𝐃𝐞𝐚𝐫, 𝐉𝐉 | 𝐉𝐉 𝐌𝐚𝐲𝐛𝐚𝐧𝐤

38. otto/their spot

Occasionally they bought shitty takeout and went to Otto's/their spot, enjoying eachothers company without anyone else.

And every so often they'd go to the Wreck with the group.

But that day Otto wanted to do something she had yet to do, it'd been months since her father died and she had yet to visit his grave.

JJ offered to go with her, even if he just waited in the car, but she wanted to do it alone.

She walked and JJ took the car despite her trip being longer. She wanted time to think.

It was tucked away in a corner of the island people didn't really go to unless they were going to the graveyard. She stopped a few meters away from the entrance and stared for a few seconds before getting the courage to go inside.

Her mother visited a few times a week, she bought a plot next to a bench so she could sit and therefore be able to spend more te there, thinking.

Every times she went she'd offer Otto the chance to go, but every time she found an excuse not to go.

But she missed her father more than usual that day.

In TV shows and movies you see people talking at the grave like the person was standing right there, she wasn't sure if it was for dramatic effect or people actually did that. Either way she thought it was a little strange so she didn't do it. Talking in your head was one thing, talking out loud in the privacy of your own home was another thing, but talking out loud in a public place to someone who wasn't there was odd to her.

So, she just sat and thought about him.

She thought about how every time he went into remission they'd go on a holiday, even if it was in the middle of the school year they'd take her out pulling the dying dad card. He went into remission five separate times.

She thought about when he was going through chemotherapy and lost all of his hair and she was visiting him he let her buy outlandish wigs and play hair dresser.

She thought about when she went to visit him and he'd pretend the jelly was disgusting because he knew she loved it. She only found that out when she went over for a suprise visit after school and saw him eating it.

She thought about each time her parents sat her down to tell her the cancer had come back.

And she thought about when they sat her down, at that point she could tell when she was getting the cancer talk. But this time was different, he explained he didn't want to fight it. He thanked her for the amazing life she had given him, and how privileged he felt that he got to watch her grow up and how sorry he was he couldn't continue to be there. He explained his plan to move to the Outer Banks until he died but told her that if she didn't want to go, even a little bit, they wouldn't go, he was fine staying im their hometown.

She didn't cry. In a weird way she was happy for him.

It was his choice, what he wanted.

She could tell how hard a decision it was for him, but every time he went through treatment it took a little more of him away. But she could see he wasn't really telling her anything, he was asking for permission to stop, everyone at the table knew that if she asked for him to keep trying he would.

All she said was that she quite liked the Outer Banks.

But as she sat there she knew he wasn't in pain anymore, not shackled down by cancer and what the treatments did to his body.

He was free.

And that made her happy.

Otto was religious, albeit not great and following the rules (Freddie was a testament to that,) but she know he was in heaven.

Probably laying on a fluffy could being fed grapes like a damn emperor. As as he deserved.

She thought visiting his grave would ruin his day, but it didn't.

While she say there she didn't want to be disturbed by notifications so she had turned off her phone.

In hindsight that was a terrible idea.

But hindsight's 20/20.

•

I'm so needlessly dramatic, like I need to calm down with all my 'hindsight is 20/20' shit.

But, I'm awful at cliffhangers so I have no clue if this sufficient anought to be considered a cliffhanger.

This is what I bring you today. I hope you enjoyed it my brethern.

If you didn't please don't say it I am tres tres fragile.