𝐑𝐎𝐎𝐅𝐓𝐎𝐏
[JJ Maybank x fem!oc]
"how badly is this gonna hurt?"
he looked up at her, his hair blowing in
the breeze, hesitating for only a second.
"how badly do you care?"
- or in which jj always won...
"You guys ready?" Kiara asked. Her mascara was running a little, flaking under her eyes. Her blush and highlighter were skipped. The only makeup that covered her face was the now-runny mascara, lip gloss, and a dash of concealer for her insane eye-bags. She didn't have the strength at the moment for anything else.
Pope stood up, offering Kiara a hand as he did so. She took it, shakily standing up from the unmade bed.
Pope looked disheveled. He was reaching the point of physical and emotional exhaustion. He was clearly at the end of his rope. Pope tugged on the only pair of dress shoes he owned, cramming his feet in.
JJ turned to face them for the first time in a few days. Finally, he held eye contact with Pope for more than two seconds. JJ gave a small nod before he headed for the stack of room keys on the counter next to their coffee pot, which reminded untouched. The only thing that JJ had managed to bring to his lips to so far today was the bottle of tequila he begged Kiara to buy at a shady-looking gas station near their hotel. He wasn't drunk, but buzzed enough to the point where he no longer felt as if he were about to go to his girlfriend's open-casket wake.
Kiara put on her heels and followed the boys out, slamming the door behind her.
[ SEPTEMBER 4TH, 2020 ] ↳ONE DAY LATER
THE POGUES: SOMEWHERE IN CALIFORNIA
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JJ eyed the people he had come to know as Athena's parents. They stood together, yet worlds apart. Both of them drenched in black and colored with grief. Athena's grandmother, her father's mother, sat alone. Away from Athena's father, and away from her mother.
They were gathered around the hole that the gravediggers had dug the other day, the casket hovering on top of the dirt mound beside it.
The wake the day before was fine. JJ cried, but so did everybody else in attendance. Her dad seemed to be taking a lot of pictures on his phone, but JJ ignored it. Athena never really mentioned much about her dad beside the fact that she didn't like him much and that he'd divorced her mother.
The salty air whipped JJ's untamed hair across his eyes. He ignored it. He already was unable to see from the tears. This made zero difference.
The man speaking- a priest, I think- droned on and on. JJ wasn't listening. The day they watched the fireworks on Athena's balcony was replaying over and over in his mind. The way he held her, the way she looked at him, the way her lips felt on his, her arms around him, her laugh. Nothing felt right. JJ's chest was tight and his throat was stuffed with a frog. He wanted to scream or rip his own head off. The beach wasn't more than five minutes from the cemetery they were standing it. He could go and drown himself. An eye for an eye. His blood was boiling.
