Obscurity (2) - JJ Maybank

THE BONFIRE PART VI.

Aria was laying down on the hammock outside the Chateau, star gazing and thinking. So much had gone on in the last few months Aria couldn't even figure out where she lost her mind along the way.

She was so sick of herself at this point. Her insecurities have multiplied through the course of this year, her trust issues deeper, and her trauma was more evident in the way she acted.

Sometimes she wished she could just go back to when she wouldn't let anyone in, it may sound morbid but Aria wondered what the group would be like without her.

Probably the same.

She had never played an extremely important role in this group, there was never one thing she had to do unless John B was going to go to jail or Pope was going to get kidnapped.

Something about her made her believe that if she just disappeared, or was never born the group would still be the exact same, going through the same things, just with one less.

Aria was snapped back into reality when she saw out of the corner of her eye JJ walking over to her, holding two beers in his hands.

"Hey," He almost whispered.

"Hi," Aia mumbled.

It felt kind of weird with them again, whenever they would build a good connection again something, or Aria would stop it off before it happened.

She let herself be vulnerable with him tonight, and now she wasn't sure what to do. Did she regret it? No, she wasn't even sure if she should regret it.

If Kelce wasn't there they would have kissed, for the first time in just over two months. But what she thought was worse, was that she still wanted it to happen.

"Pope is in the guest bedroom, Kie is on the pullout and John B is in his room," JJ informed after staring at the girl for a little too long.

He had been trying to get back with her since she came back to the group. JJ doesn't have many regrets in life but the biggest thing he will always remember was letting her go.

JJ remembered every single time he told her that he wouldn't go, every time she told him not to promise it to her because she didn't want to make him a lair, but he made himself the biggest liar of all.

After John B and Sarah "died", JJ was getting drunk and high all the time. Somewhere over the course of being blackout drunk, he sent Aria the message saying that he couldn't handle her.

Absolute bullshit.

All he wanted was to be with her, but he was drunk and when she just replied with a 'k' he couldn't exactly show up at her door frame, even though that was all he needed to do.

JJ could picture how much Aria was struggling and she couldn't have worse timing, because when she showed up at his house JJ had just got a message from his dad that something bad had gone down and JJ needed to go to the police station.

He was already so stressed but when he saw how broken Aria looked as that first tear dropped from her eyelids he couldn't control it.

JJ needed to be at the police station, and all Aria was doing was causing more stress, stress that he couldn't handle but it wasn't her fault.

When he looked at her he saw all these things she would have stopped him from doing over the two weeks prior and he couldn't bear to see the look on her face when she found out about the drugs and drinking.

He couldn't cope with any of it. JJ needed his distraction but when she was there, asking to just be with him for any time, he just left her, heartbroken and crying on his living room floor.