful, if she hadn’t left her shirt. If only she’d didn’t look like her father, if only her mother was a good woman.
“JJ hey, I’m back, wake up okay?” She smiled weakly, like her presence could shake him. He swallowed so much water, she knew it. If only she wasn’t so scared. If only she hadn’t been stripped of all the bravery she had learned from him.
The boy’s head rolled to the side with each tap of her wrinkled fingers, the cold biting their limbs with each lap of the waves crashing into them.
“JJ, come on wake up please!” She grew frantic as the water seemed to only grow rougher, a vision of the thrashing water between the jagged rocks clouding her reality and his weight sinking them down below the surface.
“JJ!” She cried out, her voice ripping through the heavy pants and her nails digging into his body. Blood stained his hairline, his blonde hair now darkened from the water and strawberry at the roots from his wound.
She knew it better than she ever had. He had grown stronger while she had been whittled down into only a shell of who she had once been. He was taller, faster, braver than she ever was, and as hard as she kicked her legs and splashed around, it felt like more and more waves seemed to pull them under momentarily.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” She apologized towards the sky, guilty for not being able to keep them afloat in the choppy waters. “I’m sorry, I love you.” She promised, and she held onto him tighter with each passing second, even as her vision started to blur.
After all, he always loved the company and she was afraid of loneliness and the dark.
“I love you, I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m trying J, I really am!” She promised through gasps of air, water falling from her lips more rapidly now.
“John B!” She screamed, her voice piercing through the empty space. “Pope!” She called out again, hoping that just one of her friends might hear her. Would they recognize her voice, she wondered, or had growing up changed everything about her? Had she become unrecognizable?
She surely didn’t recognize herself anymore. She avoided mirrors, and parties, and small talk often. She hated the sound of her voice and how it had changed and how she’d grown taller and how her freckles seemed to dot her face more messily. How she had to live with the changes that would make her harder to recognize if she would ever get to meet her friends again.
“JJ, please wake up.” She pleaded again, all other sounds beyond her heavy breathing and the faint ringing in her ears falling deaf.
She recalled the last time she heard him laugh. She heard it in her sleep, covered her ears to drown out anyone else’s late at night to savor the sound. She recalled running her fingers through his hair under the stars, promising him one day everything would be okay. It would be okay, right? One day it would be okay?
“Kiara!” Her throat felt raw now, the salt water tearing apart her dry lips and stinging the scrapes on her palms and knees. Everything hurt, the more and more she begged and cried for help, the longer time seemed to stretch. The heavier he grew in her arms.
There was nothing she could do to change what was happening to them, no plywood or branch to grab onto, no ladder or savior to come and save them. Her heart felt empty, her chest closing in. If she had a mirror, she would’ve seen the loss of color fading from her skin. She missed the certainty she once hated. She missed everything about knowing what tomorrow brought, when she knew JJ would still be tapping at her window, when he wasn’t lying limp in her arms.
She hated it and cried about it, though it was pointless. She cried out for help but her voice was muted with bubbling water, her head bobbing below the surface. For a moment, her vision cleared as the waves dipped, and she swore she saw the outline of a figure in the distance, but she couldn’t be sure. The waters rose just as quickly as they fell, and with a deadly grip, her arms wrapped around JJ to ensure not even the strongest currents could pull them apart as her body gave out. And in a sudden moment of weakness and a final soft apology and a kiss to the blondes cheek, the feeling of sinking was a gift.
Then, the tugging. It was desperate, nails drawing blood by her neck, three or four pairs of hands pressing their palms deep into her raw skin, fingers all wrapping around her before the depths could take her. She felt the rough material before she saw it, the dark grey fabric lining the outside of the small boat, a large motor in the back and each empty space filled with a familiar face, all of their legs bent upwards in an impossibly uncomfortable position to save space.
Her breaths came out ragged, heavy dry heaves leaving drops of water heavy with saliva stringing from her mouth. Blood trickled down the bridge of her nose, a new, burning scratch earned in the messy tug-o-war to save her from sinking.
Y/n swore she felt her heart stop with each cough, eyes squeezed shut and her back hunched over in pain. Her palms pressed into the bottom of the boat until her body found the floor, and her knees slide beneath her.
Still, she recognized two things; one, the air sent pins and needles down every bump that had spread over her skin, her joints screaming with each small bend; and two, JJ was laying lifeless just a few inches away.
His head was propped up against the side of the boat, the fabric wrapped around what Y/n assumed was an inflated portion of the body. His face was tiled away from her, having lolled to the side as the boy Y/n recognized as John B through her blurry vision frantically steered the boat.
The blood had stopped trickling down JJ’s forehead, but the sight of his breathing so shallow and uneven, as if he was fighting each time to get another chance to breathe, sent an uneasy feeling through Y/n’s body, and panic shot straight into her brain.
“JJ!” Her voice came out rough, stripped from all her panic alongside the copious amounts of water that nearly filled her lungs. But despite her obvious aching and tender pain, her hands grasped the boy with a new found determination, her knuckles shaking with the intensity of her grip on his skin.
JJ’s head rested against the boat, but his back no longer pressed at an awkward angle between the elevated sides and the hollow floors, but rather laid tucked against Y/n’s lap, her left hand pulling him close, even as her arm shook with his weight mixed with her weakness all while her right ran affectionately through his wet hair, trying to rouse him from his unconscious state.
“No, no, no, no. Please, please I just got you back please.” She begged, her trembling hand connected against his cheek in quick, soft taps.
Her eyes filled with tears immediately at the horrific sight, her lip trembling all the way down through her chin. She breathed deeply, but choked it all the way down. She could barely swallow, her saliva and her pride stuck between her teeth. Guilt consumed her.
“JJ!” She shouted, nearly demanding that he wake up like a distraught child. Her voice was laced with a whiny tone, each plea falling from her mouth more broken than the previous.
Y/n’s hands connected with JJ’s chest, no longer providing that warm comfort that her delicate palms had as her fingers ran through his hair and cradled his wet face, but rather quick jabs at his firm body, just below his heart.
Her curtain-like bangs hung in curls over her face, dripping onto JJ’s chin and neck and reflecting small images of the girls distraught expression. With each shake, another droplet rolled off of his skin, and with each push she felt his back dig into her knee.
Y/n felt hands on her back, soft, smaller hands gently pressed against her shoulder blades, right between the crevice between the bones. The fingers were adorned with rings, the delicate hands rubbing soothing circles as her back shook with suppressed sobs.
“It’s all my fault.” Y/n’s voice broke, her lips trembling and her words nothing more than a shattered whisper. She stopped hitting the blonde boy, and instead covered her mouth to contain her cries of guilt, and grief. “If I had been braver I could have gotten to him sooner.” She tried to reason, needing something to blame to give her some form of organization, even if the blame was inflicted onto herself.
“Y/n.” The girl who kneeled closely murmured, her hand a point of stability as Y/n watched the sky fall. “It’s not your fault.” She tried to provide comfort, but her attempts fell short.
“But it is!” Y/n nearly snapped, but not out of anger, of something else.
Everyone was looking at her, she had caught it the second they had pulled her from the sea. She was a spectacle, a great vision of the past, a figure that had slipped from the lives they had grown attached to long ago. Someone they had all missed and grieved in their own time. And so they stared at her and drank up the changes they had missed.
She was pretty. Y/n was always pretty, but now she was especially pretty. She grown up to be taller than she was when she left, her hair curls twisting all the way down her back, the short hair now a distant memory, and her body curving in ways that gave proof of her aging. She was the more mature version of the firecracker that had been shot too close to the sun too soon. Their light that had burnt out prematurely.
And so they all looked at her, ogling like she was something out of a fantasy film instead of looking at him.
“No, no, no! You don’t get it!” She threw her arm up in frustration, tilting her head back to force the building bile in the back of her mouth to go down. Why couldn’t it just all go down? Push it down, that’s what she needed to do. Push it down. Forget it, and push it down. “I’ve ruined everything. A-and I’m no good and I’ve fucked it all up!” Y/n sobbed, her head hanging forward now, shoulder slumped and her hands now gripping the wet shirt that clung to JJ’s body so tightly, her knuckles turned white.
“I should’ve jumped, I should’ve jumped in but I was too scared and he was there, he was there and if he hadn’t and it had been me he would’ve. He would’ve jumped in because he’s not afraid of anything. He would’ve have held my hand and he would have told me it would all be okay because he’s braver than me and he’s a whole lot better than me.” She rambled, and the wording of her breathless explanation made little sense to those who crowded around her, those who hadn’t experienced the moments Y/n and JJ were free of civility.
“Y/n.” Pope, the smartest of them all, spoke up, his voice emerging from behind a blonde girl she recognized as Sarah Cameron even all these years later and the familiar, yet somehow, not comforting face of her newer companion, Cleo.
Y/n didn’t listen, she refused to, too overpowered by her self blame, pointing her fingers at herself before anyone else got the chance. Why wasn’t anyone else freaking out? Did the loss of their friend not rip them completely open like it had her? Or had her best friend she had kept as a fond memory, completely kind and loving grown bitter and cold over the years? Was he not the JJ she knew?
“I’m so sorry. I’m sorry.” Her eye contact was fleeting, and in a final attempt to cling onto what she could before all was lost, her head fell to JJ’s chest, her forehead pressed against his shirt, listening to the fading beating of his heart.
Then, a cough, then another and another until a loud heave tore open JJ’s lips, a thick mixture of warm salt water and stringy spit drooling down his clammy skin, splatters of the mixture falling into Y/n’s salt-soaked hair.
She didn’t care, of course she wouldn’t, not even if it were blood and vomit, she swore she wouldn’t as she raised her head, her eyes flickering to where JJ’s brows furrowed, his shoulders drawing forward.
Y/n rested her hand in the dip on the center of his chest, applying soft pressure to ease his wheezing.
“JJ.” She breathed out, relieved and yet completely broken from the near loss, one she couldn’t handle again.
The thought alone shook her. He would never know how hard it was for her to leave, how badly she wished she had just hidden in the closet. But she knew her hiding could only do so much, the evil would find her and she had to go, she had to go to save them both.
"Yeah, yeah! Cough it out, cough it out baby!" John B encouraged, a sea of instructions following from the others in a desperate hurry, all reaching over to simply feel for a steady thumping of a pulse, all while the deafening ringing filled Y/n’s ears, her eyes stuck to the pretty sight of JJ’s face.
Y/n sat back on her heels, but her body fell forward in a deeper slump to protect the boy from the burning sun. She felt sick, and crazy, and confused. She wanted to throw up, scared of how fragile the boy might have become.
"Welcome to the land of the living, dude." Popes voice cut through the distant bells, the busy streets, all the background noise that flickered in short fragments through her head.
At her realization of his return, as it really sunk in, Y/n’s touch became a hovering sensation over his body, fingers shaking over his chest like she believed she had the power to only cause harm to what was already hurt, like she could fracture what had been a small crack.
Her chest felt like it was closing in, her ribs clenching around her heart tightly, and she wondered if it was what dying felt like, if JJ had felt something similar while each breath became less full.
Her mind spun like a broken clock, thoughts of self deprecation running in a constant loop, leading back to the same problems in similar processes with no end in sight. How beautiful was the feeling to be pulled from her spiral by the sight of his blue eyes focused on her face, tracing the curve of her nose down to the cupids bow on top of her lip.
She waited for him to speak, to say anything to her. Her heart pounded waiting to hear his voice, how lovely each syllable rolled off of his tongue. But the silence stretched on, just heavy breaths and tight grip that kept them connected.
His arm raised from where it lay limply by his side, his index and his thumb reaching by her arm to twirl the end of one of her braids between his fingers. In a swift motion, the pads of his fingers pinched the loose strands, and tugged for a short moment hard enough to tilt her head to the side.
She let out a soft gasp, only in reverse. All her air had deflated out of her chest, spreading a soothing sensation through her tightly wound bones just like the warm smile that expanded across her flushed cheeks.
Her laughter was a work of art, the most beautiful music JJ had ever heard, just as light and sweet as he remembered it. She hadn’t changed much, yet she had. She had more freckles now, and he found Kiara was right about the bangs. Yet her hair was still woven into the familiar pattern of two braids that now hung loosely at the bottom of her head, twisting and falling over her shoulders perfectly. She was taller, older, but he felt the shortness of her nails against his skin, and he couldn’t help but smile to himself knowing old habits die hard.
“There’s my favorite pirate.” JJ finally spoke, his voice gravely from the exhaustion that traveled through him, leaving his body heavy and soft in Y/n’s arms.
“Theres my favorite outlaw.” Y/n joked back, her voice just as soft as it was the first time he heard it that day on the beach. Just like it had been when he heard it even when she was gone, in the trees, and floating through the folk songs that spread throughout the old Chateau.
“Welcome back to the good life.” JJ laughed, and the sparkles in his eyes as he said it held every bit of truth within that statement.
It was a life that promised all she ever wanted to be. One where they could be interesting forever, where they would be kind forever.
This was the best life, the most freeing one she could ever dream of. It wasn’t about swinging from the vines or leaping from the ledges anymore, but rather the guiding hand on her back as she scraped her knees and chipped her baby teeth. It was always him, the influence to her accomplice.
She had promised to run freely with him again, to dance with him just like they used to and lucky enough, Y/n’s shoes were good for dancing.
“I claim thee, Poguelandia.” JJ’s foot propped up against the old tree that hung low over the sand. It’s tilted stump holding firm in the breeze, and its ancient branches shaking from the way John B’s hands gripped the leaves.
“Do we get a vote?” Sarah complained, rolling her eyes at the uncreative name JJ had thought of on the fly.
“Nope.” JJ smiled, pointing a finger at the blonde girl. “It’s already patented and pending.” JJ spoke confidently.
“Define that.” Pope sassed, crossing his arms and lying back against the old bark. Silence filled the sandy space, soft laughter echoing around the small circle everyone had created, sitting as comfortably as possible of the dying drift wood.
JJ shook off the comment, a smile forever present on his face despite the pounding headache and small bump forming on his temple.
“I like the ring of it.” JJ ignored Pope, pressing his palm against the large tree everyone gathered around and leaning into his hip until his shirt hung just above where Y/n’s body sat slumped in the sand.
She let out a soft laugh, if it could eve be considered that. More of a huff of air escaping her nose, a smile slowly spreading across her cheeks. Despite the quietness of her amusement, it seemed to only push JJ on, his eyes sparkling at the familiar sound he had gone without.
“I’m gonna make a flag. It’s gonna have a chicken on it. With a coconut bra smoking a ‘j’ in crocs.” He continued with his wild fantasy, watching how the girl beneath him hunched over with laughter and brought her hands to cover her toothy grin. “Y/n likes it.” He pointed out proudly.
“Yeah, I didn’t say that.” The girl quickly argued, tossing her head back and stretching her neck to catch his eyes. Though she tried to keep that same fight she once had with him, that natural bickering that made their relationship so beautifully complex, the reality that she finally had him again set in swiftly, and her serious expression failed to mask her excitement.
“Whatever, she totally does.” The boy swatted his hand, playfully pushing the girls head forward until she nearly bent in half. Just where they had left off, completely comfortable in each others touch and always ready to give back what they took.
“We were feeding a broken engine for hours, I think we’d both take anything over that.” Cleo pointed out, bumping her shoulder against the flustered girl beside her. Y/n couldn’t help but give Cleo a soft shove. An old habit she never really squashed.
“We? You bailed ship Cleo, don’t think I forgot.” Y/n said, pointing a finger at the sweaty girl who seemed uncomfortably close even with the endless amount of space around them. A whole island to themselves.
Then, with a careful glance to make sure JJ had leaned away from her, she stood up quickly, wiping sand off of the wet denim that clung to her skin, each cuffed leg weighing her down just a little more.
“Why don’t we leave the naming stuff to Kiara or Pope. Or you know…not you.” She twisted her braids between her hands, tugging the stretched bands out from the ends to free her now nearly dry hair from the patterns woven throughout. As she ran her knuckles through the tangles, her hands clasped around the legs of her overalls, her hands unrolling the pants until they sat just above her ankles.
“Where are you going?” JJ called out for her, not used to the proximity of her now that he had grown used to the distance. He chased after her as quickly as she began to walk away, chasing after the rush just the faint smell of her gave him.
“It’s gonna get dark soon, right? Can’t live off of salt water, J.” She teased, her feet leaving wet prints across the sand, kicking up the dirt in clumps that stuck to the backs of her heals.
He followed like a dog, practically weaving between her legs with his tail wagging in excitement, a familiar rush that was only brought out in the forever thrilling presence of her.
She took the pocket knife from the ripping pocket in the center of her chest, dark denim carrying puddles of the ocean in the stitching. With a bend of her knees, he watched as she dug the blade into the fabric that dripped around her feet, slicing the legs with a tearing sound just above her knee. With her other hand, she rolled the overalls higher, and stuck the closed knife back into its home. She left the cut pants in the sand where they had pooled by her ankles, walking by like it had been nothing. JJ figured she had done it before, probably when she was younger and on the run.
“I don’t remember you being so quick around a blade.” JJ teased, bumping his elbow against hers. He wanted to tug at her hair again, but his fingers curled around nothing by his sides as he decided on admiring the slope of her nose down to her pretty smile instead.
“Bull—shit, yes you do.” She laughed, turning to him with a sense of wonder in her curious gaze. “I used to cut you out of shit all the time!”
“Nah.” JJ played it off, but the blush on his cheeks betrayed him. “I let you. So we could play pirates and all that.” He lied through his teeth, recalling all the times he stumbled through the thick bushes just a little too carelessly and how Y/n’s rusting knife had cut his laces just a little shorter each time he lost a boot in the entanglement of twigs.
“Oh is that what we’re calling it now?” She bickered back, biting back a large smile in exchange for a playful grin. If she had access to the dusty space that she had once called home, she would have hung up the dusty laces that had been stored away in some box shoved beneath her bed.
“Yup.” He popped the p, licking over his dry lips with his tongue swiftly, tasting the salt on his skin.
A comfortable silence fell over the pair, her steps falling into line with his, and their hands shoved deeply into the depths of their pockets, fingers poking through the holes at the bottom from rough knuckles and heavy rocks.
With a heavy sigh, JJ tried to catch her eye, yet it remained trained on the sky like it was the most perfect thing she’d ever seen. He wondered silently if she’d seen the hues they once adored so much as kids recently, or if the thrilling life on deck had swept away her favorite thing, stargazing and watching the sky change as if she needed to put it to memory.
“So.” He finally broke the silence, her breathing hitching only to relax once her eyes found his, a gentle reassurance that everything would be as it once was, that the chase was finally over. “Was it as cool as it was promised?” He couldn’t help but ask, the same childlike wonder sparkling in his eyes.
“What?” Y/n let out a breathy laugh, wiping her hands on her tanned thighs.
“The pirate life. Where civility doesn’t exist and dreams can come true.” He clarified.
To anyone else, they might have believed it was condescending, a taunting question to shame her for her deathly grasp on all the childhood promises nobody ever kept for her. But to Y/n, she knew he really meant it when he asked, that he wanted to know if what they dreamed up was really as good as they pictured it on paper.
“It’s no Peter Pan story.” She breathed through her nose, eyes flickering down at the way her body was blossoming with bruises from her restless work, her dreams all crushed within the first week spent on the sea.
“I tried to make it Neverland, I really did. But you can’t change what happens to you, no matter how far you run. It’s like running in a circle. You go so far, yet nowhere at all.” Y/n knew she would never enjoy the pirate life she once dreamed of. In her dreams, JJ and her were co-captains, sailors with fancy white hats and no hooks for hands.
Now she felt like she should be fearing the ticking of the clocks, and running from the danger that once excited her.
“Did you believe it?” She couldn’t help but ask, wondering if her JJ had really waited to hear all the stories she promised to share with him, all the hustle and bustle of her fantasies.
JJ paused, then, looked at his sad friend’s face, and gave her a sympathetic nod. It wasn’t completely truthful, but that’s what happens naturally. He always believed in her and her curiosity towards the simple things in life. He believed that all the times he felt he had an ounce of childhood to hold onto were only beliefs because she had made them so. And when she had to go, so did the nice things he saw in nothing at all.
“I won’t confess that I believed it, that I didn’t have my doubts, but I always figured you’d be okay. That you’d find your way and maybe even come home.” What he didn’t say is all the times he’d left the lamp on, kept it burning on the porch so she’d know someone was home if she were to return.
He didn’t tell her that he had only gone on the wild gold hunt because part of him believed if he had the money to back it up, he could search every part of the earth to find her. Because it wouldn’t matter if he had or hadn’t told her, it wouldn’t make a difference and it wouldn’t change a thing.
They both made promises they couldn’t keep, and that was just the way life seemed to go. So she didn’t ask where he had been all these years, and he never asked about where she had gone. The timing would come to them eventually, and it would all work out. There was no point in catching up for two souls that had never been truly apart.
JJ and and Y/n had walked themselves to a ledge by the end of their conversation, nothing but soft breathing and the comfort of the wet, warm winds to wrap around them like a soothing blanket of serenity.
Y/n would be lying if she said the height didn’t scare her, if the wild waves below didn’t cause a crisp trepidation to shoot through her limbs. It was a big jump, the final leap she had always dreamed of.
The waves hit the smooth rocks, the rougher ones that stood tall thrashing with the heavy water. Sea salt coated their glistening skin, and as the wind blew through her hair, she came to a realization she had never considered before.
All this time she believed she had been something like Peter Pan. She joked about pirates, and running free, and all things children should know and love, and she acted fearlessly like she would forever be that version of herself. Yet, as time closed in on her and she grew taller, maturity had grown into her bones with each added inch. She was no Peter, she was more of a Wendy, and at first it had killed her, but only for a moment.
When she looked over to her side, she saw the blonde she had fallen in love with when she was still so little. They were young, and with their spirits, she was sure part of them would always be. And she knew then, if she was Wendy, he was her Peter.
“What?” JJ smiled, catching her glances. Standing proudly beside him, only older than the last time they’d met up. She had promised to grow up and come find him. She guessed she wasn’t lying about that.
"We will be interesting forever." She recited her promises from their youth, promises that were oceans deep with a serious smile, like she knew there was no other fate for people like them. "And nobody will ever forget how we lived like real people should and how we never let the temptation of a corporate paycheck take away the big picture."
Her hands reached up to hold JJ like she had when they stood only five feet tall. Now here he was, towering over her like he always promised he would. She wrinkled the shoulders of JJ's old tank top, the sides cut so far down, it was nearly just a napkin with a hole for his head. Everything about their attire screamed outlaws, pirates, lost boys, fighters, and believers. There was no fooling anyone, yet they carried themselves with pride, like the lack of civility in their lives was a thrill, the dirt and the worms and the bees and sweltering sunburns were all a gift to have been rubbed across them on their walks in the rain, in their summer time hikes to the secret beaches they weren't supposed to venture on.
The Kooks had it good, an easy life, but Y/n declared that they were the only ones living.
“Do you still dream the same dreams?” JJ asked softly, the wind blowing through his messy blonde hair, and the ocean rolling calmly below them now.
She nodded, letting her hands fall into his, and tugging at the loose threads that fell from his worn out friendship bracelets. Just fractions of the ones she had littering her own wrists.
"I still wanna be that girl in my eighties, dancing in the rain and running up and down the beach like my bones can't break away." She smiled, and he noticed how much more sincere it felt now. "And I want to scream, I want to yell. I'd scream ferociously, leaping between the waves like we did now, and I'd finally jump from the rocks, and I won't be scared because l'll have done it thousands of times." She painted her future, her desire with a loving glance into JJ’s blue eyes.
There was no money, no big house with a picket fence and an army of children. Just the ocean, some laughter, and enough fearless ambition to spill into the next lifetime.
"Sounds nice." JJ agreed, only now he had grown to have the same imagination as she did, he had it in him to dream a dream as pure and grand. He didn't need to live on figure eight, he didn't even mind being stuck with three jobs until he turned to dirt of it meant they would be dancing together forever.
"It will be. And you'll know it because you'll be there with me, and we'll be the same pirates we are now. We'll smoke on the roof and wear fancy clothing that we made ourselves. We'll ride the waves and make lemonade and sweet tea like John B's dad did when we were kids. We'll have mustaches from the sugar, and we'll be young forever with the grass between our toes.” She kept her word, because there it was, the same sparkle in her eyes. The same sweet, delicate wonder.
"Well,” JJ began, his eyes leading hers to where the grass overhung the large fall into the deep blue below. “we can start on that dream now." JJ declared hopefully, looking out to where the waved lapped at the shore. His ringed fingers pointed out at the rigid rocks that overhung the deep waters.
"If we've got a thousand of leaps to take, you have to start with one." He looked back at the girl, the way she didn’t seem to be nervously fidgeting like she had when he first promised everything would be okay.
"And then we won't be scared." She repeated to herself, but more to him, more for the memory of the first time she felt like flying.
"No, we won't ever be scared again." And there was a shared understanding, an understanding that dreams are just dreams until they make them more. If she could do this terrifying thing, all for the rest of her deepest wishes to come true, there was a new found certainty that anything scary could be done.
That she and JJ could do all the scary things the world could offer, even just as the awkward young adults they felt they had grown into. It was possible.
He took her hand more firmly in his, and counted down under his breath. There were hoots and hollers from the excited audience that had gathered below. Their friends filled with fear but also the fiercely spreading feeling of wonder and happiness that JJ and Y/n had found in one another.
With a deep breath, he led her off the edge, and in the moments that came before the cool water surrounded them, they swore they were flying. That they were living like nobody had ever lived before. They were seven again, then thirteen, and then back to where they found themselves now, flickering through the past as they came down.
It was only one of a thousand promised leaps, and Y/n didn’t feel any fear as the water poured into her ears.
Because when they surfaced, there he was, his hair wet and his smile wide. His hands clasped in hers, holding her arms over her head so high, her legs had to wrap around his waist.
“Again!” He shouted excitedly.
One promise kept, nine hundred ninety nine left to live.
Butterfly Wings
Harry Styles x fem!reader
Summery: In an alternate universe where time travel is possible, Harry discovers what the future holds. And theres only one way to change it.
He’d gone over every possible outcome, run his pockets dry as the machine whirred back and forth between decades; no—years. Not even a full ten. He changed his career, his friends, his passions, his address. Down to the way he parted his hair, he tried it all, and yet somehow, it had all come down to the same conclusion. Death.
Without fail, every time the years passed, there you stood, a camera hung around your neck, the camera he got for you as a gift when you’d first met him, waving goodbye. January 20th, 2027. 8:03am.
You were smiling, readily waiting for the car to heat up just a little more before climbing in. You’d cut your hair to your shoulders, put it up in braids and sliced through them with rusty kitchen scissors to make bangs the night before. Harry laughed at how uneven it was and fixed it. Promised to make it better. But he couldn’t make it better, he could never make it better. It just wasn’t possible.
You would leave, go off to do your job and at 12:30pm, he’d receive a call from a hospital a few hours away. They’d tell him the news. The head on collision, a man had served into your lane, smashing up the old blue car you and Harry had fixed up together. Ironic, almost, how evidence of your life you’d built together was crushed in just one reckless moment.
At 1:56pm they would pronounce you dead. He wouldn’t even be there yet, wouldn’t have the chance to say goodbye. You would be gone.
He tried driving you in one of his thousands of trips. It always ended the same. The car was ruined, and you would suffer while he would walk away. He just couldn’t seem to die.
Out of his thousands and thousands of attempts, only one worked. One that he prayed wouldn’t be the only answer, but was.
In one singular time line, you would never get into that car. You wouldn’t drive yourself across Europe to photograph a stranger who would sparkle on stage, and Harry wouldn’t have to shake hands with your friends at the service, the ring heavy in his pocket. The ring he would never get to give you.
So, Harry went back. He traveled back to 2019, when he was helplessly fumbling around for a tour photographer. Someone who could create what he thought up. He stumbled upon your page. His fingers twitched, and his eyes glazed over in despair. This was it, this was the walk off, the forfeit, the end. He brushed past your application, shredded it completely and never looked back.
It was a few years later that you would meet Harry in this timeline. On January 21st, 2027 you attended a party for one of your mutual friends. Harry complimented you, and your boyfriend quickly whisked you away.
He watched from afar, his hands no longer clammy as he watched the clock continue to tick past the time where you had died so many times. You looked gorgeous, smiling down at your feet bashfully, your arm hooked around the brunette actor Harry recognized from a few films.
Your hair was long, and you didn’t have any bangs now. There were no kitchen scissors for you to find and no giggles shared in the bathroom. Only silence. No clothes thrown on the floor in piles or dirty brushes left on the sink. Your decorations were forever missing.
Everyday became increasingly obvious that you were no longer a factor in Harrys life. But he believed it to be worth every moment. He had the privilege of loving you from afar. He had lost you, but at least now he would never truly lose you.
He sipped slowly on his drink that night, acting like he cared for the boring conversations with people he didn’t know, stealing glimpses at the fluttering of your eyelashes.
You looked up, and you caught his eye. It was like you knew something, like there was fear and pain in your eyes.
He never figured that while he had been desperate to hold onto you, you had been doing the same thing.
Harry left that night with a friend, wondering what it could mean. But as he got in the black car and headed for the on ramp, lights blinded him, and it all went dark.
January 22nd, 2027. 2:56am.
Hello 👋, I hope you're doing well..
My name is Mahmoud, and I'm a 17-year-old from Gaza. The ongoing war has devastated my city, destroyed my school, and made daily life incredibly challenging.
Despite these hardships, I'm determined to continue my education and build a better future. I've been given a chance to study abroad, but I need help to cover the costs of leaving Gaza, as well as living expenses and other essentials abroad once the crossing opens.. 🙏
If you can, please consider donating or sharing, your kindness can truly make a difference, and thanks for your time. ❤🍉
https://gofund.me/bd3ccf0b 🔗
❤️❤️🍉🍉
Paper Crowns
Harry Styles x fem!reader
Summery: After finally having some down time after a hectic few weeks, you and Harry finally get around to decorating for the holidays.
“What do you think?”
My gaze was drawn to the thick, red and green stockings hung over the mantle, embroidered with the first initials of our respective names. Along the brick hung thick ropes of tinsel spread through the deep green garland with pops of red cranberries scattered throughout.
But the real show stopper hadn’t been the festive rugs, or the seasonal mugs, or the extravagant lights Harry and I had woken up bright and early to hang all across the roof and the gutters, but the tall tree that sat squished in the corner of the living room, a small blanket wrapped around the base of the tree and a thick pine-y smell wafting through the house.
It was decorated with a mixture of ornaments and garlands that shouldn’t have mixed, but due to the extreme randomness of the assortment, it felt all too perfect. Each ornament was a souvenir of a shared experience or memory that tied to places that expanded down the Western and Eastern coasts of the United States all the way to the beach-y shores of Australia. Some were collected from our families, old art projects from our early school days, or framed family photos that we used to find embarrassing as children.
There was crumpled up tinsel in all different colors and red and silver and blue and yellow ribbons swirling around the branches. But right on top, sat a beautiful, golden star that shined so brightly, it put all the other sparkling things to shame. And it felt so much like home, I felt like the grinch. My heart had grown three sizes bigger.
“It’s perfect, Har.” I complemented, vaguely aware of the comforting of his hand resting against my hip, pulling me closer to him as we shared a small space in the center of the room.
He smelled of shaving cream and vanilla, and he was as warm as the crackling fire by our feet. We’d spent so much time together, running around in private so that one day, we could both return to the spotlight. Harry now adorned a scruffy mustache, one I was familiar with, and one he had previously grown out during the lockdown a few years back. In this light, one could forget that he was Harry Styles, because under our shared roof, he was simply Harry. Nothing more, nothing less.
“M’glad we found time to do this together this year.” I spoke softly, my eyes flickering from the shiny decorations to the deep greens of his eyes. Only to find that the entire time, he hadn’t been admiring our work the same way I had, but rather he hadn’t been stuck looking only at me.
“Me too.”
In previous years, though Harry and I were both granted a few days off from our hectic work schedules to enjoy the holidays with family, the weeks leading up to it never seemed to synchronize. But, a bare home is a sad one, so when eventually, snow began to turn into slush and our house looked eerily dark compared to the other houses around the block, one of us would end up setting up the house in the quiet, letting the moon be our company while the other was far away attending to their own problems.
This year was different. Harry wasn’t touring, and the album had been finalized a long time ago. As for me, I had finished press for all my movies, and the premieres had come and gone. I could spend my days laying at home now, tucked beneath a blanket with the satisfaction that it had all washed over, and I had the pleasure to bask in the glory, not in Time Square or the heart of Los Angeles, but beneath the covers with my head pressed against my lovers chest, sighing out in total bliss.
“Theres only one more thing for us to do.” Harry smiled, leading me across the cold wooden floors to the dining room, which had been pre-set with all the plates and cutlery for our eventual guests that would roll in on Christmas morning.
Next to each plate lay a large paper tube shaped in something close to the appearance of a bow. Christmas Crackers, is what Harry called them. Cardboard-like things that were meant to be pulled apart like a wishbone, a harmless game where the winner of the larger half would win a small prize.
I smiled, leaning my hip against the table and watched as he leaned across the table cloth to grab one of the spare crackers that sat in the center of the table next to the stacks of candles.
“What do I win if I get it?” I asked softly, grabbing the end of the game firmly between my fingers.
“Is the prize not enough?” Harry laughed, his eyes crinkling happily as he bared all his teeth in his smile.
“How about a kiss. Just to satisfy my cold heart.” I teased, and he didn’t argue. We both knew that despite the result, I’d get what I wanted either way. It was Christmas time after all.
“What if I win?” He raised a brow. “What do I get?”
I hummed, watching his grip tighten around the other end, his fingers flexing under the strength of it.
“Anything you want, my love.” I promised him softly, blush rising on both of our warm cheeks at the open promise.
Harry simply nodded with a teasing smirk, counting down softly under his breath, but skipping the two and jumping to three like he often did before his songs.
There was a short battle before a loud pop sounded, and as we looked down at our hands, I was surprised to find the larger half attached to where I held on.
Inside there was a bottle opener shaped like a reindeer. It was dull and already rusting, but it wasn’t really the prize I cared about, not when Harry was already wrapping his arms around me with a loving grin, drunken in his gaze as his eyes locked onto mine.
There was a paper crown too, purple and delicate. His fingers fiddled with the material before slotting it on my head, and pressing his palms against my cheeks.
When he kissed me, I felt warmth expanding in my chest down to my cold feet, and I swore his lips were meant for mine because they fit so damn perfectly against mine every single time.
When he pulled back, it was with a shaky laugh, and a touch of his mouth to the tip of my nose. The moment felt golden, like something I’d stolen from the world, and I was happy to have gotten away with it.
“Merry Christmas, Harry.” I couldn’t help but giggle at the sappiness of it all. The giddy feelings had me reeling, making me forget for a moment that I wasn’t a young girl in love anymore, but the woman that had proudly grown beside him.
“Merry Christmas, love.”
I’m incredibly embarrassed to make this post but I’m in need of help. I’ll be fully transparent. I’ve been having a tough time since becoming my mom’s caretaker back in September, missing lots of work and being unable to get caught up. I don’t ask anyone for anything, which might be part of my issue.
There’s are two important bills I cannot pay and really need to. If anyone can help just a little bit, I would be so grateful. And if there’s anything I could do in return, just let me know. I could write you something, make simple story headers, etc.
C*shapp - $librasunmoon
V*nmo - mo292982
0/150
Pay The Price
JJ Maybank x fem!reader
Summery: Karma is real, and those who do bad have to pay the price for it. But, sometimes, those who don’t do anything at all pay for the crimes the bad people commit.
He said she would pay. From the moment she watched Kiara shove the blonde boy with the short buzz cut off of the bow of the ship, and he surfaced screaming indecent words through the water that poured into his mouth, she knew just how much truth he held in those words.
Kiara was safe, but it always worked out that way for her. Rafe had said it best. Though by choice, she was a Pogue, by nature, she would always be a Kook. Until all the money she once had was used dry, she would never stoop down to the levels of desperation that her friends had. And because of that, Rafe held a soft spot for the curly headed girl.
She never believed he had the heart to go through with it though. Rafe wasn’t a good person. His hands were doused in mass amounts of blood that he proclaimed were necessary for the success of his survival and the growth of his future. Yet, all the death seemed unnecessary when the same prosperities were achieved through the act of simple, honest affection snd care towards those who can only help you. Still, though they shared different perspectives, Y/n sympathized with the broken boy.
He would always be the shell of a man. A young Kook who was desperately grasping onto broken baggies filled with snow and loud party music to drown out the absence of his father. He cried for help, and yet his desperate pleas were met with nothing but silence.
And so, the only response he ever got from his father would forever ring through his head. And the primal urge to fulfill what his father believed he needed to be rained supreme over whatever shreds of goodness remained within him.
Y/n went with John B that day, and JJ had pleaded for her to stay, an unease that refused to settle deep within his stomach. He gripped onto the sleeves of her shirt that once belonged to him and begged for her to stay because if Singh couldn’t manage to stick a knife through his heart, the idea of getting lost again would kill him.
“Hey, you know me.” She promised him softly in the evening light, the soft humming of the boat vibrating the pristinely white floors. “I’ll come back.”
He believed her. He hung onto every promise she ever made because it was true. If JJ knew nothing, he knew her. He knew there was no way she would turn away from him, because he knew just how hard she had always tried to make him feel seen. So he let go of her hands for the last time that day, trusting her completely that this was the right thing to do, and she towed behind John B the entire trudge to the old church where he swore he heard his father calling for him.
But JJ shouldn’t have trusted her, not because she hadn’t proven herself to him, but because she was selflessly following one of her best friends into an unknown territory lined with threats where if it truly came down to it, he would choose to save his father every damn time.
The pleasantries were nice, for a moment. The tight hug and the teary eyes as a father and son reunited. But soon, extra footsteps rang through the old church, but not those that were welcome. They were loud, unholy, threatening. Those of a sinner. Though, looking back now, if she knew what she would have known now, Y/n would’ve known that there was never a single saint standing beside her that day.
They ran, through the thick tree lined roads and down the uneven, rocky paths where no cars could reach. Though, that seemed to be untrue because right behind there trailed two black SUV’s that looked striking similar to those that had imprisoned Kiara and Y/n just mere hours ago.
“John B, run!” She cried out behind him, her hand splayed out on his back to shove him forward towards the small clearing between the wet brush. It was getting dark quickly, colder, even in such a warm climate the chill was getting to them. Their noses were turning red and the skin was forming small bumps across the span of their entire bodies.
They made a turn to loose them, one quick turn that should have granted them freedom. Y/n followed John B blindly, secure in her trust that he would never lead her into danger, but John B was just as blind as she was. The blind leading the blind into a darkness neither of them could navigate.
They were so close when suddenly, her foot caught onto a rock. A wet slab of earth sending her falling down the slick hill and separating her from John B. He called out for her, a soft groan echoing from the bottom of the hill. She was bleeding from her temple, a scratch against the skin that leaked in thin streams of crimson down the curve of her cheek and dripped off the edge of her jawline. She could barely make out anything around her, she was just getting a grasp of her surroundings.
She thought he’d come to get her when she saw the tall frame standing in front of her. The much larger, warm hand grasped her cold hand, pulling her up on her wobbly knees. Y/n wanted to breathe out her thanks to her savior, to hold onto him and pull him close. But it was so dark, he was only a shadow, only the ghost of the person she thought she’d seen.
“Checkmate, bitch.” The voice teased softly, the voice that Y/n associated with the Kook from figure eight that she often found herself sympathizing with in her daydreams.
“W-what?” She stuttered out, trying to step back only for his arm to wrap tightly around the small of her back. It was a threat wrapped around a wet dream, the idea of being held so intimately, so protected by the enemy, but to feel every tender touch like a threat made her blood run cold.
When John B finally made his way down the hill, he didn’t see the same man that Y/n had looked at with terror. He saw the aftermath of her punishment.
Sitting underneath a low hanging tree, the heavy branches drooping onto the ground around her, Y/n sat folded nearly in half, just half of the girl she was a few minutes ago. Slumped over, her knuckles gripping onto the leaves, her hair hung over her face, hiding the maroon that stained her skin and the hole that left her breathless.
“Hey, hey, you okay?” John B kneeled on front of the girl, someone he often saw as the sister he never got. Often, they curled up in bed together when they were still young, sharing pajamas and exchanging stories from their day, as if they hadn’t been attached at the hip for the entirety of it.
He didn’t see it at first, how her hand covered her stomach in pain, the shakiness of her limbs and the uneven pressure she applied with her weakening fingers. She tilted her head back slowly, finding a nice resting place against the dying bark.
Her eyes were glossy, clouded over in a dark pain John B had only seen once before. A pain that ended in a murder trial and the haunting image of the old sheriff bleeding out on the tarmac. She let out a choked breath, her mouth opening and squeezing shut to catch her breath, desperate to keep whatever little oxygen she could retain.
“Hey…hey, Y/n/n, what’s going on?” He questioned, oblivious to the issue right below his nose. But it was so dark, so incredibly dark, it was a miracle in itself he could find her at all through the winding brush.
“I’m okay, I’m okay.” She spoke in one breath, but the instability of the volume of her voice gave away the weakness in her bones, and the choked out gasps of pain alerted John B to where her bloody hand laid covering the wound that leaked through the thin fabric adorning her fragile body.
“Shit…hey, no, come on, we gotta go. We gotta get you help.” John B tried to lift her immediately after spotting the dark spot spreading on her abdomen, but her shrieks of pain made him stop, and she begged him to put her down.
“John B, we got to go, boy.” Big John rasped, but it fell on deaf ears, the ringing echoing through John B’s mind so loud, it drowned out even the threatening sounds of the SUV’s tires scraping against the mud.
“Rafe got me good, huh?” She hiccuped with a weak smile, eyes looking up at the sky, her final destination. She couldn’t bear to witness the grief in her friend’s eyes.
“I guess he was right.” She coughed, and with a bubbling breath, a thin line of her blood trickled down the center of her chin, a splatter of blood dripping down her shirt. “I really did pay for it.”
She laughed it off, her dying. She laughed because she thought that if she took it a little less seriously, then maybe John B would be less inclined to grieve for so long.
“No, you won’t. We’ll carry you to a boat, and we’ll get you help back in Kildare, okay?” John B planned it out like it was promised, but the knife was twisted deeply beneath her skin, the crunching sounds still playing on a loop in the back of her mind.
Y/n shook her head weakly, and the wetness that rimmed her eyes spilt down all at once. She smiled through the whole process, the feeling of her chest expanding, and then quickly imploding. The squeezing of her lungs beneath her ribs, the cracking of her heart as it began to slow. Her eyes felt heavy, and so did her body. She let her hand fall limp to her side, no longer trying to stop the bleeding that couldn’t be prevented.
“John B, you got to listen to me.” Y/n snapped John B out of his useless plans and breathless rambling. When they locked eyes, they both knew it would be for the last time, and reality hit them both hard. John B gave up on any schemes he could have conjured up in her final moments.
“T-tell them I ran off.” She pleaded softly. “Tell them you lost me on the way back, that I made my escape and I abandoned you.”
“What? No, why?” He couldn’t understand it. They would resent her for it. No—JJ would hate her forever for it. Why would she take an eternity of hatred to spare the guilt from John B. To protect him from the potential blame the others might try and place on him.
“Please, just promise me. Promise me you’ll tell JJ, okay?” She coughed weakly, and neither of them could tell if what stained her face was blood, tears, or saliva, but John B wiped it off of her pretty face anyway.
“Tell him that I love him, okay?” She hiccuped through her tears, her weak smile turning more into clenched teeth and furrowed brows. This wasn’t peace, because if it were, JJ would have been the one to hold her, and her friends would be the ones looking down at her with smiles knowing that she had been at ease with her leaving, not Big John. Not John B with nothing but the occasional breeze to support him.
“Tell him yourself.” John B tried to argue.
Y/n shook her head.
“Please, tell him for me, okay?” She whined, the light behind her eyes fading.
“John B, we gotta get out of here, son.” Big John spoke up, the sound of footsteps crunching beneath the leaves only growing closer. It settled in then that there was no way he could lift her over his shoulder. She would be dead in minutes, and in the end it would only kill him too. He had to live to tell her story.
“Okay.” He nodded his head, pressing a kiss to the center of her forehead with wobbling lips.
“P4L.” She smiled, even as her eyes fluttered shut, it never faltered. Not until the last breath squeezed its way out of her lungs and her muscles died along side her.
He wanted to scream, to kick something, to do something, but it was just him and his dad now. A trade he didn’t know he was making when he abandoned the others on the stolen yacht, a sacrifice the others would never know about.
Even as the pair silently sailed back to the familiarity of their home, they sat in silence, which was weird because John B had always envisioned the second they reunited, it would be filled with laughter and memories. Now, as he looked at his father, all he saw was the haunting reminder that his family was no longer with him. That no matter where he put the grave, and no matter how beautiful he made it, he would never be close to her again, and he would never even know where to look to find something like her again.
When John B returned back to the safety of the overgrown greenery and the old, worn in hammock that hung in the backyard of the Chateau, suddenly, he realized it had lost its charming appeal. It didn’t feel like home anymore, it felt empty. And the sad expression on his face remained stuck as he leaned off the edge of the dock to wash the red out from under his nails.
Her body was forever lost, but her blood ran deep between the waves of the ocean back home, and it always would.
When the others slowly filed into the backyard like old times, it was the first question on their tongues. “Where’s Y/n?” And it was a question that John B hesitated on.
He almost told them the truth as they all sat around the fire, it danced on the tip of his tongue. But then, he locked eyes with JJ, and her final words rang through his mind.
“She uh…she ran off. Decided to take her chances on her own.” John B lied though his teeth, and when he locked eyes with the broken gaze of the tow headed blonde across from him, for some odd reason he couldn’t bring himself to tell his best friend that she loved him.
It was selfish, maybe, to reject the dying wish of someone so deeply loved and special to him. But in some twisted, messed up way, to John B, if he ignored it, if he waited to tell JJ what she had said, then it meant that she wasn’t really gone. She would still be alive, just far away like his lie foretold, as long as he didn’t treat it like she had died.
“No, man you’re lying. Come on, where is she?” JJ laughed through the heavy silence, clapping his dry hands together and standing up so quickly, the stool beneath him toppled over into the dirt.
John B just looked down between his thighs and shook his head.
“Y/n wouldn’t do that, okay? I know her, and she wouldn’t do that.” He argued with wild eyes. John B may have grown up with her, but JJ was always the closest to her, an extension of each other. They practically hung off of each other’s arms. The image of her head up upon JJ’s shoulder, resting happily during annual fire pit nights was comforting and not at all rare. He should’ve known he wouldn’t believe she would abandon any of them for a second.
“Well she did, JJ, okay?” He wasn’t sure why he snapped at him, it wasn’t his fault she wasn’t there. His anger couldn’t fill her absence better than silence could, yet the wound was still fresh, and he couldn’t even close his eyes to blink without seeing the fading smile from her paling face. Her death.
JJ didn’t stick around long after that, going to god knows where to do god knows what. Someone should have grabbed onto him. Y/n would have. She would have talked to him like nobody else existed, because nobody else mattered but them in that moment. She would have stopped him and held him in a way he allowed no other. But she wasn’t here now, as odd as it felt to admit, even in John B’s head, and so nobody even tried when he stormed off into the sweltering night.
“The storms coming quickly, this isn’t looking good.” Pope observed obviously from behind the wheel of the rusted fishing boat Rafe had borrowed from his old drug dealer. It was a sketchy deal, but a desperate one to lead the even more desperate Pogues to the sandy shores of Morocco.
“No shit, we’re not prepared for this.” Kiara added sarcastically. Her knuckles white against the edge of the small table shoved in the corner. There was a card game left unfinished sprawled over the old wood, the uneven sea making both Kiara and Sarah too anxious to try and continue.
“This was a bad idea.” Sarah pointed out the obvious.
“Tell me something I don’t know.” Cleo sighed, pulling down every lever that she recognized to help stabilize the boat.
“Do you know what you’re doing?” Sarah asked nervously as she observed the frantic girl.
“I know enough!” Cleo shot back all too sharply.
“Y/n would know what to do.” Sarah swallowed, and the air in the small cabin seemed to grow heavier. In that moment, everyone as a collective was glad JJ was out on the open deck getting wasted at the hands of an old bottle of Hennessy stashed away on the boat.
He would’ve sneered and laughed bitterly about how Y/n wasn’t here anymore. How she chose to leave, how she didn’t matter anymore. They all recognized it as a projection. The truth was, JJ still loved the girl deeply, but it was all too well known that the blonde boy always ran from his terrifyingly strong emotions and pushed the blame to those who didn’t deserve it.
The thought reminded John B that the boy was out in the approaching storm, and after some internal debate on whether to leave him out there in the fresh air or to drag him into the warm dry cabin, he decided on the latter. Though, he was sure the boy could have survived the violent weather, he always did have the survival instincts of a cockroach.
“JJ!” John B called out, careful of the wet spots on the deck as rain misted down onto his tan skin. Not far from him stood his best friend, a nearly empty bottle dangled loosely in his hand and his legs crossed carelessly against some stacked barrels. He looked out at the violent waves, seemingly at peace with it.
“C’mon man, it’s getting pretty bad out here.” John B said, clapping a hand over his shoulder. The blonde simply shook it off.
“Nah.” He said plainly. His breath reeked of alcohol. “I’m good.”
“JJ, dude seriously, come on. You’ll die out here.” John B laughed. JJ didn’t seem to find it funny.
“No, I’m serious man, go on in. I’m good out here.” JJ smiled, his hands clinging onto John B’s shirt all while drunkenly taking another swig of the nearly empty drink in between his knuckles.
John B wasn’t having it, pulling him along only for the heels of JJ’s boots to dig into the rotting wood, stopping both of them in a harsh halt.
“Come on man, what’s your problem?”
“What my problem? Why can’t you just leave me alone?” JJ argued back. “Theres no harm in me staying out here, alright? I’m just a dead weight anyways.”
It was moments like this that John B prayed for Y/n the most. It was times like this when JJ was nearly unretrievable from his state of self deprecation that Y/n managed to pull him from every damn time. But Y/n wasn’t here, and John B had only one last card left to play.
“Actually, I have something to tell you.” John B spoke. Granted, in hindsight, now was not the time to show off his good fortune, the success of his relationship and how easily his life seemed to be falling into perfect place. Yet, it was all he could think of to pull JJ out of his slump like trance.
“I’m gonna be a dad.” John B said proudly, and when he was met with no response, his smile faltered for a moment before he continued speaking. “You’re like my brother, JJ, I’ve known you since third grade. Sarah and I want you to be the Godfather. I can’t imagine anyone else doing it.”
JJ shook his head quickly. “You wouldn’t want me around that kid, John B. I promise you that.” He took another large gulp of the alcohol.
“JJ I…I literally just asked you to be the Godfather, what are you talking about?” John B practically scoffed, amused by the reaction from his best friend.
“John B, what do you know about raising a kid, huh?” JJ cut his friend off suddenly, snapping at the mere mention of anything changing within the group. It was almost like it hurt him to imagine having to shift the dynamics once again.
“Not a single thing, JJ!” John B argued back quickly, trying to keep his cool.
“Exactly.” JJ raised a finger to John B’s face, the bottle swishing around tauntingly between the pair. “No exactly, alright? You don’t know shit. You’re gonna screw up this kid just like my old man screwed me up.”
“Thats what you’re gonna go on about?” John B tried to talk over JJ, but it was useless.
“Just like your old man screwed you up.” JJ sneered bitterly. He didn’t mean a word, John B knew it, but ever since Y/n had left the picture, all his old drunken giggles had turned into sharpened daggers.
“Stop.” John B warned, looking towards the sky for strength.
“And whats worse, is you’re gonna put Sarah through that!” He never knew when to stop, puffing out his chest and swinging around the bottle roughly.
“Hey!” John B shoved JJ backwards slightly, his brows furrowed in a deep frown.
With one small step forward, John B’s hands were on JJ’s chest, grabbing at the fabric of his shirt until he was pressed against a nearby crate, leaning back with his eyes focused on his best friends face.
“Chill out, hey, chill out, okay?” John B said firmly, his grasp not letting up.
JJ simply threw his head back and laughed. He laughed like it was all some joke, like it was funny to him. But it wasn’t. None of this was. Not the fact that he was going to be a father so young, not the fact that they were heading into a storm, and certainly not the fact that Y/n was dead.
“Yeah, John B. You’re gonna be a great dad.” JJ smiled sarcastically, his tone bitter and condescending. He patted his friend’s chest, but to John B the once comforting touch became like fire.
“I am gonna be a good dad.” John B nodded solemnly, his eyes fixed on the drunken glaze that covered the blues of his friends.
He wanted to leave then, he nearly decided that it wasn’t worth it anymore. For a second, he let the bad thoughts in, he let himself sit with the idea that maybe JJ should just sit out in the cold and let the waves take him. But what good would it do for any of them. John B didn’t want his other best friend dead, not when he knew it was all only just projections he was receiving from JJ.
JJ was sad deep down, and he knew it. He knew that JJ was jealous, angry, bitter. He had every right to be. That was supposed to be him after all. Him and Y/n, happy as can be, traveling the world together and surfing the tasty waves that crashed onto foreign shores.
He stopped himself before he could get beyond the threshold, pausing as he thought over his words. The very phrase he was never able to confess to JJ, the phrase that held the last remains of life in his heart, and the only living piece of Y/n he selfishly kept to himself.
“She loved you, you know.” John B broke the silence once more. He closed his eyes to make sure he wouldn’t cry. Even after all this time he still couldn’t face his best friend with the truth of what happened.
“What’re you on about now, huh?” JJ chuckled, the now empty bottle placed down firmly behind him. Heavy footsteps only grew closer behind John B, and it wouldn’t be long before he knew he would have to face him, see the pain spread across his friend’s face at the truth.
“Y/n.” John B said plainly, turning on his heals to look at JJ with glassy eyes. “She told me to tell you before she…”
“Before she left?” JJ finished John B’s sentence, throwing his head back for the millionth time and looking at his friend with a mix of anger and sadness.
For the first time in years, John B shook his head in denial for the narrative he had accidentally painted for JJ, all while trying to get over his own grief that was slowly consuming him.
“No.” John B breathed out. “Before she died.”
“Bullshit, she left, remember? Just like the spanish, she fuckin’…packed her shit and left you for the wolves, right?” JJ sputtered, his eyes now filled with something more than drunken frustration, but pure disbelief.
“JJ, Y/n is dead.” John B finally confessed, and he swore he felt his chest growing heavier, smaller, the air thicker. “She made me…” He hesitated on his words. “She made me promise to tell you that she ran away. And that she loved you…that she loves you.”
John B corrected himself like she was still alive. Though the prominent ache in his chest was enough proof that Y/n was gone. Even just speaking about it, he felt himself growing teary eyed. He felt the lump in his throat expanding as it rose, threatening to come out in a sob.
He couldn’t look, but if he had the courage to, he would have seen the same expression on JJ’s face. The grief, the loss, the pain. Only, on him, it seemed to run much deeper than John B.
“How?” JJ asked finally, breaking the silence that was growing increasingly heavier as time passed.
“We were trying to get away…the…Singhs men found us and we were running. At some point I…I lost her I guess and when I found her, she was…she was already beyond saving.” John B confessed softly.
JJ’s breath hitched, imagining the scenario in his head. He could see it now, her poor body sat in the mud, her desperate eyes looking for the familiar face of a friend, only to be met with darkness. His heart clenched tightly in his chest.
“Was she scared?” JJ let out a shaky breath he didn’t know he was holding.
“If she was she didn’t show it.” John B said, and JJ let out a weak laugh.
“Typical.” It made John B laugh too.
“Yeah.” He breathed out, but it wasn’t really funny.
Silence fell over the pair again, the cold air suddenly nice against the heat that was burning in both of their chests.
“She…she was sorry, for leaving. For not getting to say goodbye.” John B told JJ calmly, using his palms to swipe away any tears that threatened to fall.
“Did she…did she say how it happened? Did you see? How she died?”
John B swallowed hard, vaguely aware of the blonde with the same threatening buzzcut that sat chained up just below the deck, but completely aware that the minute the truth came out, the culprit would finally get what he deserved for his crimes. A punishment John B had always been to intimidated to enact.
“She was stabbed. The guy twisted the knife and everything. She lost so much blood by the time I got there and she…she said that…she paid for it. She had it coming. That…” Even now, certain that he wanted to get the truth out, the name got stuck in his throat. “That Rafe got her good.”
JJ said nothing as he pieced together the scene, sobering up almost instantly. Not only was he reeling in the guilt of losing his best friend—no, the love of his life, but also in the fact that he had blamed her for something someone else had inflicted upon her. The very same person who was currently stowed away just underneath his feet.
There was no stopping JJ once he pushed past John B, unintentionally throwing him violently into the door frame as he made a sharp turn towards the stairs. There was a new found rage in his eyes so deadly, John B was certain he’d never see something quite like it ever again.
“JJ, JJ, stop!” John B called out quickly, frantically running after him. But he only drew attention to the situation more, because by the time he and the others managed to squeeze down the small stairwell, JJ was already stood over Rafe, who was long passed out, his head pressed against the wall and his face bruised beyond recognition.
“JJ!” Sarah shrieked, but John B held her back. He tried to ignore his wifes sobs of terror, too focused on keeping her away from the uncontrollable anger that their friend was currently releasing onto the deserved victim.
“You took everything from me!” JJ shouted through gritted teeth, not even phased by the blood that coated his knuckles and splattered across the bright white walls. “You piece of shit! You killed her!” He wailed, his punches slowing into soft taps as Rafes breathing slowed into soft wheezes for air through his freshly broken nose.
“A-and I blamed her for it the whole time. I-I fuckin’…I loved her.” JJ sobbed, ignoring the metallic smell of his hands as he used his palms to hide the vulnerability behind his tears that poured so wildly down his flushed face.
“I love her, and I’ll never get to have her again.” JJ shouted through his hands, muffling his cries of pure grief, of unfathomable sadness that hit him all at once.
Pope was holding him within two strides, his arms wrapping around his friend as he too pieced together what happened, not needing as much context to understand the motive behind the violence.
In that moment, nothing more but the sounds of heavy sobs and thick, choked breathing echoed through the shaking boat, the storm long forgotten as the truth finally bubbled to the surface, leaving anything and anyone in its wake completely torn open.
Then, there was a moment of clarity for JJ, a singular hope that was based around the security of a magic that didn’t exist. He knew then, he had to get the treasure they were searching for. Selfishly, he didn’t even care about the money. He knew what he wanted, and he knew what his one wish would be once he got his hands on that crown.
And it would all be okay, if only he hadn’t had to have paid the price.
What If I Don’t Know?
JJ Maybank x fem!reader
Summery: In an alternate universe where the pogues gave up the hunt after their win with El Dorado, Y/n breaks free of the island dream and runs off the college. Only to find that maybe, being away isn’t what she wanted after all.
My boots danced across the thick yellow lines on the deep black pavement. The traffic lights were flickering yellow, reflecting off of the void and rippling across the building puddles by the clogged sewer drains. An intersection at midnight, no dead stop and no definite go. Just the trust that the other cars wouldn’t blow past the warning signs. The trust that metal was made to bend, to rupture to save a life.
I didn’t have a car, I couldn’t afford one, and I never needed one. Everything I ever wanted was always just a few steps away. Laughter used to echo through the halls and cold rings hit the doors repeatedly. You grow used to people that way. Used to the sound of their footsteps, of their breath. You know who’s on the other side of the door always when you memorize the pattern of their movement.
JJ promised me once that we’d make one. We would run our way down to the junkyard and pick out old parts of cars and Frankenstein them together into a piece of shit that would run like a dream.
That was something I missed. The smell of gasoline. Maybe that’s why I stumbled down through the college town, balancing between the thin stripe of black between yellow and twirling in the center where road met road. Maybe I was looking for that bitter smell to remind me of home. The image of JJ bent under the hood of a truck. The same Ford that sat broken in the front yard for years, the sound of metal twisting and the breathy grunts with each violent twist of the wrench. It would run like new one day, he swore. I never doubted him, and I still don’t. One day, we’ll run down to that junkyard, a graveyard for cars, and we’ll find that missing piece.
Rain dripped from the bridge of my nose, falling on my soaked shoes and flattening out my fuzzy socks. Everything up North was colder. Maybe it was because of how bitter people were. The semi-warm summers and the sweltering months of autumn, only for the two week beach bliss to be swiftly replaced with a harsh winter that didn’t let up until the next summer. Cold nipped at my nose. I felt bitter the longer I was here, which was weird because when I was sixteen, I could have sworn this place was home.
Then again, I had never really been anywhere long enough to know what home really was. Everywhere I went became rushed by the sweet adventure that was chasing riches. Maybe it was the idea of settling down that intrigued me. To be sat in one place for a while and to slow down, to increase my chances of living through my twenties without some pirate knocking on my front door, a gun to my head. But this wasn’t home, this wasn’t settling. This was restlessness mixed with a deep urge to find something like home. An emptiness emotionally that I just couldn’t understand.
Like a dog chasing its own tail, I felt stupid, and I myst have looked drunk dancing among the silence of my college town. I should have been happy, this should have been home. I got out, I got what Kiara always dreamed of, I sought out a higher education, a dream that Pope had thrown away. My record was clean and my future had meaning. I should have been ecstatic to receive this opportunity, after all the grief and death and scandals of my childhood, a stage in my life that was stripped away by all the realities that unraveled with each new treasure found. But, I wasn’t. Even then, sick, dirty, and cold, I wasn’t happier than then now.
I don’t recognize myself in the mirror. In the dormitories, in the bathrooms, in the halls. It’s me, or, a version of that girl. She has my hair, and we share the same eyes, same curve of our lips too. But she’s hollowed out, gutted, and so indescribably not me. Different, not greater, but worse. I think of packing my bags quite often. Going quietly and without a fuss. To swallow my pride and withdraw my debt I would surely acquire if I stay any longer here at some institution I knew I couldn’t afford the moment I sent in my letter.
My roommate would be disappointed, but she’d move on. She doesn’t know me, she understands the concept of me, but she doesn’t know me. She’s nice enough, keeps her room clean, which inspires me to do the same. She brushes her hair regularly, almost obsessively, and is really pretty. We get along fine. We are friends, to a degree, but we are sure to find other roommates and never speak again. Still, I wonder if she would be mad if I left without telling her.
JJ was mad when I told him. He didn’t like the idea of abandonment. Though, I promised I would return in just a few months, and then a week after, and a few months later. It would feel like I am forever home, only with short intermissions where he gets to enjoy all the things that the island could offer with the others to hang off of his arm. He didn’t even indulge in that idea. He thought even an hour apart was too much.
I promised him it wasn’t abandonment, and swore to call him every night. I do. Sometimes I call him in the morning, and I almost always call him in the afternoon. I like to hear his voice. It sounds like home, it makes me feel warm. I forget about the redness of my nose and the tingling numbness in my fingers. He sounds like the waves crashing against the shore and the sound of wet spaghetti hitting the walls during dinners at midnight. He is laughter and the summer sun, the swells that ripple in mid July and the best seashells on the beach.
My knees bend beneath me, kneeling against the wet cement beneath me. I feel the wetness soaking through my jeans. It’s cold. Like it could be snow if it were a degree cooler. I kneel in the middle of the intersection, and I look up at the sky. It’s dark. I check my watch, it’s nearly morning again. The yellow light flickers against my skin, illuminating my face and leaving me in pitch black again. Everyone is sleeping in my college town. All is quiet.
My neck stretches out, upwards and I open my mouth. My tongue touches my chin, and I can taste the dirt in the droplets that swallow down my throat. My eyes are closed, because I have nothing to fear but loneliness itself, and whether my eyes are opened or closed, the feeling will still be there, and the fact will be too. I am alone, in this journey. I have nothing friends to lean on and no campfire to light. Nobody here knows about the existence of Kildare, of the marsh, and the restaurants that line the cut. They wouldn’t care, they don’t care about an environment they are not accustomed to. They only have so much space to consume what they need to know. To drink up their studies, they have no space for empty thoughts of a life they never lived.
I have my old phone in my pocket. The keypad is burned into the screen because it’s all I use it for now. My life revolves around nothing but the stress of failure and the relief of my best friend’s voice at the end of the day to ease my stress. The truth is, I understand the void in my passion now better than I did when it first appeared, the black hole that seemed to swallow up all my excitement for the new beginnings. I understand the bitter feelings I have for my new house, because I refuse to call this place home. Home is not a place you reside, though, familiarity breeds contempt, home is a connection to the people who reside in respect of you, who stand by you. So though the people I surround myself with here are perfectly friendly, they are not my friends, and they will never come close to the feeling of home I feel with them.
“Hello?” His voice is thick with sleep. He has that rasp men get early in the morning, a rich deepness I rarely hear anymore, but something I once bathed in with his arms wrapped around me through the night.
Theres a soft rhythmic ticking that comes with the flickers of light, and the soft patters of rain drenching the pavement create solemn acoustics around me.
“Hey, JJ.” It comes out in one breath. A sigh of relief that he even heard the buzzing of his phone in his usual dead-to-the-world like sleep cycle. My fingers slip on my phone case and I have to catch it, the rustling on my end of the line echoing back through the speaks to me. I can hear the playback of my breathing through a short delay that spans over a vast distance.
“Is everything alright? It’s…three in the morning. I don’t know a lot about time zones but, I think we’re both on the east coast.”
“No, it’s the same time zone, Jay.” My cheeks already hurt with how big my smile was. He just had that effect on me. His goofy, unknowing attitude always managed to make me laugh, especially because deep down I knew he was a lot smarter than he led on to be. When he let that mask slip to reveal his true self, it was always a wonder the ideas that spewed from his lips. He had one of the greatest minds I’d ever known, only to be undermined by the tragedy of his last name.
“Is it a crime to miss my best friend?” My eyes found a home on my wet knees, and my free hand began to play around in the water. Dragging my nail through the small puddle forming around my body.
“At this time? Yes.” He chuckled softly. “Somethings up, what are you speculating? Whats the word? Observations? Because I can’t help you with that.” He made himself clear, smiling through his sentences.
“What? No! Why would I call you of all people if I was Ob-ovulating?” I corrected myself with a laugh.
“Don’t knock it until you try it. I happen to be irresistible.” JJ defended himself with a teasing tone. Our conversation was light like it always was, even though my homesickness ran deep, and the sadness I felt was heavy, he made it feel like even the rain pouring down around the city I lived in was letting up.
“Lord knows John B’s walls are too thin for me to not have some kind of clue.” I snickered, pushing back the wet strands of hair that had fallen down upon my face.
Rain clung to me in every crevice, drenching me completely until I felt nothing but cold wash over me. It was a shower I didn’t need, one that did not cleanse me but instead poisoned me with the reminder that this was reality, I was miles away from the voice that was soothing my hearts ache momentarily. I would mull over it later.
“Nah, you got off on that shit.”
“Don’t be a pig, I’ll hang up.” I threatened half-heartedly. We both knew I never would. I could never cut the calls first, so the responsibility fell to JJ, who suffered the same inability to let go. Our calls usually stretched for hours, and the voicemails left in my inbox from the few times I would pass out with my cheek pressed firmly against some dusty book in the library took up all remaining storage in my phone. Right along side the folders of photos of us that collected by the thousands.
“So why’d you call?” He asked finally. I had no real answer. I used up all my excuses. Could he check for a sweater I left behind, the very same one I had on, or if he could just catch me up on what the others were up to. As if I didn’t call to hear all their stories daily, hourly if possible. What was I to tell him? What excuse could serve as something plausible without bearing a burden on his wide shoulders.
“You’re my best friend. I love you, I don’t need a reason.”
“You always have a reason.” He argued softly.
“Well, tonight I don’t.” I hummed. He hummed too, and silence filled the line.
The homely yellow flicked was accompanied by the blinding lights that came in pairs, growing brighter and wider with each passing second. Like a deer, I stood quickly, tall in my path but frozen in fear. I couldn’t meet the eyes of the man behind the wheel, recklessly racing across the intersection with no caution. Yellow meant slow, yet in the night, it only called for feet hitting the floor.
Puddles splashed violently, wheels screeching against the wet cement, leaving trails of where wet met soaked. I could see the distance between the wheels, I could lay my chest against the ground and measure it with my wingspan. The car swerved, laying down on the horn until the sound sputtered away into the distance, and nothing but the soft ticking of the lights and the sound of rain smacking the pavement filled the silence of the line again.
“Are you outside?” JJ asked finally. The sound of sheets crinkling and shuffling of legs against the mattress told me the loud alarm had stirred him from his relaxed state. I nodded at first, forgetting he couldn’t see me, and then I cleared my throat.
“I’m standing in an intersection.” I confessed quietly.
“Why?”
To clear my mind, to escape everything that was bothering me. To find peace with the silence, to try and find comfort in a home that wasn’t mine. There were a lot of minor reasons. The smell of gasoline was high on the list. I rationalized a lot of reasons in my head. Maybe I was looking for that bitter smell to remind me of home. Still, my gut wouldn’t settle.
I had left home to find something good for myself, to do myself the favor I always promised myself I would if I ever had the chance. But now, now that my feet had carried me to a place that was usually bustling with life, life that felt dull compared to even the most calm days on the island, I felt like I could never go back. A chance, a life, a future that I craved, I was throwing away because my feet refused to lift from the ground until I was sure I would only take my next steps home.
“I miss you.”
My answer was clear. It was true. I missed the waves, I missed the concrete roads freshly paved down in figure eight and how they met the old dirt roads of the cut. I missed John B’s chicken coop, though the chickens were long gone. I missed the dying tree carved with his name, and the rusted latch on the chateau’s porch door that left a yellow stain in the crinkles of my palm. But more than anything, I missed being no more than a breath away from JJ Maybank.
“Come pick me up?” I asked with uncertainty. Not because I even doubted for a moment that JJ wouldn’t come running to me if I even for a moment doubted where I stood, but because the morning was still young and tropical paradise was far away from the whistling winds of the North. Ferries only ran during certain hours, and money was hard to come by, even when we scrape together our pennies. Thats what happens when you drink up your success, you’re left with the repercussions. So, even if he did catch the boat, where would he get a ride from? How much more would it cost to bring the Twinkie alongside hime and ride it all the way to the hills where the colleges welcome signs were illuminated by colored lights, shining in school colors and pride.
He let out a stifled breath. He was choking on emotion I couldn’t read over the phone.
“I’ll be there, yeah.” He promised.
“Okay…I’ll go pack.” I said, suddenly and awkwardly. Yes, I dreamed of this day, kissing everything goodbye and running back to my roots, but now it was real. I could hear JJ slipping on his boots already. Why waste this chance?
“Pack?” He questioned.
“I’m leaving for good, Jay. I know I tell you that this is great and all, but I hate it here. This isn’t…this isn’t what I thought it would be. It’s not what I want.”
“So, you’re coming home?” He asks even though my answer has always been obvious.
“Yes.”
The line falls quiet again. I can hear the shuffling of his feet quickening against the rotting wood floors of the old Maybank property. A broken home flipped into something good. We share a bed there, I imagine he’s already grieving the loss of his starfish sleep position now that he’ll be bound to the same mattress as me again.
“I’ll be there soon.” The line falls dead.
Water splashes around me. If I wasn’t already soaked, I would be now. I can see why John B loved having a car so much now. The cold was fine at first when it was numbing, but now that I had feeling back in my chest, it was too much for me. My feet hit the pavement in harsh slapping movements, I pump my arms for some kind of friction against the wind. My lungs burn, they taste metallic. I want to wheeze and stop running, but I don’t think I could if I tried. I should feel embarrassed how quickly I up and left the place I was once stuck in, how I turned on my heels to run far away. But I’m not. I feel nothing, actually. Nothing but cold, determination, excitement. I have the energy of a child. I am an olympic runner, I have the right motivation. Get the fuck out of here, run myself right into JJ’s arms. I pray I don’t wake my roommate up when I reach my room.
The room is empty when I get there. I open the door so slowly, not even the rusted hinges make a sound. The carpet groans under my weight, even on my highest tip-toes. But the beds are empty and neatly made like they were left this morning. Rains pelts the windows. Theres a fan running. It’s my fan. I can’t sleep in the heat, not even in the winter. My bedding consists of borrowed blankets that I buried myself in, subconsciously trying to suffocate away the homesick feelings.
I barely had any clothes to pack, anything to throw into my duffle bag and my old backpack that was once Kiara’s. I never really got around to unpacking anyway, because there was so little to fill the bags I brought. Looking back on every decision I made before even stepping foot on campus, I should have known I would never stay. This was merely a vacation from hell. I don’t get the privilege to relax, I am worked and forced to prove myself over and over again among my peers who will never know me. I can’t wait to go somewhere where I am known again.
Somewhere along the way, I begin to collect up the posters on my walls. I rip them down hazardously, crumpling them and leaving them in the empty trashcan. It’s empty because there’s nothing I’ve touched in this room. Not the books, or the pens. I have a singular pencil up on my desk that’s much shorter than it once was, only half of its once lengthy size, and a nearly full set of flashcards. I don’t need the memory of this place to follow me. I consider it a favor to my roommate. To gift her with all the supplies she will ever need. She is nice enough, and a lot smarter than me. She’s sitting here on a full ride, though, the collar of her shirt says she could afford it without a penny. I convince myself she deserves it even though I do not know her.
I check my phone repeatedly, and I sit on the bench under the old overhang by my dorms. I stay out of the rain, I stay near the warmth and huddle up. I feel anxious waiting for him. It’s only been a few hours. I swept over the room for the few things I did want to keep. Like one of JJ’s bracelets, though it never even left my wrist. Or the soap I used in the shower. It was brand new, I had just bought a new one. I wait for his call. I wait for the familiar honking of the rusted horn. I wait, and wait as the sun rises. Time ticks by. I am impatient, I wasn’t bred this way, but good things have made me this way. I cannot wait.
“Popes probably gonna kill me.” I mumbled softly.
The car was warm, but my hands still lingered with the outsides touch. I sat on that bench for hours waiting for him. I saw people rise from their beds and lean out the window, taking in the smell of the dewey morning. A few gave me puzzled glances. A drenched girl, dripping down on the bench, wetting everything she touched.
But then, he came. I could see the rusted van before he even put it in park. Just between the brick lined buildings and the paths decorated in dying shrubbery. There was a small gap between the campus lawn and the visitors parking lot. A small slice of the outside world creeping into the sheltered space that was college.
I ran. I ran faster than I ever had in my life. Faster than when I used to race for desert back when Big John used to ruffle my hair and let me sleep over if I wanted, faster than when Ward held a gun to my head and made me pray for some kind of miracle. I ran until my feet couldn’t keep up, and I fell into JJ with a gasp.
He held me back, lifting my feet from the ground they stood on. I swore I heard him mumble something sappy under his breath, but he quickly shrugged it away when he saw the look in my eyes. I never felt love until I felt the desperation in the way he wrapped his arms around me. The way he squeezed the air from my lungs and only let me breathe when he was sure that the feeling between his elbows and his chest was really real, until he knew that this was for good.
He had slung my bags into the back seat and laughed as he told me to get in the Twinkie. When he started driving, he played the old CD we burned together in middle school filled with soft rock and Bob Marley. Occasionally, a song I had written into the playlist without him knowing would play. He always acted angry that I’d done that, but his fingers tapped the wheel and he couldn’t help but hum along. He would never admit to liking trashy pop songs, but the pink on his cheeks gave him away.
When the CD was spun to an end, we debated playing it again. We fell into silence, into the comfort of company. We both took the time to process the fact that this was real now, this was the decision I had decided to make. The thoughts that ran through my mind, what if I took off? What if I packed my bags, what if we moved back home? Let’s adventure down the coast, let’s live our youthful dreams that are unrealistic. Let’s make a home. They were real now, in this car, in him. We sat comfortably knowing that there was no limit on our company now, no restrictions on how much time there was left to borrow.
My socks tapped against the dashboard, my toes tracing the outline of the stickers scattered along the interior. Wet residue was left over, soggy folds gathered at my ankles. My body folded into itself slightly. I let the warn air from the dusty vents dance across my skin. Goosebumps faded like the sinking feeling in my gut. The smell of gasoline filled my nose once more, the smell of his deodorant reminded me that he was close.
“No doubt about it. Don’t know how you’re gonna talk your way out of this one.” JJ sighed contently.
“Well, you’re pretty good at sweet talking.” I buttered him up. Compliments were his weakness, I knew it all too well.
“I love you, but no.” JJ laughed.
“What! Oh, come on, please!”
My hands wrapped around his right bicep. My chin sat perched on his shoulder, batting my eyelashes at him and tickling the peach fuzz on his jaw that he had missed while shaving. I wanted to rub my palm over it, tease him for it with a smile. He had a toothy grin that I could see reflecting back in the rearview mirror.
“I get shit done, but I’m not a miracle worker, ‘kay?” He lifted his arm out of my grasp reluctantly, waving his finger to make his point.
“I thought Papa J was a miracle worker?” I teased with a raised brow. My arms crossed over my chest with a huff. My back fell gently against door. I turned to face him, a pout on my face and lines between my furrowed brows.
JJ let out a breathy laugh, his resolve quickly breaking at my endless begging. He had soft spots and I knew just where to aim.
“No, no! Don’t use my ego against me!” He laughed. I held my stomach this time, trying to keep my ribs together while I struggled to contain the fits of giggles bubbling up my throat and fighting past my lips. If love was a sanctuary, I was certain I had both feet in it. If it was a fire, I was burning up, and if it was the waves, they had crashed down relentlessly against my shivering body, bringing relief with each blow.
I bit the inside of my cheek and chewed at the skin. Laughter faded into even breathing, and my limbs curled up against the wrinkling fabric of the passenger seat. It had just barely started to rain again, a soft pattern of droplets hitting the windshield every so often. The closer we got to the dock, the more it lightened up. Though, the storm came in waves in the shape of the clouds that covered the blue skies. With each opening with sun peaking through, the tapping on glass stopped. When the grey swallowed us whole, it resumed. I didn’t mind it again. Not for the reasons that I wallowed in just hours ago, not to seek comfort in my homesick nature that cane purely from the soul of a homebody. But this time, because the swelling my my heart made me want to pull over to the side of the highway and spin around until my half-dried socks were coated in mud and my skin didn’t recall what the dryness felt like.
“Can I tell you something?” I murmured, my eyes locked in to the passing view that was the trees speeding past the windows.
“Yeah.” JJ hummed.
“I only came back for you.”
JJ hesitated on what he thought he wanted to say. He was biting his tongue. I shook my head.
“That sounds bad.” I laughed. “I only decided to leave because of you. I guess…just sitting in the middle of the road, I already felt really far away from everyone. I missed everyone more than I’ve ever missed anything in my life, but I was convinced that maybe I could suffer through it. But…just being with my thoughts, and hearing your voice after thinking for a while…kinda just convinced me.”
JJ took it all in. I saw the whites of his knuckles deepen the harder he pressed his fingertips to the wheel, the vast expanse of road ahead daunting now. This was beyond quality time together, and he knew it now that the newness began to settle and he began to realize it was the same old me. This was my future, and I had tossed it all away.
“I just…I guess I always thought you’d be the one to make it out. To really go for it. Kildare’s big enough for me, but I always kinda thought you’d go somewhere…more.” JJ spoke softly, eyes glued to the road.
“Maybe I already did get out. I got out and I tried to change everything about me to be that girl who wanted to get out, but she’s dead. Getting out sounded so freeing when we were younger, but now…now that we’ve seen the world and…and done so much in such little time, I’ve already lived a whole life, I’ve seen the world and I still feel like I don’t know who I am yet. But I know what I love, and I know that I hate every second that I’m away from it.”
JJ hummed again, raising his brows.
“You don’t need to explore every single corner of the earth to be something or-or someone. And maybe I didn’t realize it when I sent my letter in but I know now and I know that, I feel only half as good when I’m anywhere but where I should be. I’m sorry if that’s disappointing or if Pope is going to lecture me for days and you have to listen to it, but I know I have such a better chance of being who I want to be where I can be her than in some Northern University where people wear coats year round.” I rambled. My hands moved quickly. I cut through the air with each slice of my palms, and my eyes ran wild across the landscapes and the curve of his nose down to the bend of his jawline.
“I’m just trying to make sure this is what you want.” He finally cracked a smile. His head turned for a moment to meet my eyes, and I could see the flickers of light brightening up his affectionate gaze.
“Jay, I sat in the pouring rain in the middle of the road and begged you to come get me.” I deadpanned, but a small smile still graced my face.
Truthfully, I couldn’t wait to stick my toes back in the warm sand back home. To look down at my boots and dance along the gravel roads instead of balancing between two yellow lines that shot straight down the neat pavement.
Home was a foreign concept for a long time. The idea that it was something that could be bought. Through a mortgage, monthly rent, out of pocket. I never had those kinds of expenses. What was pocket change for some felt like gold to me, so maybe when people sat around talking about how they craved a big house to reside in, I never fully understood. Then again, I was never anywhere long enough to know.
I wouldn’t change a thing, how I ran around with my friends for years looking for gold that seemed to become buried under more and more stories, leading us to an even greater prize. I wouldn’t change the way I threw it all away to be with them. Subconsciously, I was smarter than I thought. Pope talked about packing up his bags, skipping town and moving to Idaho. Somewhere where he meant nothing to nobody and could start over. But I never indulged in it, or the fantasies of having a little more money. Being stable out be nice, but I always knew I had what I needed. I had a home and it was built on the structure of my four best friends that soon grew in size to six, and they had toothy smiles and stupid jokes.
“Do you think they’ll be mad?” I asked suddenly. Sure, this was right and it was what was true, but this was a dream that nobody else ever got to experience.
JJ pulled his lip between his teeth.
“Nah.” He sighed. “Pope will have your head, but Pope gets wound up easily. Could use him as a fishing pole.” JJ joked. It made me laugh and I felt any stress melting away. It was funny that he could do that anytime he pleased. I didn’t know if he ever knew he could do it, but he had a smart mouth, and a funny bone that always seemed to tickle me just right.
“But not you?” I asked once again.
“Not me what?”
“You wouldn’t? Be disappointed in me, that is.” I clarified softly, the roads becoming softer the more me drove along them. It was only moments until we’d soon roll onto the metal bridge connecting us to the boat that would send us home.
JJ breathed out through his nose.
“Is this what you want?”
“Yes.” I responded plainly.
“And it makes you happy?”
“Yes.” JJ sighed, his eyes flickering from the wheel, to the road, and back to me. But only for a moment.
“Then no.” He answered just as plainly as I did, but there was a twinge of happiness itching at the corners of his lips. Selfishly, he wanted me to come home, and selfishly, I did too.
“Well, are you mad at me?” I continued to press him.
He laughed. “I could never be mad at you.”
“Not even if this is the wrong choice?” I picked at the skin by my fingers. My skin hurt a lot less now that it was shedding the smell of foreign land and letting the faint smell of the Twinkie stick.
“Who am I to tell you if it’s wrong?”
“Well, Pope would tell me it’s wrong.” I argued weakly.
“And am I Pope?”
I shook my head silently, and my eyes glued to my fingers. Blood stained my cuticles, where skin met nail. It stung, but it hurt a lot less than what I felt before.
“Y/n/n, you could send me into bankruptcy and act like we’re rich and I don’t think I’d even have it in me to blame you.” JJ smiled. I focused on the slopes and curls of his hair.
We sat in silence for a moment. It wasn’t like he was Shakespeare, but it wasn’t often JJ said something truly sappy. Usually, his philosophies revolved around excuses for his own stupid actions, which, now that he had explained his view on me, I had come to realize I never fully saw the extent of his behavior because I had never had the courage to blame him. I never would.
“So, you’ll talk me out of trouble when we get back?” I smiled sweetly, leaning my head on his shoulder and batting my eyelashes desperately.
JJ let out a laugh from deep in his stomach, his cheeks turning pink from his gasps of oxygen.
“I love you, but no.”
“I thought JJ was the reckless one, but holy shit, Y/n/n!” Pope ran a hand over his hat, pulling it off by the brim in one quick motion. The hard fabric hit the wooden counter of the bait and charter shop, the slap echoing through the homely space.
“Can you blame me? It’s so far away, and we just got back! I haven’t been in one place for more than a month in years, and I’m so god damn tired of feeling homesick all the time!” I tried to argue against the growing rally against me. I pleaded my case, but they all looked at me like I was brain dead.
“You had a chance, Y/n. A really good one too and you blew it, for what? To sell bait? To slum it in the cut? You can do that when you’re done earning your other options!” He scolded me like I was a kid. But I’m not a kid, and the worry lines slowly creeping up onto my once vibrant face are only evidence of the ever growing number attached to my bones.
“Yes, but a chance I didn’t ever really want! I mean, how could I even know if I ever wanted it, I don’t know who I am!”
“Thats what growing up is for! Not growing down. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you’re not a kid anymore, Y/n. And you never will be again!”
Silence fell over the small room. Even the waves rolling against the dirt didn’t dare to whisper through the large windows and gaps for doors.
“I sacrificed that for you.” I spoke softly, bitterly. For so long, I’s bitten my tongue for everyone. Hidden my resentment for chasing after a gold, I never really wanted because in my eyes, I already had it. But it was what they wanted, so I let myself age out of the period of my life I had dreamed of since I was a kid.
“I gave up my childhood so that you could figure out yours! You got to know who you are, I never got that because no one ever stopped to ask me what I wanted! Nobody! You were all too caught up in your greedy treasure hunt to ever look around and think about if everyone wanted to do this!”
“No one made you come along.” Kiara stepped forward, the same disapproving look in her eyes. She was only defending her wordless friend, but my feet felt heavy and my joints were warm. I felt myself creating sentences I should have never admitted out loud.
“Well I did! I did, and it’s too late to change that, and I did it because that’s what friends do. But what do we have to show for it? Nothing! We didn’t get the cross, we didn’t get the gold, hell, we already spent all of the nuggets John B managed to grab!” It fell silent again, and suddenly, I was standing in the center of a circle I didn’t want to be a part of.
“So what? Because we failed, it condemns you to leave college?” Kiara always had a smarter mouth than me. She was quick witted and observant. Yet, she failed to understand that my choice to come home wasn’t something merely because of the way the treasures slipped through our fingers. It was a homesickness she never had to feel because she had plenty of homes where she was consistently welcomed.
“Why is it so wrong for me to be unhappy with something that everyone else enjoys? Just because my dreams do not inspire yours does not make them any less important. A-and honestly I’m sick of standing here and listening to all of you yell at me for getting out of there instead of letting myself waste away! I’d be dead if I didn’t leave, I’d be dead because you all mean a lot too much to me for me to be away from you guys for so long. In four years I might be rich, but I would be unhappy. I would be bored. But you guys—us; we will be interesting, and funny, and bold, and unpredictable forever.”
I swallowed hard, and my eyes met the blues of the boy who had the courage to go against the majorities better judgement and bring me home. He had the same wild look on his face.
I hadn’t expected JJ to speak for me, to try and mellow out the anger I knew I would receive and backtrack against the backlash I would surely face. But out of everyone, I thought I could count on him to have my back.
And he just, didn’t.
I decided then I wouldn’t stay in the eye of the hurricane when I knew what it was capable of. I wouldn’t let myself become part of its destruction if I knew I could separate myself from it for just a moment, to remove myself from all the disappointed stares.
My feet hit the wood of the long dock, the bottoms of my shoes echoing through each plank of wood, all borrowed from the destruction of a past home.
I thought of packing up, leaving, heading over to some other place I could call home temporarily, but my fingers hesitated to reach under the bed, and my knuckles curled away from the zipper that connected to the duffle bag that was squished between dirty clothes and shoe boxes filled with memories.
A hand spun me around, pulling me from the daze I had put myself in the second I walked into the new bedroom that was mine to keep in the newly fixed home. It was calloused and warm, yet the coolness of the rings decorated on each finger revealed who the strong hold belonged to.
“Why couldn’t you say something?” I asked bitterly before my eyes even met his. It was just JJ and I in the confinement of our bedroom. The door shut without a crack and the windows sealed off from the outside.
“I told you I wouldn’t.” He smiled. I didn’t find it funny.
“No, but you could have defended me. I would have done it for you.” My lip wobbled. My throat stung, and JJ’s eyes softened. He must have believed it was because he hurt me, but it wasn’t his fault. It was just the idea that nobody would ever deal with what I felt because they hadn’t been burdened with the feeling of it ever before. And therefore, nobody would ever get it, nor have an inkling of an understanding of why I had to come home.
“Y/n/n, come on. It’ll blow over. They’ll be happy to have you back as soon as they get over it.” He tried to comfort me.
When his hands found my shoulders, it felt belittling, condescending, though I knew it wasn’t the case. I convinced myself it was because I was angry. Spiteful, maybe.
“No, JJ, stop. Stop touching me like you care, I can’t…I can’t stand it right now.” I stepped away, throwing his hands off of me like they were poison, or fire, or both.
“Everyone is looking at me like I’m a failure! Like…like I’m something to be embarrassed about. But who are they to say that I failed? Right? I spent my whole life, the years when I’m supposed to be finding myself licking the dirt off of other peoples shoes! And I took it and I didn’t complain because I thought that maybe my day would come, and it hasn’t! How is that fair? And to think I was stupid enough to think that something good would happen to me. But the truth is I hate being out of this stupid town, and this stupid town hates me. I-it’s like they’re all spitting on me and blaming it on the wind. And don’t look at me like I’m crazy because I love you too damn hard to be looked at like that by a boy I would give my whole life for!”
I breathed heavily through my teeth, and my chest raised with so much vigor in my voice, I shook the air with a desperate anger I had felt marinating for decades beneath my skin. Yet, the manhunting and the blaming had pushed it down, and the failure and the fear had only boiled it back up. But it was always there, simmering. JJ just laughed.
“I’m only looking at you like you’re crazy because I think you’re too good to care what anyone has to say about you.” He explained with a smile.
“To you, maybe. But that doesn’t make it true. Whats true is that they all had some image of me painted for them the second I made the decision to go to college, and it was wrong. Because I’m not nearly smart enough to be as interesting or independent as they want me to be. I can’t do organic chemistry, I’ve never passed a calculus test, I’m not a doctor. Nobody ever supported those dreams anyways, not even me, because as amazing as it would be to become those versions of myself, it’s not me.” My face crumpled in defeat finally.
“I’m not…good enough for anything outside of this town.”
For the first time in my life, I saw something in JJ’s eyes as I confessed how I saw myself, how I let my friends—no, my families anger affect how I saw my decisions. I saw dapples of disappointment flickering in the sea of his eyes.
“Do you really think thats true?” He asked calmly, softly. He ran a hand through his hair. He wanted to reach out for me, but he too shared that feeling of uncertainty that had consumed me in the past months.
“Good god, maybe they were right. Maybe you are a failure.” JJ sighed, and my breathing halted. “How can you for one second believe that anything they have to say is true? How can you believe that these things you think about yourself are true?”
“Well what am I supposed to believe? We were all raised to believe the same things, right? The engineers and the scientists are necessary but nobody needs the family man or-or the artists to carry on, right? So why should my dreams of just simple living be tolerated when everyone else craves so much more?” I cried.
“Do you even hear yourself? It’s contradictory in every sentence!” JJ yelled furiously back at me. But his anger wasn’t placed at me, but at the things that led me to believe what I thought.
“Just a few hours ago you were excited to come home. You were certain that this is what you wanted because it was your dream and your life! You wanted to find yourself, to know who you are. And you were right! More dead on than anyone had ever been in my life, and hearing you speak about what you knew inspired me to think more for myself than for the benefit of everyone else! College, or some fancy job, or money won’t make any of us know who we are, that’s your job!” JJ’s eyes were wide. He had decided now, and his hands found a home on my arms, squeezing hard and passionately.
“Anyone can be those things they want you to be, but I promise you, if you stick with what you know you want, everyone you touch will remember you for centuries.” He promised me softly.
“And how do I know if I even know myself? What if I’ve never been home enough long enough to know?”
“Then you’ll find it. You’ll find it, and I’ll find it too. We can find it together.”
My eyes searched his. I could no longer blink away my tears. The liquid was much warmer than the rain that had pelted against my skin, that had slipped down my back and under my shirt to touch the most painful and terrifying parts of myself that I had refused to acknowledge or recover for some time. It was hard to recognize it all, to know exactly who I wanted to be, so, I did what I did know.
I wrapped my arms around JJ tightly, burying my head in the wrinkles of his shirt and let the patterns his arms rubbed circles in my back guide the way I swayed. I let him hold me, because if anything could be uncertain then he was nothing. He was the one thing I’d always known, and maybe that was why I had called him that night. Because in every memory I ever had, he was the one defining memory of home. He was home.
“Will you be mad at me if I never find it?” I asked pathetically against his chest.
“No.” He responded softly, muffled by the way his lips pressed into the top of my head affectionately.
“I could never be mad at you.”