𝐋𝐢𝐚𝐫, 𝐋𝐢𝐚𝐫 | 𝐉𝐉 𝐌𝐚𝐲𝐛𝐚𝐧𝐤

24. we broke pope.

T W E N T Y - F O U R
we broke pope.

Hey party people. Just wanted to first and foremost apologise, it's been a few weeks. I just had a crisis and wanted to do anything but figure out what's going on with this, but I'm back – hopefully!

I just get really bad imposter syndrome and I don't know what I'm doing or why people read lmao. I don't know if what I'm writing is okay or you should take that down embarrassing.

Plus it's getting toward National Gushy Day and Christmas and the new year so I'm also having a crisis about that, which just makes me self-conscious. Fun times.

Hope this isn't disappointing, thanks for sticking around <3

Some say the Outer Banks are paradise on Earth. I beg to fucking differ.

Call me a pessimist but right now I'm not feeling like I'm living in paradise, it's more hellish.

Between drug addict boyfriends who use throwing people into coffee tables as an arm workout and stealing from drug dealers, awaiting the recompense I know is coming. I know Barry, he's not one to let that shit go, it's bad for his ego, and if anyone caught wind of it – which of course they will, it's an island that loves a bit of gossip – he really couldn't just call it a loss and keep it moving.

In my mind, paradise has less water, lower temperatures, lower humidity and more vibrant greenery. That's my type of place, somewhere where no one wants to swim all the fucking time. Where no one magically knows how to boat– do boating? Because I swear no one got taught, I just rocked up to middle-school one day and everyone was talking about jetting around like Usain Bolt on water.

Something paradise definitely didn't have was fruitless gold searches – perhaps any gold searches full stop, because in paradise I'd have a fat bank account. And another thing it would never happen was whatever the fuck happened to John B.

The wet, red blood on that coats his hands is smeared up his forearms where it's dried a deep red. It's not just on his hands and forearms, it's stained his shirt and probably the skin underneath it. There's so much of it, enough of it that whoever the blood came from is in a little bit of strife. It's not paper-cut blood, it's not cutting your finger with a knife blood, that's the kind of blood that's pumped deep in your body. That's the blood that keeps you alive, and they've lost a ton of it.

His bloody hands shake as he switches between looking at them and us, eyes wide and terrified at what happened.

This place is no fucking paradise.

There's no terror in paradise, paradise is good and safe.

I manage to stand up on my legs that feel like they could buckle at the ominous sight, JJ and Kie rush passed me up to him. Pope rushes a second later but I'm borderline catatonic, just staring at the glistening blood.

"Whose blood is that?" Kiara insists with scared urgency.

It seems like everyone's panicking. This seems like something one can justly panic over.

John B is silent, his gaze dropped to his hands. He looks like his brain has taken him to another world, whatever happened it's deemed too much to handle so he goes somewhere else.

JJ claps a hand on his shoulder, shaking him slightly, trying to get some answers from a silent John B. "John B, are you okay?" JJ asks.

I don't know if, in his desperation for answers, he's missed a few key details, but that's not the amount of blood one loses and is able to run very far, and there's no wound. Maybe he was talking about John B's psyche because that seems like fifty shades of fucked.