Chapter Text
Kiara looks out over the ocean, admiring the glistening of the moonlight on the black water. If she closes her eyes and just listens to the sound of the ocean meeting the shore, her friend’s laughter echoing through the air, she can imagine that she’s home. Relaxing at the boneyard after a night of dancing, getting drunk and doing regular stupid teenage shit.
What her parents would probably give for her biggest problem to be a partying habit.
“You alright?” JJ’s voice asks quietly and she jumps at the sound.
“Just another day in paradise,” she says wryly.
JJ grins, sitting down beside her. “Amen to that.”
“So,” he says, breaking the peaceful silence as he ultimately always does, “what’s got you brooding out here?”
Kie wrinkles her nose. “I’m not brooding.”
“You’ve wandered away from the party to sit by yourself and stare sadly at the water … do you have another word for it?”
“You don’t ever just wanna be alone sometimes?”
“Yeah. When I wanna brood.”
She can’t help but let out a small laugh as she shakes her head. “Well, I’m not alone anymore, does it still count as brooding?”
“Nah, cuz you just smiled. You gotta be all in your sad feels to be brooding.”
Kiara huffs out a laugh and smiles softly at the ground before looking back up at him. “So what if I wanna be in my sad feels?”
“Well, that’s why I’m here,” he shifts so that he’s sitting criss-cross applesauce facing her, slaps his hands on his knees and motions forward with his fingers, “lay it on me. Therapist JJ to the rescue.”
She can’t help but laugh at the goofy eagerness on his face. “Therapist JJ?”
“Yeah,” he says, like she’s being stupid for questioning him, “I’ve seen Doctor Phil, how hard can it be?”
Kiara frowns. “When have you seen Doctor Phil?”
“Don’t question me.”
She smirks as she rolls her eyes at him and JJ smiles even brighter. “See! You smiled! I’m already winning.”
“You don't win at therapy, JJ.”
“Really? Well that's boring, why do people do it then?”
JJ chuckles as Kie facepalms and shakes her head at him. His eyes have softened when she looks up at him.
“Really, Kie. What’s up?”
Kiara sighs heavily, turning her head back out to the water, she knows that if she asked him to drop it JJ would, he understands not wanting to talk better than anyone. Maybe, that's somehow what makes him such a good listener.
“Everything this summer happened so fast and now it’s like time has just … stopped. We’re frozen here with nothing to do but think .” She takes a deep shaky breath as her throat wells up. “I mean we thought that John B and Sarah were dead. I can’t –I can’t just get over that. I treated Pope like shit, I’ve ruined whatever was left of my relationship with my parents and I can’t stop thinking about it.” She has to bite her lip to hold back the tears that threaten to spill over at the overwhelming guilt that swarms in her stomach. “I’ve just fucked so much up.”
It hangs in the empty air, all the mistakes she’s made over the past three years, with the Pogue’s, with Sarah, with Pope, with her parents. Sometimes she wonders how they all continue to forgive her. Or if her parents ever will.
“Well,” JJ finally says a lightness in his voice that settles her stomach, “I happen to be a professional Fuck Up and I,” he crosses his hand over his heart, “can assure you that it’s really not all that bad.”
“You’re not a fuck up.”
“Neither are you.”
Kie just hums and looks back out over the ocean, JJ gives her a moment before starting up again.
“What’s the deal with Pope? Y'all seem chill now.”
“We are now. We’re just better as friends and I think he gets it but it’s not even that. Back, uh, after the phantom went down,” she swallows hard, shame sitting like a rock in her stomach, “I didn’t really know how I felt about him or what I wanted but I felt so empty all the time. And he was there and I wanted to,” she lets out a heavy sigh and wipes some stray tears off her cheeks, “I wanted to feel something. I wanted the distraction. I didn’t care how it made him feel.” Saying it out loud makes her stomach churn so violently with that guilt that she wants to vomit. She can feel JJ’s eyes on her, and doesn't even want to imagine what he could be thinking about her right now. “God, I’m awful,” she mutters, hating how cracked her voice sounds and the pitiful sniffle that follows.
JJ leans his shoulder against hers, it’s a small gesture, but it comforts her anyway. “I mean, I get it,” he says softly. “It was shitty, but I get it. I can’t say I wouldn’t have been doing the same thing if it were me.”
She sighs heavily, sifts sand through her fingers as she tries to will herself to quit crying, the scenes of all the times she’d made out with Pope while drunk and then refused to hold his hand the next day playing in her mind on a loop.
“Hey,” JJ tries again, bumping her shoulder with his before settling back into his own space, “if you’re worried about Pope, you should talk to him. Apologize or whatever. He’d appreciate that kinda shit. And it might make you feel better.”
Kiara hums. The thought of talking to Pope, of opening that wound up again makes her skin crawl, but it can’t be worse than the guilt eating her up at night. She’ll find the time to talk to him, there’s plenty of that nowadays. Time.
Kiara leans back on her hands and gazes up at the stars above them, crystal clear without any pollution in sight, the moon reflecting brightly off the sea. Hundreds of miles away her parents could be looking at that same moon too, wondering where their daughter went. Or not. Or maybe they're laughing at the dinner table, finally free from the burden of the mistake they made sixteen years ago.
“Do you think we’ll ever go home?” she asks quietly, her voice sounding small and fragile to her own ears. She pulls her legs up and hugs her knees.
JJ shifts in his seat but doesn’t respond for a moment. “Do you wanna go home?”
Kie sighs, dropping her head into her knees. “Yes? No? I don’t know. My parents,” she almost gets choked up again at the thought of them, “uh, before we left. My parents were gonna send me away.”
JJ raises eyebrows. “Boarding school?”
Kiara laughs humorously and shakes her head. “Blue Ridge Wilderness Therapy” She cracks a small as she turns to him. “Consider me a fellow delinquent.”
JJ doesn’t smile back. “Can’t you talk them out of it?”
She shrugs helplessly, starts drawing in the sand. “I don’t know, maybe they’ll have a change of heart since I got stranded on a deserted island. Or maybe it’ll be even worse because I stowed away in a shipping container and tried to pirate a cargo ship. Who knows.”
JJ chokes out a laugh. “Hmm. Nice odds.”
She says her head, weakly says, “yeah.”
“They’ll change their minds, Kie,” he says, more certain than she feels. “They love you, ya know? They’ll do the right thing.”
Kie scoffs, her mind flashing back to the sick feeling of betrayal in her stomach as she watched her mom throw her laundry onto the ground. She wasn’t being fair— yeah, she knows it, maybe she was even being a bit of a bitch. But she never thought her parents would actually throw her out. Like she was a problem that could just be removed, simple as that. JJ has said she was bluffing, if he was wrong then what would make him right now?
“I’ve always been a burden to them,” she says quietly, not even sure why she says it out loud. Who is she to complain about her parents to JJ of all people? How much would he give to have parents like hers instead of Luke? “ Are you an ungrateful shit like she was ?” His words ring in her ears and make her stomach twist. But JJ doesn’t say anything like that, he just waits patiently for her to continue.
“My mom’s always talking about how I need to appreciate what they worked so hard to get back,” she starts, anger seeping into her voice as she thinks about it. “ She wants me to have all the things she had growing up, she hates that I hang out with you guys because it’s what she used to do And it cost her that perfect Kook life that she wants me to have. Like she’s so scared that I’m gonna sleep with a Pogue and ruin my life like she did. That brought her me, and our family, and she acts like it was some terrible mistake. Like I was-” Her voice catches and as a sob shakes her body, she’s never said it out loud before. She’d been afraid to, like admitting how she felt would make it more real. Now that she has all she feels is an overwhelming sense of longing that makes her chest ache and her shoulders shake with sobs.
JJ shifts closer to her, angling his body so that she can lean into him if she wants. She does, leans forward and buries her face in his neck as she cries. Because she’s drowning in rosey tinted childhood memories and the only thing keeping her head above the surface is the warmth and steadiness of JJ beside her.
“ I miss them ,” she whimpers, meaning the emotional distance between them even more than the physical one. She misses baking cookies with her dad and her mom braiding her hair before school. She misses early morning surfing sessions and sitting on her mom's lap while she plays piano. Her mom's princess-like soprano voice soothing her to sleep each night while her soft hand gently carded through her curls. She’s not sure how they drifted so far away from all of that, or if she’ll ever get it back.
JJ rests his chin on the top of her head and cautiously wraps an arm around her. Kiara melts into him, desperate for the reminder that she’s not alone.
“I know,” he whispers, his voice soft but shaking ever so slightly, “I know. It’s gonna be okay, we’re gonna get back. You’re gonna see them again, Kie, I promise. I promise.”
She’s not sure how long they sit like that for, but eventually, the overwhelming pit of swirling emotions in her stomach fades to a dull ache and she runs out of tears. She pulls away from JJ and takes a shaky breath, wiping the tears off her cheeks with her wrists.
“Sorry,” she breathes out, suddenly feeling incredibly embarrassed for dumping all that on him, just because he made the mistake of following her when thoughts got so overwhelming that not even the Pogue’s could distract her from them.
“Happens,” he says simply, bumping his shoulder against hers and making her smile, just a little. “Hey Kie,” he adds, after a beat of silence, she looks back at him but he keeps his eyes trained on the ground. “I don’t uh, I don’t know much about … parents and shit,” he lifts his head to look out over the ocean, “but I know that your parents love you,” finally he turns to her eyes soft and a little uncertain as he stumbles to express himself, “like really love you. And I think… they don’t always show it all too well but they do. And I just – if it were me— well I would say that it’s something worth holding on to,” he pauses, watches her closely and waits for her reaction. When she doesn’t give him one he adds, quickly but sincerely, “If not there’s always a bunk bed waiting for ya.”
Kie offers him a small but appreciative smile. “Thanks Jay.”
“Anytime!” He responds cheerily with a wide grin and a wink. “Therapist JJ’s always on call.”
She snorts and shakes her head as she laughs at him, looks back out over the ocean, and appreciates the silence. She feels lighter, somehow, resting in the calm after the storm. Her abdomen is sore and her throat and scratchy from crying but for the first time in months, Kiara lets herself relax. Her mind still rests on her parents, but now the thought of them doesn’t make her want to vomit with guilt and hurt and regret anymore. Instead, she thinks of how much she does have to be grateful for.
She was jealous of JJ and John B growing up, they were so free in a way she yearned to be. They went where they wanted and did what they pleased, they never had to miss out on any fun because their parents said they had to come home like her and Pope. She thought that must have meant that their parents trusted them, that they got them in a way her parents never got her. The older she got— the more she started how far that was from the truth.
She had loved Big John like an Uncle growing up, but even when they were young he wasn’t there in the way John B must have wanted him to be. There weren’t exactly A+ tests posted on the fridge like at her house and she can never once remember seeing him at JJ and JB’s soccer games. Eventually, John B was working overtime to pay for electricity while his father chased his obsession with lost treasure until it cost him his life, and cost John B his father. Big John did it out of love, which must at least count for something. He had been so close, JB paying lighting bills must have seemed a fair price to pay for him to soon never have to worry about money again. Only Big John failed, and it left John B in pieces.
And JJ— god, JJ. He’s been hungry and covered in bruises for as long she’s known him, looking back on it she has no idea what was from being a daredevil and a klutz and what was a mark of his father’s rage. She can still vividly remember the way he’d shaken in her arms, the broken sound of his voice as he choked out words in between sobs. She’d never seen JJ cry like that— he just got moody and stormed off before wandering back in a few days or hours, or occasionally weeks as if nothing had happened. Seeing him finally break down had shaken her to the core.
“ I can’t take him anymore. I was gonna kill him.”
Kiara shivers. JJ has never gotten into the details of his home life, but she knows enough to understand that it had been loveless for most of his childhood. She shifts closer to him so that their shoulders are touching. If JJ notices he doesn’t say anything, continues staring out at the ocean, lost in his own thoughts just as she is in hers.
Kiara had parents that tucked her into bed every night, her dad would tell stories until she laughed so hard she cried and her mom would sing her lullabies, stroking her hair until she fell asleep. All her good report cards and test grades have had homes on their fridge, her swim team championship awards are framed in the hallway, her parents were always cheering from the stands at all her competitions. Her dad taught her to surf and cook and her mom taught her to paint and read music.
It doesn’t make their relationship any messier, nothing that’s happened between them in the past few weeks, hell years, hurts any less. The thought of facing her parents again makes her stomach twist, but JJ’s right. Their family is worth holding on to, life is so short— she lost so much time with John B and Sarah over stupid things before thinking she lost them forever. She has to try. And if she ends up on the pullout of the chateau beside JJ and all the other lost, broken things… well, worse things could happen. At least she tried.
“So,” she says, the silence becoming too much, “surf trip.”
JJ laughs, looking down and shaking his head before facing her.
“Yeah?”
“We’re thinking right after high school?”
“After?” He scoffs. “You can meet me whenever you want but I’m leaving the second we got that gold. Fuck high school.”
“ JJ,” she scolds, “you have to finish high school.”
“Why? What good is it gonna do me? ‘M gonna end up in jail eventually anyways. Why waste the time I have as a free man in high school? ”
“What, you planning a murder or something?” She asks with a laugh.
JJ doesn’t smile back, shakes his head. “Nah, that’s just like inediable.”
Kie frowns, bites her lip to hold back a laugh, “Inevitable?” She asks with a soft endearment in her eyes.
“Yeah, that.”
Her heart sinks as she realizes just how serious is, how truly resigned he is to the density he’s created for himself. “Did your dad tell you that?”
JJ gives her a look out of the corner of his eye that makes her think that she didn’t do a good job of masking the heat in her voice at the mention of his sorry excuse for a father. He ignores her question though, instead says, “I mean, everybody knows it. Teachers, cops, your parents, Pope’s parents... might as well accept it, I figure.”
Something tugs at her chest as she thinks about how her parents had always told her how she’s capable of great things, anything she puts her mind to. It’s pretty corny, basic parent shit, and probably something JJ’s never heard.
“I think that's a load of bullshit.”
He snorts and drops his head down, a humorless smile playing on his lips. “Of course you do.”
“You know what else I think?
“Mmm?”
“I think you could be a pro surfer.”
Something flashes across JJ’s face and thinks she sees his throat bob before he looks up at her, says, voice softer than before, “yeah?”
“Yeah, I mean, what is it they say? Find something you love to do and find someone to pay you to do it. You love surfing, you work your ass off at it,” she smiles softly, thinking of how JJ absolutely shines in the water. His whole face lighting up, glowing with a lightness and freedom that he doesn’t often carry. “Yeah, I could totally see it. I think you could do anything you put your mind to it, really.”
JJ hums. It's too dark to read his face, but he’s not openly arguing with her so she takes it as a win. Or maybe the simple compliment has just rendered him speechless. She doesn’t give them out often— he acts like such a cocky shit, any attempt at doing so would normally make him insufferable. But she can still picture the pride and pure glee on his face when the boys applauded him for switching the keys— the idea that he doesn’t understand how highly they all think of him makes something similar to anger churn into her stomach.
“Pope and John B think so too,” she adds, more passionately than necessary, “I know they do. We’re your family, right? We believe in you, who gives a shit what anyone else says? Prove those bastards wrong.”
JJ chuckles almost awkwardly, before clearing his throat and looking back up at her, a twinkle in his eyes just barely visible in the dark. “I look forward to your pep talks, Kie. Ever considered being a cheerleader?”
Kie rolls his eyes and shakes her head, but smiles despite herself.
“Jay, c’mon, I was being serious!”
“ I’m being serious, you would rock the skirt.”
“Oh my god. You’d like that wouldn’t you.”
“I’m just being a supportive friend, you would absolutely smoke that outfit.”
“Uh huh, you’re being perverted is what you’re doing.”
“Who me? Wouldn’t dream of it, Kie.” There’s a teasing but soft smile on his lips as he looks over at her.
Kie scoffs and rolls her eyes, leans into his shoulder for a moment. “I meant it though. since when do you listen to shitheads like that?”
JJ sighs, runs a hand through his hair, says “Yeah, I uh, I guess you’re probably right,” but doesn’t sound like he believes it.
“I know I’m right,” she says confidently, “someday you will too.”
His face twitches ever so slightly and he narrows his eyes in thought but doesn’t respond, Kie leans back into her own space and looks up at the stars. A strange feeling of hope bubbling inside her, like somehow, in some way, everything was going to be okay.
***
Kiara’s heart hammers in her chest as she stands in front of her parent's house, she can hear JJ shuffling out of the truck and coming to stand behind her. His hand finds hers and squeezes gently as he places a kiss on her head.
“It’ll be okay Kie, they love you. Just— keep your cool.”
She scoffs turns to him with a wry smile. “Say’s you. ”
JJ smirks back. “I never said I thought it would be easy. I just said that you can do it.”
A lump forms in her throat thinking about the last time she saw her parents, so intent on sending her away, the image of them laughing at the table without her burned viciously into her brain.
What if they don’t want me back?
She doesn’t even notice that she says it out loud until she feels JJ’s grip tighten in hers, another kiss landing on her head. “They will,” he says strongly, “I know they will.”
“But if they don’t?”
He sighs, takes a cautious step into her space so that she can feel his shoulder against hers. “Then we’ll be getting out those bunk beds. Worse things have happened.”
“We won’t be sleeping in bunk beds,” Kie says with a smirk.
He grins back at her, nods towards her house. “Get in there.”
She sighs and follows his gaze, gives his hand one last squeeze, and walks forward, makes it to the door before she freezes, turns back to him.
“Hey, Jage?”
He pauses at the driver's side of the truck. “Yeah?.
“Can you stay? Just for a little bit. I— I’ll text you when I’m in the clear.”
He’s nodding before she can finish the sentence. “Yeah, yeah, of course. I’ll be right here, Kie.”
He gives her a reassuring smile and she nods, whispers “thanks” and returns the smile. Kiara takes a deep breath and opens the door.