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John B looked over at Saturn who was sitting in his passenger seat with her knees up to her chest and her hood pulled up over her head. To say he was worried about her was an understatement but he also was filled with hope about his father for the first time in a long time.
His hand reached over to gently squeeze hers before speaking. "I mean, it's obvious, right? A family heirloom. What better place to hide a message? He had to know it was going to get back to me, right?" John B exclaimed hopefully. All of his friends shared glances all of them concerned with two people in the van, one who was talking too much and one who hadn't said a word.
"Yeah. It's possible."
"It could also be possible that you're concocting wild theories to help, you know, deal with your sad feels." Pope replied ignoring the dirty look that Kie was giving him as JJ rambled.
"Bro, you know how I process my sad feels. Dank nugs and the stickiest of ickies, that's how I do it." JJ said sending Saturn a wink when she peered back at him and smiled at his joke. Her red face was slightly covered by her hair but JJ still knew the mark the man left was there.
"I'm not concocting, okay? My dad's trying to give me a message." John B replied his tone laced with irritation at the fact his friends didn't believe him, and the only girl who did wasn't up for arguing.
"If it helps you believe John B." Kie said softly knowing her friend was in a fragile state.
"Look, I-I don't need a therapy session, okay? I'm not tripping out." The boy in the driver's seat replied. Saturn felt guilty, she knew she should have been listening and supporting John B but she was exhausted, her body hurt and her head felt like it was going to explode so when John B raised his voice the girl nearly jumped out of her skin.
"Look, my dad is missing, okay? Missing! You don't know what it's like to have the person closest to you vanish and then have no idea what happened. Just wake up every morning wondering." Saturn sighed at his words and pushed away the pain she was in to lift a bandaged hand and rested it on the back of his neck, her fingers dancing in the small curls that stuck out from under his hat as she tried to soothe him in the only way she could manage at the moment.
"It's been almost a year." Kie sighed her eyes dancing between her two friends who were barely holding on by a thread shared between them.
"Hey, he could have been kidnapped. That's definitely a possibility." JJ said making the girl in the passenger's seat let out a soft sigh and gently push her hair away from her face revealing the swollen red mark on her cheek, everyone in the van reeling in guilt at the sight of it but nobody mentioned it.
