Together

60. Throw off your chains

Though the pressures hard to take
It's the only way I can escape
It seems a heavy choice to make
But now I'm under, oh
And it's breaking over me
A thousand miles down to the seabed
Found a place to rest my head
Never let me go
Never let me go
-Florence and the Machine

The next morning Kie shows up at the hotel to pick up JJ and bring him to the competition. She wasn't aware of JJ's meet up with Luke the night before, and when she knocks on the door, waiting patiently for him to come bouncing out ready to go. He doesn't answer immediately so she knocks again, more forcefully.

"JJ?" she calls. "Hey, let's go, can't win if you're not there," she taunts.

The door opens but JJ doesn't exit. Kie catches it when she notices that he's not holding it for her, and she enters the room.

JJ is walking into the bathroom, and she can tell something is off with him. He's supposed to be ready to go but the room is scattered. His clothes are still thrown around and unpacked. Wrappers from whatever take out place he went to sit on the table and not the trash. TV is on some fishing station.

She joins him in the bathroom as he starts to brush his teeth, really just as an excuse to not have to talk. He feels like shit. Not really physically, but mentally.

Leaving Luke last night was harder than he thought it would be. It's been a long time since he's heard those disparaging words. He almost forgot what they felt like.

You are an ungrateful shit!

You think you're better than everyone!

You're nothing!

Luke didn't pull any punches while he was walking away, following him out of the dive bar and down the block until JJ had enough and made a break for it, diving through some back streets. Luke didn't bother to follow but he still had to double back to make it to his hotel, since he took off in the wrong direction and didn't want to run into him again just by chance.

It was already late when he left the bar and by the time he made it back he was counting the hours he had left of his sleep, which wasn't a lot. The words replaying on a loop right up until Kie knocked on the door.

"Are you okay?" she asks him, observing the bags under his eyes and lack of happy energy that a day of surfing brings him.

JJ shrugs, looking away to spit in the sink.

"I saw Luke," he informs, continuing to brush his teeth like that wasn't a huge bomb he just laid on her. He's too emotionally spent to give it the real expression it deserves.

"What? What do you mean, when?" she asks, stuttering out with concern. She looks back at the room. Was Luke here last night? She waits for JJ to rinse and watches him start to put his toiletries back in his travel bag. He's not answering her. "JJ, when did you see him?" she asks more seriously.

He walks past her and starts picking up his clothes, throwing them in his duffle bag as he speaks, voice just above a tremble.

"He showed up before my last run yesterday and then he called me after you left," he starts, shoving a shirt in his bag. "He wanted to meet so we did."

"What happened?" she asks, eyes scanning him for injuries.

"What always happens," he responds quietly, not thinking through the words or how she'll take them.

"JJ, he hit you?" her voice barely audible. He looks up and sees her pained expression at what she thinks happened. It's fucked up, isn't it, that the assumption is he was hurt by his father.