[ SEPTEMBER 2ND, 2020 ]
↳ THREE DAYS LATER
THE POGUES:
SOMEWHERE IN CALIFORNIA
Athena's funeral was held back in San Clemente. Her mother had to pay to have her body shipped back. It arrived on the day of in the smallest coffin she'd ever seen. Her mother always thought it was a rule: you die before your own children. Apparently, she was wrong. Also, apparently you don't even get to say goodbye to your kid's when they die either.
The hardest part of it was knowing that her death was not fast and was not painless. Athena's mother had spent hours after she'd received the news researching drowning, what it felt like, and how long it typically took. None of it was pleasant and none of it seemed slow. With every different article came a new urge to lose her lunch.
JJ adjusted his tie in the mirror of his hotel room. Pope and Kiara sat on the same bed; both dressed in black from head to toe and both of them with the same depressed look of pity plastered across their faces. Kiara was staring at the stained carpet, but Pope kept his eyes fixed on JJ's in the mirror.
"She's in a better place," Pope offered.
JJ told him to shut up.
So, Pope did.
Kiara's flight and hotel room had been paid for in full by Athena's grandmother. She knew they were friends and was one of the only people that Athena actually allowed her grandmother to interact with before her passing. Plus, her grandmother had the money and the love for her baby to pay for the trip out. JJ had his flight paid for by Kiara. He promised her up, down, left, and right that he'd be giving her the money back the second he could. She would never accept it though, feeling overly guilty for the death of his girlfriend. Pope and his parents split the cost of his ticket, but his dad secretly wanted nothing more than to give him the money for the entire thing. It just wasn't rational. He didn't have the funding for that kind of thing. Pope knew it, and he appreciated the thought anyway.
It had been a week and a day since the incident. The accident. The drowning.
JJ had barely said two words.
He hadn't showered, eaten, slept, drank anything- to Kiara's knowledge, he hadn't even gone to the bathroom. JJ seemed to do one thing and one thing only; lay in bed, on his back, with the covers up to his stomach, staring at the ceiling. Kie wasn't even sure if he had blinked.
The flight was the worst.
Kiara came to pick Pope and JJ up about two hours before their specified departure. JJ and Pope had been kicking it at John B's; neither of them wanting to be alone, and JJ not wanting to be with his dad. When she knocked on the door, Pope was ready but JJ was sitting on the bed just zoned out. Pope and Kie had to pack his suitcase and basically carry him to the car. He cried the entire way through the airport. Then when they got on the plane, he put his earbuds in and pretty much pretended like he didn't exist. When the stewardess came over asking if he wanted a snack or beverage, he just looked at her funny. Kiara told the lady that he didn't speak english. That did not help.
"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
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.
Kiara squeezed JJ's hand. She felt his body tense up against hers. She held Pope's hand in one and JJ's in the other. Both of them were shaking. She was sure she was all the same, but feeling their emotions physically was scary. Neither of them deserved this.
JJ let out an audible sob, before he smacked his free hand over his mouth, but the slap wasn't half as hard to the point of audibility. He shook harder now though. Kiara did nothing but let her own tears fall as Pope did the same. All of three of them got dirty looks and unfair glances. Kiara knew damn well nobody wanted them there, but she couldn't give less of a fuck.
"As we put Athena to rest today, we remember her family members, standing here before us. Nothing is harder than surviving. It is important to pray for the dead, but sometimes just as important to bare in mind the living."
The man nodded to JJ who turned around, letting go of Kiara's hand. It pulsated from the bone-crushing circulation-cutting grip he previously had on her. JJ pinched the brim of his nose with one hand and held his stomach with the other, flaring his head up to the sky and shutting his eyes tightly.
"Athena was a creative, resourceful teenager. She was kind and smart and funny. Taken by mother nature to return to God. She was one of the greatest surfers I have personally ever gotten the pleasure to watch, right there next to her mother and father. Michael Priactia, Daphne Ariti, we are so sorry for your loss-"
The man was still talking, but it had clicked then. Why Athena was such a great surfer. Why her name always sounded familiar. Why her grandmother had randomly come into a large sum of money.
JJ turned abruptly and gave a nasty look to her dad who had his head bowed.
"What?" Kiara whispered in an angry tone.
JJ just shook his head.
Surfing legend, JJ thought. More like a pussy and a shit father. So much fucking money and Athena grew up in a shack of a house with nothing but a mom working two jobs.
JJ was seething for the rest of the funeral, but he kept his thoughts to himself. He didn't mention the thing about her dad to Pope or Kie. He decided that if Athena kept it under wraps, she had good reason. Even in death, JJ wanted nothing more than to protect his Athena. So that's what he planned on doing. He kept her secret.
JJ wasn't actually ever sure if Kiara or Pope connected the dots. He never asked, they never said anything. And none of them ever had a conversation about it after that day.
It took JJ months to get himself back in the water. And when he finally did, it was only because John B and Sarah had contacted him, Kiara, and Pope got back to the water, even surfing, which wouldn't come for many months after though in the tamest of conditions.
John B and Sarah? They were okay. Well, as okay as fugitive teenagers from the cut could get. They ran away to the Bahamas before making their big comeback to the Outer Banks through landing in Charleston after stealing the gold back from Ward. Which was the biggest mess JJ had ever gotten himself involved in.
John B never stopped asking questions about Athena. JJ thought they were genuinely meant to be best friends in some other universe.
Sarah was apologetic, but JJ wasn't sure she really ever felt anything. He didn't blame her. Sarah barely knew Athena. Nobody knew Athena the way JJ did, and he was fully aware of that. He liked the idea of being one of the few people to know every single thing about her. He could do a good job of single-handedly keeping her memory alive.
The pressure of it ate him alive after the funeral.
Him, Kiara, and Pope all hoped on their returning flight the day after the funeral.
JJ didn't cry. He didn't speak again, but he also didn't cry. At all. Kiara suspected he felt numb and to a fault, she was right, but he was also drunk as shit. It was a wonder he made it past TSA successfully. Actually, it was a wonder Pope didn't figure it out, but not speaking kind of had the affect of keeping his secret hidden.
As soon as they got back to John B's after their flight, JJ exploded. He threw up all over. Pope spent an hour cleaning it while Kiara cried herself sick on the couch. That was when JJ finally unleashed every single emotion he was keeping tucked away. Anger, sadness, grief, guilt- all of it was vomited onto the bathroom floor. JJ sobbed and screamed and slammed his fist on the tile floor until his knuckles bled. He threw the glass of water Pope had brought him, shattering it into a million pieces. He slapped the pieces, slicing his palms, then threw up all over again before he slammed his head on the toilet, effectively giving himself a gash on his forehead about the size of a dollar coin, but knocking him out for the night. Ironically, he was the best sleep he would get for weeks to follow.
The next day was still hell.
JJ woke up in a bloody, smelly pile of his own filth. Pope brought him to bed where he stayed for the rest of the summer. His dad didn't notice.
Then, school started. That's when John B and Sarah came back into his life.
Things picked up again. Stuff was starting to go back to normal; running from cops, doing things they weren't supposed to, going places they weren't allowed, having fun. The guilt remained at the bottom of JJ's stomach, but with each passing day, Athena was becoming a mere memory and less and less of a girl that he loves, but a girl that he loved.
Shock,
denial,
bargaining,
guilt,
anger,
depression,
and acceptance.
JJ was there, at the bottom of the list. He had finally accepted it. Months later when he was sitting in the hammock in John B's backyard all by himself while his friends were on the boat. JJ had stayed behind. He had no real reason to; only that he knew he wasn't up for John B's driving and Sarah's shrieks when water splashed her face.
So there he was. Bugs were swarming around him. The air sticky and warm. The sun was setting and dusk had wrapped him up like a blanket. The breeze blew him slightly, the soft rocking motions making him dizzy with sleep. It was there that JJ had accepted it. He pulled out Athena's red, white, and blue Pura Vida wax bracelet from his pocket as he watched the pink, orange, yellow swirl of a sunset, he accepted that his Athena was gone. But that she would be painting him the prettiest sunsets for the rest of his life.
Athena Priactia
2003-2020
Poseidon's daughter
&
Kindest soul I've ever known
UNTIL WE MEET AGAIN.