CHAPTER FIVE
•••
Collins had left the Château in a bit of a haste after the whole strange men breaking and entering and making them fear for their lives fiasco happened.
At first, she'd just been too shaken by the whole thing to gather a coherent thought and ask the Pogues why she had almost just risked her life with them. Her mind was a jumbled mess and all that she could think of doing was just getting the heck out of there. She wanted to go home where she felt safest between its thin walls and frail roof.
She'd gone back into the house and walked into the mess the two men had made shuffling through John B's property, and felt an uneasy churn in her stomach. When she went into the office room, she searched for her bag in the mess and spotted her canvas tote with her books spilled out onto the floor and knelt down on the floor as she tried to gather them and her notes that had been torn in the raid.
Her breathing felt erratic, like she was going through the motions of inhaling and exhaling but couldn't take in any air. And she could see her hands shake each time she reached out to grab a book and stuff it back into her bag. It was uncontrollable and even when she tried to hold them in each other, they still continued to tremble. She was in the midst of reaching for the last one when another hand suddenly picked it up before her, and Collins quickly looked up to see JJ holding it out for her to take.
"Thanks." She murmured and stood up abruptly, pulling her bag closer to her chest with a tight grip. She averted his gaze and looked down at the ground, anywhere but his eyes.
"Are you okay?" He asked her as he studied her face carefully while she nodded stiffly.
Visibly, she was fine; she wasn't physically hurt or anything so that was something to be happy about. She just appeared tense and it wasn't without reason. It had been twice now that Collins and JJ had been caught in the same two traumatic encounters. One could only wonder if that was somehow a sign that that was how their relationship would be destined to be; full of chaos.
Collins didn't automatically see a correlation between JJ and the stressful situations, even though the first one on the beach was pretty much all of his fault and the men that had showed up with menacing intentions were after him and his friends. She didn't link the two because first of all, her mind was in disarray and for some reason the only thing she could seem to think about was how she was going to get the shoe print off her library book. And second, Collins was too busy trying to steady her balance because the look in JJ's eyes when he was looking at her the way he was made her feel dizzy. It was like a spotlight shining in her eyes and she was seeing spots without any grasp of her orientation.
He looked at her like he actually cared, and the attention was overwhelming enough to make Collins woozy, which was truth be told, pretty pathetic if you asked her. She was so used to going unnoticed that when she actually was acknowledged, it was an unfamiliar experience. Collins wished she wasn't as melodramatic as she unassumingly appeared to be.
Her eyelashes fluttered as she blinked the blurriness away, and she slowly turned on her heel before making a beeline out of the house. "I'm fine." She managed to utter, and swallowed back the lump in her throat as she did so.
She had her head down and her gaze focused in front of her as she bounded down the porch steps and began making her way back to her house, but footsteps following behind her indicated that she wasn't walking alone.
"I know what happened back there was crazy, so the least I can do is make sure you get home okay. Does that sound fair to you?" Collins glanced over at JJ in confusion, but didn't protest to his offer. She figured that there was no point in her objecting to it anyways, and once she was safe and sound, he'd just leave.
Looking back behind them, JJ saw his friends gathered outside of John B's house, watching him attentively. Kie threw her hands up in the air questioningly, but JJ just swatted his arm at them to go away and leave him be, before he turned back to Collins.
"You don't have to be nice to me, you know." Collins stated gently. "Like, at the party, you didn't have to talk to me because you felt bad that I was by myself and you don't have to be nice to me now."
Shaking his head, JJ just looked at her with a sort of confused/appalled expression on his face as if he had no clue what she was saying. "I don't know what you're talking about, I was in no way, shape, or form, feeling 'bad' for anyone. This is just me, making sure that you don't-"
"What?" Collins interrupted, furrowing her brows at him. "Tell anyone about what happened? I don't have a clue as to what on earth is even going on with you and your friends, all I know is that I just happened to get caught in it. But your guys's secret is safe with me... except, it's not really like I know of any secret to tell."
JJ couldn't help but admit that he was sort of dumbfounded by her reassurance. There was a part of him that maybe thought she would be freaking out about things more, especially since John B had described her as the quiet and reserved type. Yet, she seemed unsettled but still calm and collected in a way? It was just kind of surprising, that's all. "I mean, that's very comforting to know, but that's not really what I was going to say."
Collins's lips parted before she pressed them together tightly. "Oh." She muttered quietly before waiting for him to continue. It's just that that was the only explanation that made sense to her and it was the first one which popped into her mind. She thought that he was just being nice by walking her home to ensure that she wouldn't immediately go to the police and rat him and his friends out and get them in whole lot more trouble than they already seemed to be in. She thought that if she just got it out of the way from the start, he'd get what he was there for and just leave.
"I just wanted to make sure you aren't just saying that you're okay, when you really aren't." JJ told her frankly. "And maybe because walking you home would actually be the nice thing to do after almost getting you potentially killed."
"It might be." Collins reaffirmed with a weak smile before looking away with a pink tint on her cheeks. "But I think I'll actually be okay and I'm not just saying that."
JJ had a small curve at the corner's of his mouth as he peered down at Collins. She had a sort of shyness to her that he found kind of cute in a way. She didn't say things with the kind of snap and bite that a lot of other girls he talked to had, nor did Collins seem all that assertive when it came to conversation or just in her behavior. She didn't reveal too much about herself but the way she acted emanated something mesmerizing that had somewhat a hook in JJ that he was happily being dragged by.
"So now that you have my word that I won't be going to the authorities, would it be possible for you to give me at least somewhat of an idea on what just happened?" Collins knew it probably wasn't any of her business, but she did get caught in a home invasion that had left her a little traumatized because of whatever they had gotten themselves involved in. She couldn't leave things unanswered after something like that and maybe she sort of deserved to know why?
Although, as much as Collins wanted an answer, JJ wasn't sure if it was his place to give one. John B had become obsessed with his dad's compass and was concocting these crazy theories that his father was still alive somewhere and Redfield was one of the breadcrumbs he'd left behind. And somehow, square groupers were involved, but that was a whole other theory of JJ's own.
"It's kind of a work in progress at the moment." JJ told her tentatively, trying to find the right words to say without saying too much. "Mild concocting at this point from John B, but we're helping him through it."
"Seems like whatever you guys are looking into is pretty serious if home invasions are on the agenda of stuff you guys have to deal with." Collins pointed out warily.
Things were quiet between them after that because Collins didn't want to pry and JJ didn't really want to reveal anything more. But silence never lasted long when JJ was around, so it had passed pretty quickly. "So, uh, before we had to sneak out of a window and hide in a chicken coop, you said you came over to check on JB... Was that the only reason?" JJ raised his brows at her, expectantly waiting for her answer.
He wondered if there was a part of her that had wanted to see him, and checking in on John B was just an excuse to talk to him again. Maybe he'd actually done something right that night at the Boneyard and hadn't totally scared her away. The thought made him feel happy, and pretty pleased with himself if he might add. But then the idea also crossed his mind that Collins may really have come to check on John B, or worse, that she actually liked John B. Crazier things have happened and JJ couldn't ignore the possibility that his best friend had a better chance with Collins than he did.
While all of this was going through JJ's mind, Collins's didn't seem to be as ridden with frantic thoughts as the boy's next her did. She shrugged her shoulders and looked around at the scenery like she didn't have to think too hard about it. "I mean, yeah," Collins replied absentmindedly, "he was in pretty bad shape and I knew he wouldn't have gone to the ER. He could've suffered from a brain bleed, or a fractured rib poking into his lungs. I really should've checked on him sooner."
The look of disappointment was nothing if not obvious on JJ's face at her response. She didn't give him much to go off of. He'd been hoping that she would throw in the insinuation that she'd been eager to see him as well, that way he'd know for sure that he wouldn't have to compete with John B for her attention. But JJ would benefit from realizing sooner rather than later that Collins was oblivious to the male gaze. For as observant and as smart of a girl that she was, she could not for the life of her detect anything that wasn't blatantly obvious flirting, and she didn't really know how to reciprocate it when she did.
But yeah, thank God John B turned out okay. He supposed he should've been grateful for that, too.
"Taking it like a man, Pogue style." JJ proclaimed, kicking the dirt with his shoe and creating a cloud in the air that dissipated once he'd walked through it. "You weren't scared that night, were you?"
Casting him a small shrug of her shoulders, Collins wrinkled her nose. "Kind of, I guess. I honestly thought that John B would pummel Topper in a fight, but--"
"Sorry, I meant, were you scared of me? Like, when I had the gun and all?" He said the last part more quietly than the rest while he stared intently at her, trying his hardest to figure her out. His friends had been so pissed at him, and so was Charlie. He thought for a moment that Collins must've been, too, only he wanted to hear it from her if she did. She didn't seem like she wanted to push him as far away as possible, so that was a good sign?
Taking a moment to think her answer through, Collins held her bottom lip between her teeth before she finally had her response ready. "I don't think so. Don't get me wrong, I didn't like what you did. And I despise guns, the sound just makes my heart jump out of my chest and I'm afraid of where the bullet goes. But you? I wouldn't call what I felt towards you scared, just... unsure."
"I guess that's better than the alternative, eh?"
"You probably still shouldn't have done it." Collins added for good measure, ensuring that JJ didn't take her response as approval for his actions, because they were pretty stupid. "What about you, though? Were you scared when we were in the chicken coop and you had to... had to do what you did?" She didn't want to say the words outright because it was still pretty fresh. "I heard John B say that you loved the rooster."
There was a bummed look on JJ's face at the mentioning of the only other loud thing besides him that roamed the Chateau. "I'll miss the ol' drumstick but if I had to choose my friends over him, I'm sure he'd appreciate the sacrifice. If I hadn't done what I did, who knows what could've happened to us."
Collins didn't say anything right away. She just took in JJ's response with acceptance and maybe a little bit of gratitude because she was sure that she wouldn't have had the guts to do what he did. She always tried to appreciate things that people did when others couldn't, it's what made someone like JJ a pretty special person, because she was pretty sure he'd do anything for the people he cared about.
"It's cool that you care so much about your friends. To have someone willing to do hard things for you is rare, you don't get as real of a friendship as that a whole lot nowadays. Charlie is probably the only person in my life that I could say the same thing about. He's the best person I know."
"I pissed him off pretty good that night at the Boneyard, too." JJ stated with tight lips. Way to make a good impression on the brother of the girl you might like, JJ.
"Charlie doesn't really stay mad at anyone for too long, if he ever is, he says that life's too short to hold grudges. He probably just thinks that you're a safety hazard now."
"And what did you think of me when we talked?" He questioned curiously, resulting in Collins immediately cowering back bashfully. If her face wasn't blushing red already, then it definitely was now. She wasn't one to express attraction when there was any, and that night, Collins couldn't help the magnetic force she felt pulling her towards JJ.
If there was one thing that would never complicate matters between them, it was the fact that even though Collins's boy crush radar was deficient, JJ was an expert at boosting his signal and making it clear that there was something about her that he liked. He was never one to play coy, he didn't get the things he wanted playing hard to get. Little would become lost in translation between them when JJ was around.
"The alcohol in your system impaired your judgement." Collins explained matter-of-factly, as if she was letting JJ know that it wasn't actually him that was interested in her, just the beer goggles. But what she failed to realize, was that drunk actions were also sober thoughts, and JJ really did mean what he said to her. He may not have exactly remembered it as clearly, but he stood by every compliment.
A small frown was apparent on the blond boy's face as he watched Collins walk up to her house, where he followed a couple of feet behind her before she stopped at her door to turn to him. "I'm sober now. Can I come in?"
She didn't answer him right away. Glancing back behind her, Collins knew that Charlie wasn't home. She wasn't so much as afraid of him coming back from work and seeing her and JJ there all alone and jump to conclusions, but she was also somewhat uneasy about JJ coming in and seeing how they lived. No one had ever really been to their house. They didn't jump to invite people over and they didn't exactly take pride in where they took housing in either. The worst part was how cramped everything was, they didn't live in filth or have heroine littered around the place like they used to when their mom was still around, but the space was small. It was just enough to fit her and Charlie, but any more than that was a squeeze.
Collins had always figured that's what drove her dad away. A part of her believed that he didn't just wake up one day and decide he didn't love or care about them anymore, he had been driven away over time from living like a caged animal in a crowded kennel. The heavy air and choking feeling like claustrophobia compacting around him made him go crazy, and he'd decided that he had two choices: a loving family struggling to survive in a suffocating house, or an open world outside of the island that granted him freedom from confinement.
Obviously, he'd chosen the latter.
If JJ was anything like her father, Collins figured it was better to find out sooner rather than later. But a part of her had an inkling of a feeling that JJ wasn't the judgmental type, she just hoped that her judgment wasn't off about that aspect of him.
Opening the door, Collins took a few hesitant steps in before she finally mustered up the courage to widen the crack in the door to allow JJ inside. It took a lot for her to perform such a trivial action. Collins had never invited anyone into her house, nonetheless a boy.
"Cool place." JJ commented sincerely, looking around the room and taking everything in. It sort of reminded him of the Château, but neater. You could kind of tell that it wasn't being inhabited by a bunch of old people on the brink of death because there was a sense of youth in there that he couldn't quite place. Perhaps it was Charlie's guitar propped up against the wall next to his rolling tray that livened the place up.
Holding her hands behind her back as she watched him check everything out, Collins smiled tightly. "Thanks. Can I get you some water or something?"
Turning back at her, JJ nodded with a soft look in his eyes. "Sure." He watched as she set her bag down on the table and walked over to the cupboard to retrieve a glass before filling it with water from the tap. While she was busy doing that, JJ stepped towards her tote and began inspecting the books inside, one by one. "You read all of these at the same time?"
Moving back towards him to standing on the other side of the table, Collins handed JJ the glass of water and watched him shuffle through the books sheepishly. "Kind of, a little bit, yeah. Sometimes I'll pick one up and I just can't put it down so I finish it sooner than I mean to, so I just grab a bunch when I'm at the library, that way I have backups ready."
She shook her head at herself because she felt like she was making herself out to be more a dork and JJ was probably thinking the exact same thing. Why wouldn't he?
"I was never much of a reader." JJ admitted. "I don't think I have the attention span long enough to just look at words for hours. Kind of more of a music and movies kind of guy."
"I get that." Collins replied in understanding. "I guess my brain is just wired in the way where when I'm reading, I can sort of play it out as a movie in my head. What's your favorite?"
"Die Hard, easily." JJ answered confidently. "It's got all the edge of your seat gun fights, blood pumping out of your chest, sweat dripping down your face action that you could ever need. A classic."
"You know that it was originally based off of a book? I've never read it, but it's kind of cool how a lot of our greatest movies nowadays started off as just stories on paper. And did you know that the guy who plays Gruber was the same guy who played Snape in Harry Potter? Acted almost the exact same way, too. When I watched Die Hard with Charlie, I just kept seeing him as Snape and would just laugh every time he came up on screen."
She took a deep breath in and realized that she had just rambled off a bunch of nonsense that JJ probably didn't even care about. Why did she think he'd want to hear about Harry Potter like it was even remotely similar to Die Hard? She felt dumb.
"Maybe we could read it sometime, or you could read it to me and I can just try to picture the movie in my head while you do it." JJ smiled crookedly at her and Collins just looked down at her hands with a small smile of her own. Even when she felt like she was saying all the wrong things, JJ made her feel like she'd said the right ones.
"Maybe." She answered quietly, before her eyes flickered up to his and she found herself surprised that he was still looking at her for what felt like the tenth time.
"Come on, you're telling me that you don't automatically want to read the book that birthed one of the greatest action/adventure movies of all time, when you've got books in here about pride and prejudice and treasure on islands-- actually that one doesn't sound too boring." JJ focused on the small book in his hands in the midst of shuffling through Collins's books once again.
"It's a classic treasure hunt." Collins told him. "It's got the whole, pirates and crumpled old map that's older than time, leading to riches beyond any man's imagination. I wasn't really sure about it at first, but I actually kind of like it."
Holding the book in his hand, JJ studied the cover carefully before redirecting his attention back to Collins with an expression she couldn't quite read on his face. It somewhat resembled his thinking look, but she couldn't be sure. She hasn't been around him long enough to know what certain looks mean. Without saying anything, Collins watched as JJ took a couple small steps back before making his way down the short and narrow hallway through her house, peering into the open doors before disappearing into her room.
Collins quickly followed with a small sense of panic but mostly confusion at the thought of JJ being in her room. That was her space, her own personal hideaway and the number of people who had stepped into her fortress were very limited... it racked up to about two and one of them was her, and the other was Charlie.
She stopped at the doorway at the sight of JJ laying on her bed with arms propped up behind him and his legs hanging off the edge. He was peering up at the glow in the dark stars she'd pasted onto her ceiling when she was 13 and hadn't been able to pick off ever since.
"What are you doing?" She asked him with an odd look.
"Can you read it to me?" He held up Treasure Island with his brows raised.
A soft chuckle escaped from Collins and she gazed at JJ like she didn't believe he was serious. Collins tucked her arms under her chest and gave him a small shake of her head. "You want me to read to you?"
He had to be joking; pulling at her leg. He probably thought it'd be so funny to ask her such a thing just to see if she'd do it, just to see if she was really as submissive and easy to push around as she seemed. If she were to agree, he'd probably feel so smug about it for getting her to do whatever he said using bare minimum effort. Was Collins really that naive?
But JJ just nodded slowly like he didn't understand why she would think he was kidding. "Yeah, I figure, maybe I'll like it more if I hear it from you and the way you read it, it'll help me understand why you like it so much."
Now, JJ Maybank was no angel. He never claimed to be a saint and he couldn't sit on the stand in court and say he wasn't a sinner. He had sticky fingers, a nicotine addiction, and false truth-telling tendencies. He liked to indulge in pleasures that he didn't always deserve or obtain in the most innocent of ways, and his impulsive behavior had gotten him in enough trouble to put him on Santa's ban-list. However, if you were to look at him, at first glance, JJ really was a fallen angel on earth.
His golden blond hair was like a halo on his head, and in the light, the rays peeked through it in a crown of sunshine that could only be holy in Collins's mind. His blue eyes shimmered like the waters he liked to surf on, and they resembled the sky that led to the heavens above. Collins liked to think that anything so enchanting and so purely divine couldn't possibly be bad, not even close.
And so she believed he had good intentions when he asked her to read to him. Despite the initial reluctance she'd felt about the idea, she stepped forward and took the book from JJ's hand as her way of accepting his request.
But she didn't sit next to him on her bed like he sort of wanted her to, she took the bed of cushions she'd placed strategically in the corner of her room and plopped down there instead, her eyes peeking over the top of the book to glance up at JJ, who had a defeated look on his face. The small smile that spread across her lips was hidden behind the hard cover.
Then she started to read. She made sure she didn't go too fast and she didn't speak in monotone for JJ's sake, and that she brought the book to life in the way that felt like she was doing it justice. She'd recite the dialogue as how she thought the character would say it in real life, and would laugh at herself with JJ because of how silly she sounded when she pretended to be a gruff old man talking about sailors and treasure.
She'd stop whenever JJ asked her for the meaning of a certain old word that no one used anymore, or perhaps never used in the first place, and would define it for him. And she'd check on him from time to time, glancing up from the pages to peer over at him and see if he was still listening or if he understood what was going on. When he listened to her read, JJ felt like he could see the story playing out in his head like a movie in the same way Collins had described it. He pictured the bulky seaman with a dirty face and a ratty brunet beard lumbering around with a hearty helping of rum coursing through his veins, spewing out drunken tales of his escapades on the high seas.
He'd spent the majority of the time unable to sit still. He'd tried laying down and relaxing on top of Collins's comforter, but grew bored of just staring at the ceiling and looking down at his hands before he finally decided to get up. He'd urged Collins to keep going, though, and to not let him distract her from telling the story because he actually did sort of like it, too.
And maybe he'd taken that moment as his opportunity to be a little nosy in Collins's room because she had things that practically begged to be poked around with. He'd fiddled with the beads and feathers on the dreamcatcher dangling over her bed for a good while before he took to the trinkets sitting on her nightstand. He played with the ceramic frog figurine that had been staring at him since he'd gotten there and pretended to make it walk the plank with the ruler he'd found in the pencil cup next to her lamp.
Then when he'd spent all of the activities of his imagination while listening to Collins read and he'd been left with nothing to do, once again, an idea popped into JJ's head.
As Collins was staring intently at the book and talking aloud, JJ came over and squeezed next to her on the cushions, leaning against the wall that was adjacent to the one that Collin's leaned up on. She paused mid-sentence and turned her attention over to JJ, who her brain soon processed was suddenly a lot closer to her face than she realized, and she felt her breath hitch in her throat.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt." JJ told her, though a part of her had a feeling that he wasn't really all that apologetic. "Continue."
Holding back the smile that had started to grow on her lips, Collins tried to ignore JJ and pick up where she'd left off. But the feeling of his eyes observing her every move and examining every aspect of her face had her flustered all of a sudden and Collins began to stumble over her words. She barely managed to get through the rest of the page before she finally decided to give up.
Releasing a soft sigh in mild frustration, Collins dropped the book onto her lap then looked over at JJ after she'd gathered her thoughts and felt less all over the place. "I think that's a good place to stop for tonight." She tucked a bookmark between the pages to save their place.
"You're really pretty." JJ disclosed out of nowhere, making her freeze in place from the brevity of it. And when Collins turned away to hide her face self-consciously, he added, "And I'm saying that as someone who hasn't had a drop to drink, in case you wanted to blame it on the alcohol again."
"You don't have to say that just to prove a point."
"What if I'm trying to prove to you that I think you're the most beautiful girl I've ever seen and I like your voice when you read-- even the old man voices."
They both chuckled and Collins could feel the blood rush to her cheeks. "Thanks, I guess. I never knew I could do such a good impression of a grumpy old man."
"I mean, I'm not saying that you do, I'm just gonna put that out there, it's pretty terrible." JJ confessed, to which they both laughed again and grinned at the same time. "But as far as attempts go, it's definitely up there. I guess I'm just letting you know that I like it when you do it, that's all."
A comfortable silence fell over them and for a while, Collins almost didn't notice the way their shoulders brushed each time JJ rocked back and forth with his arms wrapped around his knees in the same manner that hers were. It felt like tingles shot up to her spine with each brief moment of impact, and she wondered if JJ could feel it, too.
She wanted to ask what made him approach her in the first place that night at the beach. She'd pondered over it for a long time and still had yet to get an answer. If what he said was true and that she was supposedly the most beautiful girl he'd ever seen, then why had it taken him so long to tell her that? After all those years of schooling together, why now?
If she hadn't been there in that moment, would he have ever talked to her? Would they be sitting in her room that close? Would she be feeling like the breath had been stolen from her and that she was floating on a cloud, ascending higher and higher with every second that she spent with JJ like suddenly all logic and reason was unimportant?
She was just about to ask one, if not all of those questions running through her head, when the sound of a horn beeping outside interrupted her.
"Sounds like the Twinkie." JJ declared, then as he saw the deep puzzlement in Collins's expression, he quickly explained, "John B's van."
Collins's mouth formed into the shape of an 'O' and she pushed herself up to stand on her feet just as JJ did. Walking together through her house and out the door, Collins instantly spotted John B's van sitting on the side of the road in front of her house, which was pretty hard to miss.
John B himself had an arm dangling out the window as he waved for JJ to come over. "Figures that you're still here." He called out from over the sound of the running engine. "You missed out on a ton of shit, man, you've got some serious catching up to do."
JJ bit his tongue from saying something snarky back at John B, and shifted gazes between his friend and Collins. When he was facing John B, he cast him a look that said, 'I'm kind of in the middle of something.' But he kept his cool when he felt Collins's eyes on him of course.
The brown haired boy slowly nodded his head in understanding, but as far as he was concerned, he had discovered a possible and very plausible lead to follow regarding Redfield that he may need all hands on deck for. And if Collins hadn't run away screaming from JJ yet, then that had to mean something, right?
"Hey, Collins, you like mysteries?" John B asked her with his brow quirked.
Shrugging her shoulders, Collins shuffled her feet timidly across the wooden porch of her house. "Who doesn't?" She spoke up in reply.
John B didn't say anything back, he simply cast another wave to come along as he invited Collins onto their little excursion. And with a content smile on his face, JJ flashed the sentiment at her before he leaped onto the grass and made his way to the vehicle, Collins tagging along behind him with a bit more ambivalence in her step.
She wasn't sure where this whole thing was going to lead to. She didn't understand what it was that made John B and JJ so welcoming towards her for them to allow her into their undertakings. So far, it all seemed kind of nerve-wracking; what if she was walking into some seriously dangerous stuff? She could've never imagined that a group of kids from school were so involved in something that could be so risky, but perhaps that was just Collins's disbelief since she'd never really been that outgoing to begin with. The foreign territory she was crossing into made her senses go haywire.
Yet, through it all, when she stopped considering all of the different ways in which things could go wrong or how a single decision could lead to her biggest mistake, Collins found gratitude.
She was thankful that she was being included, and she was eager to see if it led to the friendship she'd envied JJ's loyalty to and wished for her own. After pining for a support system like that for so long, Collins wasn't about to turn down an opportunity for one anytime soon. Not to mention that she was grateful that for once in her life, after years of floating through elementary to middle school all the way to high school like a ghost in the hallways, Collins Jacobson was finally being seen.
And so far, JJ was enjoying the view.
•••
so I am thoroughly enjoying every scene I get to write for collins and jj I love them to death
as always, I appreciate everyone for reading and supporting this book, if there's anything that you'd like to share your constructive thoughts on in regards to the story please feel free to comment (nicely pls, I'm sensitive) or even just commenting to tell me if you're liking the book so far is great too !
thanks again for reading!