xi.
What About The Fall?
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Blair Cameron felt like she was going to puke her guts out and she didn't know how to stop her stomach from hurting.
Ever since she was old enough to understand the word "carelessness", she pretended that it was her most prominent trait, like she was born nonchalant and would forever go unbothered to the things life threw her way. But just like every other good actress on her side of the island, it was just a well-orchestrated lie; Blair cared too much about what others thought, especially those who raised her, those who spent their life dedicating it to her.
Now, she was thinking about all the ways she disappointed them and how many times she'd force herself to think that it was whatever before she couldn't anymore, crumbling on her bedroom floor if she ever even made it home again. The look on her brother's face; how crushed her friends was when she picked the Pogues over them. How her legs were burning when she ran despite her lungs being full with bliss. Odd that she was tired, she was an athlete after all. But then someone took a pin to the bottom of her lungs and they deflated like balloons, and she came to the dreaded realization that she might have just fucking ruined everything.
Maybe she wasn't thinking when she picked the Pogues. Maybe, if she had to do it all over again, she would've stayed by Sarah's side and watched them disappear, simmering in self-disappointment.
But she couldn't go back. She was one of them now.
Now, she was losing herself in what was a mess of words, thoughts and a jumble of images. The flame from the fire rose, then fell again. Like a spark that died time and time again, but she kept looking at it nonetheless. She knew she was falling in the abyss, and everyone else could see it too. A gown dirty at the bottom and a cigarette between her crimson lips. And she left those lipstick stains on the edge, a perfect heart-kiss stain that JJ Maybank couldn't stop staring at. Some strands of hair stuck to it and she found herself balancing the smoke between her lips as she tried to pull them away from her face.
John B said they were back in the gold game and Blair was ready to get her hands dirty again. It was all she had now, after all. The gold to make her father proud. The gold to pay off her brother's debt; save him. She'd break her bones and let her mouth mold into words she shouldn't say, satisfaction sticky on the tip of her nose and fingers. She wondered just how heavy gold could be and how many bars she could stuff in her pockets if they ever needed to run.
She inhaled and blew out the smoke, mascara-covered lashes fluttering shut. Like an oracle materializing and sticking on the inside of JJ's aorta. And he couldn't help but wonder; what prayers do you say when God isn't watching? Because he asked for her to look at him, pathetically. He just wanted that second of intimacy again, like when they ran with their hands tied to the van and she didn't let go of it until they stopped again.
But it didn't matter. He hated her . . . right?
"Hey, guys," Pope restlessly mused, "so, like, my dad's already gonna kill me."
Blair snorted and held the cigarette out for him. He didn't take it and she knew he wouldn't, but tried anyway.
JJ ran his hands through his hair and puffed air out his bruised lips. "Might as well tell 'em, man, before we're gaffed."
"You ready for this?" John B raised both brows and shot them a smirk. Eagerness bled out his every pore as he rubbed his hands together, a look that Blair eventually learned meant he had some valuable information. Her skin bubbled from the inside out, knowing exactly what was coming. "So, the gold never went down with the Royal Merchant."
"Oh, my God. Here we go again with this."
"No, no. All right, wait," JJ raised his hands as if trying to tame them, eyes grazing them almost as pleadingly as were John B's. "Hear him out, all right?"
"It's been here the whole time." Blair's brown furrowed at his words, seeming all too abstract. She didn't understand, and then she began hating herself for what she threw her mind blindly into. This whole gold thing would end up killing her, she knew. "It's on the island," he said.
"Are you serious?" Kiara frowned, gaping at the boy.
"Are you fucking delusional?" Blair scoffed cynically, in completely disbelief.
"Uh, like Blair, I'd like to voice my skepticism." Pope raised a hand, utterly baffled. John B was quick to try and dismiss him, his silhouette engulfed by the thick flames.
Conflict was visible in his eyes. If Blair didn't know better, she'd say he was trying to convince himself of his discoveries too. "I'm sure you would, but can I please present you with my evidence?"
"Proceed," the pair replied simultaneously.
"All right," John B mentally cheered. "So, in my backpack, I have a letter from Denmark Tanny."
"Who the hell's that?"
"A slave that survived the Royal Merchant wreck," Blair frowned, answering from common knowledge. John B's brows raised in confusion, and all she could do was shrug meekly. Her eyes widened. "My grandfather found that letter. Wait . . ."
"Yeah," John B interrupted before she could say too much. "Check this out." He handed her the old transcript, bleeding navy ink and ripped at the edges like old parchment. She recognized a few names as she ran her ringed finger over the surface, feeling sick to her stomach. She was home when her father put it in the box, then asked Rose to drop it off at Chapel Hill. "Okay, slaves weren't mentioned as crew members on the ship, but, my dad, he found the complete manifest. That was his big discovery," he pointed at the paper. "So Tanny used the gold from the Merchant to buy his freedom. After that, he bought his farm and, drumroll, please, because that farm is . . ."
Though a tad reluctant, the Pogues all slapped their knees as if the all-consuming situation was intensifying with their drumming.
"Tannyhill Plantation."
An aggressive shiver ran through Blair's body, suddenly colder than the blood coursing endlessly in her veins. "Did you just say Tannyhill?" Home?
That was impossible, absolutely improbable. She felt sick to her stomach, placing a hand over her belly while the other hovered in the air with her cigarette between her gold-adorned index and her middle finger.
"Yeah. So, after that, he used his money to free even more slaves and then he sold a shit-ton of rice, which pisses off all the white planters, and then they decide to lynch him," John B continued. She tried to neaten the words in her mind. "So on the day they were coming to get him, he writes a letter to his son as a farewell and, in the last line of that letter, he leaves a coded message about where to find the gold."
"Where?" Kie whispered like a nervous child.
"Harvest the wheat in parcel nine, near the water," he recited by memory. "Except . . . there's no wheat. See, wheat is code for gold. Check this out. Recognize this, Blair?"
The blonde stood and snatched the old letter from between his calloused fingertips. A symbol was engraved at the bottom, one she knew all too well. "British gold!"
He chuckled, smiling proudly. "The gold is in parcel nine, near the water."
"Holy shit," Kie breathed out.
"All we need is an original survey map of the property," John B mused, placing his hand over Blair's shoulder with an eager smile, "and we've found the gold."
"Okay, so this might have a small chance of being actually true," Pope's voice was slow as he blinked in shock, still not believing that John B actually found a lead that could actually bring them to the gold.
"Motherfucker, John," Blair cursed. She was a little tipsy and he was grinning widely.
"Dude," JJ exclaimed, "it's like King Tut."
"I am a genius," John B moved away from Blair with a satisfied smirk. He counted four seconds before he was hoisted off the ground, JJ's arms tightly wrapped around him as the flames reflected against their skin. "Hey, whoa! Hello! Fire! You're near the fire. You're gonna burn."
"I'm so proud of you right now," the boy moved away, cupping his best friend's cheeks with warm hands.
"Thank you," John B seemed as touched as could be, returning the smile as the blonde moved away from him. "That's really sweet of you."
"Okay, so, guys, what's the plan?" Pope wondered.
John B grimaced slightly at the boy's concerns. "Good question. Sarah Cameron's coming tonight. She'll bring an original survey map─"
"Hold on," Kiara interrupted him, blood suddenly boiling with anger. "Sarah? Why Sarah?"
"Why is my sister in on this, John B?" Blair frowned.
JJ smirked amusedly as John B struggled to find the words. "This is gonna be good."
"Sarah, uh, she─she got me into the archives in Chapel Hill yesterday," he explained, leaving out blatantly key details. "And that's where I got the letter."
"You were in Chapel Hill with Sarah Cameron?" Kiara gapped, anger eating her up.
"Yeah─"
"He was mackin' on her," JJ interrupted.
John B shot him a pointed sneer. "I wasn't macking."
"You were totally macking Sarah Cameron," the blonde teasingly repeated, yearning for a rise from his best friend. Blair crossed her arms over her chest, shooting him a knowing look.
"I wasn't macking on her, okay?" he kept denying, looking out at the distance in hopes of them not discovering his stupid white lies. "I was using her for access."
"There was access, all right."
"John B." It was a warning, crystal clear. The information hit Kiara like a ton of bricks. Like life was always trying to pull her off the pedestal and push the Kook in her place.
She was also profusely scared of what Blair would do now. When Sarah wasn't involved, things were easy; she could keep her life separated long enough for it not to collapse. What now? Would she pick her sister over her again and then let her eat the dust just as she began to feel comfortable around her?
John B ran his hands over his face, the answer obvious. "I was trying to get into the archives."
"Is that a yes?" Kiara's jaw fell, somewhat jealous.
Not of Sarah, but of the situation as a whole. "Alright, but look─look, I left out key details."
"Yo, what?" Kiara practically hissed, shooting up to her feet. Blair remained quiet as she took a step back, suddenly completely out of place. "You let a Kook in on our secret? What about Pogue Lyfe? What about the T-shirt company, bro?"
"I'm not a Pogue," Blair mumbled to herself, though it was loud enough for everyone to hear. Their eyes snapped to her, and she could feel Kiara's composure melting.
"I didn't mean it like that," the Carrera girl, strained, frowning. "You're a one of us, Blair. You know that," she frowned.
"You're not a Pogue, either," Blair said. "You know that."
"Yes, but─"
"Guys, chill, okay?" John B interrupted the quarrel, shattering the tension like a double-edged knife. Blair crossed her arms in front of her chest and tried to fixate on the dirt instead of everyone else. "I was just using her for information. Using her access, okay? Not her."
"Why don't I believe you?" the brunette hadn't stopped with the skepticism, and Blair knew she was right. There was nothing she wanted more, in that moment, than to expose them.
"I'm trying to make us filthy rich here. Okay? So that we can pay off a boat, or─or, uh . . . send you to autopsy school to study dead bodies or whatever," he was breathless as he defended himself, and it all seemed to dawn upon Blair like a pile of bricks. They were their own little family . . . and she didn't belong in it. "Look, you guys know me. Do I look like the type of person to fall for Sarah Cameron?"
JJ grimaced as Pope spoke hesitantly, "do you want us to answer that, or─"
"Yes," Blair nonchalantly replied.
"Just . . ." John B exhaled exasperatedly, "just stop."
"Look, you don't know her. I do!" her voice raised, anger reflecting off the wavering moonlight. "You can't trust her."
"Her brother did hit me in the back with a golf club," Pope shrugged, though he didn't mean to fuel the fire.
John B shook his head. "Rafe and Sarah are different human beings. What even did she do to you, exactly?"
"She's like a──like a spitting cobra," Kiara's words dripped with venom though stumbled over one another like a sickly mess. Her anger was obvious and it felt as though everyone in a ten mile radius could feel the uneasy heat of it all. "First, she blinds you, and then─"
"This is a bad analogy," Pope commented.
"Listen to me!" she snapped. "Whatever we get, she's gonna try to take."
Blair clapped her hands loudly, impulsively like the sound of a siren. Like a warning, ouf and clear. "Can you stop bashing on my family like I'm not fucking right here? Rafe's in trouble right now, okay? But he's a good guy," she sighed. "And Sarah doesn't want anything, she doesn't care about the gold. She just wants someone because she's losing everyone and she's just as lonely as I am. We're getting eaten already and I really don't need you guys adding onto the pile of shit we're going through."
They watched her toss the cigarette into the fire and away away with a model-stance that pulled them in a haze of denial.
Girlhood meant fighting with people whose point of view you don't understand or tugging at pigtails because the bow putting it together is more sparkly than yours. Girlhood meant Kiara would never forgive Sarah Cameron for giving it all then taking it at once. It meant smudged lipsticks and clothes that smelled like alcohol quickly thrown into the laundry basket in hopes that the parents wouldn't find out and sent them away.
Girlhood meant Kiara was running after Blair almost hesitantly and grabbed her hand before she could get too far away from the old beat-up van. She yelled her name first, but Blair didn't turn around. Her chest was heavy and she thought she'd start crying if it wasn't for for the Cameron girl finally spinning around, irritations weighting down her features.
She sighed and placed a hand on her chest, fiddling with the necklace her mother brought her. Blair liked it; dainty and elegant, just the opposite of what she was turning into. "I'm sorry that I keep making you feel like you aren't one of us, Blair; you are. And I'm sorry for the things I said about Sarah, but you both being family doesn't change the fact that she betrayed me and broke my heart." She paused, looking down. "I liked her, did you know?"
Blair did, in fact, know. "Yeah," she breathed. She grabbed her hand back and sniffled, looking out to the fire the boys were trying to suffocate. "Listen, I don't want her involved in this. She's my sister, Kiara. If this goes to shit, I want her far, far away."
"She's lucky to have you," Kiara smiled softly, almost jealously.
The blonde shook her head. "No she isn't. I'm the worst."
"You, Blair Cameron, are one of the very few people in the world whose worst is lovable." Blair's eyes snapped up to the Carrera girl, and she didn't see it coming when she wrapped her arms around her almost hesitantly. "I'm sorry I stopped talking to you, too," she sniffled.
Blair pulled away and smiled. "Promise to never do that again?" Her brows twitched softly. "Because I can't be your person, too, if you stop talking to me again."
"Promise," she laughed.
Family is merely blood, Blair knew. Her father didn't like his father (maybe because of all that rage he passed down on him and his children) and so she learned from a young age that you could, in fact, pick and chose who you loved like blood. She smiled, looked down onto the ground, the same burning pit in her stomach so far away from tamed.
The Twinkie pulled up besides them, windows rolled down with John B's arm propped against the windowsill, smiling gladly at the reconciled golden girls. "Hop in, girls," he grinned and pulled the door open form outside. Kiara grabbed her hand and pulled Blair inside the van, both girls laughing.
It was dark, which meant Blair couldn't tell where exactly they were. The lighthouse was in the distance, still extinguished, and there was a certain fog in the air that came with an impending possibility rain. Surely, it would start pouring soon enough. The grass was dark and melted into dirt where the van came at a halt, rocks caught under rubber wheels as John B put it in park and they all listened to the wonderful melody of the old engine spluttering.
She missed her car. She wondered if it would be trashed by the time she came home or if she'd find it intact.
"I knew y'all wouldn't be angry at each other for, like, more than ten minutes," JJ drummed on the seat, offering them a set of cocky smirks. His actions seemed shallow as the van came to a stop and he hopped out of it sleekly. "Hit it, boys! We're goin'."
"Recon mission." They pulled themselves out the hippie van in tow, the soil wet under their feet.
"Yo, uh . . . so, I think I'm gonna do this one by myself tonight." Thunder rumbled over his nervous words, tripping over one another as he stated off into the foggy distance.
JJ scoffed. "Really?"
"What?"
"Nothin'," He raised his hands in surrender, taking a step back in what could've been read as disappointed.
"I don't want to spook Sarah with the peanut gallery," John B defended, gesturing fanatically to them. Blair rolled her eyes and John B grimaced.
"I just don't understand why we're involving her at all," Kiara frowned, though watched her words. She could call Sarah a spitting cobra on her own time. "Can't Blair get the map or something? It's her house, too."
"Kie, we're not involving her, okay? It's─it's just, uh, like a business meeting . . . thing." Once again, John fell hard. Blair was almost tempted to extend a hand and rescue him from the void, but she knew he was lying and her own morals, as twisted as they were, wouldn't allow it. "Look, once we get what we need, we cut her loose, all right?"
Hesitantly, Kiara bit her lip. "Promise me nothing's happening between you."
"Nothing is happening, Kie," he falsely promised.
She frowned. "I'm being serious."
"Okay!" his voice wavered.
"Look, you both can keep playing this ping pong thing you got going on," Blair raised her hands in surrender as she slid past them and stepped backwards into the deep hue of storm-darkened trees. "I'm gonna go on a walk or something. Sober up. Didn't anyone notice I'm plastered?"
"Wait, Blair─"
She clenched her jaw and spun back around, anger in her eyes. It was the domestic rage, she was sure of it. "Listen, you guys do whatever the fuck you want. I don't care, I really don't. Just get the map, I'll be around."
"Keep up the believable act, JB," JJ sighed. She heard him from where she was, walking away with her arms wrapped around her body. Her skin was slippery, humid, and she was slowly turning into a puddle of plastic. She melted and melted, but she was just a doll after all. Nobody could fix her, not even the boy who was running after her, yelling for her to slow down.
She stopped under a tree and sighed, burying her face in her hands. She was so mean, so rough, but she was slipping. And she couldn't help but wonder how heavy her body would thump against the ground, how she'd leave her bones in a pile and never go back for them again. Just an ivory prison. He stopped besides her and leaned against a tree, careless of the heat radiating off her body or even the way she could easily shatter his heart like she always did . . . over and over again.
He was tired of living in the past, always thinking about the power she had on him. What about the opposite? "They're all I have," she said. "If I were to die tomorrow . . . they're all I have."
"You're all I have," he mumbled. She chuckled breathlessly, incredulously, and shook her head in disbelief. "Come on, Blair. What, do you think my family's my dad? I know he's a deadbeat and staying with him is bad for me, but no one pushes me to stay away like you do."
Blair frowned, pointing to Kiara and Pope in the distance. "What about them?" she asked.
He shrugged. "They're my family, you know? But sometimes I feel so left out, even with them. Like, they cut me off when I talk and they think I'm not smart enough; I'm never part of the decisions because they say my plans are an arrest-warrant." His shoulders slumped, the weight rolling my off them. "It just feels like I don't belong with them sometimes."
All his thoughts went unspoken until now, and Blair didn't know what to say. She always thought the Pogues were such a perfect little all-equally-inclusive group. "You're smart" was all she could say. Like she was trying to pull his sentences apart.
He chuckled, shook his head, then looked down at the dirt.
"I didn't belong with my friends either," she confessed. "They picked apart everything I did. Their girl. Their Blair. They were so possessive with me, like I was some type of mascot they always wanted around. I feel so suffocated when I'm around them sometimes, and I know it's horrible for me to think like that because they've been with me through everything, but . . ." she trailed off and blew air out through her nose. "I hate who I am when I'm with them."
"Do you like who you are when you're with us?" JJ weighed his words. He wanted to say "with me" but he didn't because he assumed it would only trigger her flight impulse.
She hesitated a second, then thought about it; breezy, happy, light. Laughing when she shouldn't and jumping in the water, scraping her teeth with her fingertips in front of drone camera. Holding hands under the table. Then she nodded. "Yes."
JJ smiled widely, like a little kid, and looked down. Blair almost wanted to grab his chin and force him to look at her so she could admire his dimples again. Flesh against flesh like every morning of the prior summer, and she so desperately missed it.
JJ Maybank's features were carved out of silver, Blair believed. Sharp and soft all at the same time, smooth to the touch but rugged to the thought. It almost surprised her how, if she closed her eyes, she could reconstruct it from utter scratch and simply visualize it for hours. Fluffy corn-gold hair, cerulean eyes like the OBX's deepest waters, lean figure like the kind whose silhouette leaves you always wanting more. He was a mirage, she sometimes thought, a violent mess ripped at the edges that she wouldn't mind cutting her skin against. He was a boy god and she just couldn't stop thinking about him.
But Blair? Blair Cameron was pure gold and the world itself melted at the touch. Down on their knees as they pled and waited for the reckoning she was undoubtedly leading. She was the revolution, it was etched in her hips and engraved in lips. The world came undone at her words. Blonde curls and eyes an emerald that didn't remind of the ocean, but instead of the tallest of trees and most vibrant of grass. Everything is better when you're a rich girl! Her mother's words were so outdated it almost hurt. Hurt like a knife digging into her heart and carving out the rotten parts─oops, here it all went splattered on the concrete. Blair believed everyone who had the chance would simply step on it. But JJ believed the complete opposite. She was a girl god and oh! how he wanted a taste of it.
How did the saying go? If you believe in it enough . . .
"Then stay," he said softly. It was a mutter. A breath. "You don't have to go back."
She chuckled incredibly and looked up to meet his eyes. "You mean let's run away?" She didn't mean it, she told herself. But she wanted it so bad sometimes.
"Let's run away," he repeated.
"Easier said than done," she scoffed.
JJ shook his head, brows furrowed softly. He took a step towards her and the corners of his lips twitched upwards ever-so-slightly. "Why? What are we missing, Blair? We can get up out of this town and never come back. Both of us."
"And what?" she sighed. "Get married in Mexico and live off hand-caught lobsters for the rest of our days?"
He laughed and nodded as though it was obvious. "Yes!" She could see his dimples from his boyish he looked under the moonlight and she couldn't keep in a laugh. "Tell me you'll at least think about it," he sighed, smiling widely, hopefully. All the faith in the world was in his lungs. "We can start fresh and forget everything that happened last summer."
To that, Blair shook her head almost violently. "I don't wanna forget anything about last summer," she protested.
His face softened and brightened all at once. "Me neither."
But a voice in the back of her head was ripping her away from his warmth, familiar and loud, buzzing like a damsel's cries of distress. Blair frowned and her hand jerked forward to grab his bicep, eyes darting to the horizon. Like a whale's call, she was the only one to hear it. "Do you hear that?"
"Hear─"
"Help! Somebody help!"
"Shit, that's Sarah!" Blair's eyes widened, yelling, the broke in a sprint towards the noise faster than her brain could process.
She and JJ met with Kiara and Pope in the intersection between angry storm and bushy trees, but neither had acknowledged the others as they ran towards the pleading voice. She recognized it, gnawing at her brain and chest; laying in the thick dirt with a stained dress and an unconscious boy's head in her lap.
"Guys! Shit, Blair. Blair, please!" Sarah Cameron cried out the girl's name as if a simple answer would fix all her problems. Blair mouth fell open as she threw herself in the dirt without so much as a second of hesitation. Gone was the dress and she didn't care. "I don't know what to do. He needs help. Topper shoved him," Sarah continued weeping.
"Topper?" Blair all but whispered. She shook her head and placed her hands on her sister's cheeks, examining her face with unmeasurable fear in those green eyes of hers, hands shaking. "Sarah─Sarah, are you okay?"
"Where the hell is he?" JJ yelled, buzzing with anger, violence like salt over a new wound.
"I'm okay, Bee. But he . . . oh, please, please, please get help. I don't care who. Just call someone," the dirty blonde wept into her clandestine lover's wet curls, heart torn at the edges. She took one of her hands to hold on tight to Blair's hand as she wrapped her arm around her shoulders. She tried to wake John B with her free hand, but he didn't budge. "Call someone, I don't care!" Sarah was yelling; Blair was breathing heavily as she kept trying to shake him awake.
"The─shit, the cell towers are down," Kiara Carrera could barely force herself to speak, lungs so rocky they threatened to burst. John B lied. But would he even get the chance to explain himself?
"Someone go!" John B's arm had doubled in size, turning a nasty blue. She grabbed it softly between a delicately frozen hand, as close as an ice pack as they could get.
"Go. Go!"
The Heyward boy vanished towards the Twinkie, running as fast as he could, but John B's breath was only getting blotchier. "Pope, hurry!" Kiara cried to the wind and storm, hoping it would come to their rescue.
"Hold on. Please, John B." Sarah pressed her lips against the top of his head, the ledge between salty tears and rainwater becoming blurry to the eye. "Please don't leave me."
Blair could barely even see what was going on.
"John B?" her voice was a whisper, barely a grazing breath. Hands clawing at the seams of her hair, she fell to her feet in repetitive stumbles. JJ's hand wrapped tightly around her arm, looking for comfort. Moments like those, she understood: they needed each other. She didn't know if it was a lie or not, all like hating each other, "he'll be fine," but it sure didn't feel like it in the heat of the icy moment.
JJ's jaw clenched, looking back and forth from his best friend and across the fence. "Pope! Come on!"
"Please don't let him die." Blair wasn't really religious; she didn't know who she was praying for.
And what about the fall? Blair thought she was the only one still standing over creaky wood, overthrown as the planks were torn and mutilated by the tide. Key word: thought.
Blair Cameron wasn't falling yet, she realized, but she was slipping and she was so scared there wouldn't be anyone at the bottom to catch her.