𝐋𝐢𝐚𝐫, 𝐋𝐢𝐚𝐫 | 𝐉𝐉 𝐌𝐚𝐲𝐛𝐚𝐧𝐤

21. patriarchal failures.

T W E N T Y - O N E
patriarchal failures.

It's quiet, a symptom of who's missing. It's also sombre, another symptom that JJ isn't here – making a stupid joke or choking because he took too long of a drag. I hadn't realised how much he affected not only the group but me.

After I stormed off a few days ago I buried myself in so many pills I didn't get a chance to think about him, I made sure of that. All I could think of was the pounding in my head, churning in my gut and how much I was sweating, even after I opened all the windows. But I'm not on anything, so all I can think of is where he is and what he's decided is an appropriate thing to do. I highly, highly doubt he's many a singular good decision. There's no way he went to the station and paid his debt off; no, that'd be far too sensible. JJ doesn't do sensible, he doesn't do anything he doesn't want to do.

I never really thought twice about when Rafe would fall off the face of the Earth every few weeks, he'd find something to get angry about and disappear to the mainland, get ludicrously high and no doubt cheat on me with every woman who smiled at him. I knew, and everyone on the damn island knew. There were pictures that he claimed were old, but I'm no fool. The sting of his betrayal lost its power when I started sleeping with JJ, you can't really get mad at someone who's doing the exact same thing as you are. And, if anything, it made me feel ever so slightly less bad about my own poor choices, although I'm pretty certain he never cheated on me with anyone who lived on the Outer Banks, which meant it wasn't anywhere near as consistent as my own cheating.

"He'll come back. He's just doing a JJ thing," John B assures, although I think it's more for his own sake than anyone else's.

We're all sat, waiting for any calls from the jail that he committed some crime or for his dramatic entry where he admits to doing something stupid, but not having been arrested – yet.

"You think he'll go home?" Kie asks, looking down at her lap where her linked hands lay. She looks stiff, clearly very stressed out. It's making me regret not shaking off her hold and following after him even though she said not to. He wasn't listening, but surely if I kept pestering he'd crack and I could get through to him.

Pope shakes his head emphatically, his confidence giving me some ease. "There's about a zero percent chance that JJ goes home," he states.

Sarah sits down in a wicker garden chair, knees pulled into her chest, a worried and spaced-out look painted across her face. "You okay?" I whisper to her as she sits next to me. She turns to look away from the gently rippling water, to face me, and she gives me a light nod.

"Yeah. Are you okay?" She mumbles, eyes scanning my face, trying to read me. But I can't even decipher what I'm feeling right now, perhaps a mix of regret that I didn't follow, guilt that I hurt Barry, anxiety over my mother and JJ and shock that I had a gun aimed square at my face.

"I'm okay," I murmur, hoping that that's a true statement, not something I'm saying just to make her feel better.

The conversation ends with my answer, and I look back at the water. Listening to the distant screeches from a woman being dragged along the water covered in warm hues by a boat and the bugs that are beginning to buzz. I try not to let my mind wander to a dark place, that doesn't help anyone.

My phone vibrates from where it's sat on the armrest of the plastic sun bed I plopped myself on, picking it up I see my mother's contact flashing across the screen. Sliding my finger over the screen, I accept the call and press the phone to my ear; my anxiety dumps adrenaline in my bloodstream. "Everything okay?" I ask nervously, forgoing any formal greetings. I need answers quickly before my poor heart gives out on me.