Waves

t h i r t y - e i g h t

~PRESENT~

Amelia's eyes peeled open, looking around the room tiredly, remembering that she had fallen asleep in JJ's bed at John B's last night. She shot up in bed, instantly reaching for her phone in the empty spot in the bed next to her, tapping the screen and squinting her eyes at the brightness as it lit up, hoping to see JJ's name. But there was nothing.

She rolled out of bed, her feet leading her out of the bedroom and straight out to the living room, hoping to see JJ there. But all she saw was Sarah and Pope seated on the couch, bowls of cereal in their laps, watching a rerun of a football game on the TV.

"Morning, Mill." Pope said, looking over Amelia's face, trying to sense if she was feeling any better this morning. "How are you? There's some cereal left on the counter if you're hungry."

"Morning." She sat down on the couch next to Sarah, instantly leaning over and resting her head on her shoulder. "I have no appetite. Has anyone heard from him?"

Silence fell over the room, before Pope cleared his throat. "No."

"Try not to worry yourself sick. He probably just needed some space to clear his head. You know how sensitive JJ can be, whether he will admit it or not."

Amelia felt extremely confused as to where JJ would've went off to. She knew that even if he was upset with her, he would've came home to the apartment last night to try to figure things out. It wasn't like JJ to disappear like that. He was always determined when it came to Amelia. She didn't understand why now, when they hit a bump in the road, he ran off and disappeared. And being that Kiara wasn't around either, and she was the last person that JJ had possibly seen, she felt even worse about the situation. Amelia tried to shake away the uneasy feeling.

"I really think I need to go back to the apartment. Maybe he's there." In her mind, she knew that if JJ had gone back to the apartment and Amelia wasn't there, he would've came looking for her or at least called her. But being that she hadn't heard from him, and no one else had either, she figured that he most likely wasn't at their apartment.

"I can take you back to the apartment."

Amelia let out a heavy breath, pulling JJ's blanket off of her body and draping it over the couch before standing up. "Can you actually take me somewhere else first?"

Pope's eyes squinted at her in confusion. "Can you take me to Luke's? I just really need to see if he's there."

"Amelia, do you really think that's a good idea? If he's not there, I really don't think that you want to get mixed up with Luke right now."

Amelia reached down and grabbed Pope's arm, urging him to stand. "I'm not worried about Luke. I'm worried about JJ."

Finally agreeing, Sarah and Pope followed Amelia out of the house and into the Twinkie. All Amelia could do was stare out the window of the van, trying to tell herself that she was going to get to Luke's house and JJ was going to be there. She didn't know how true that was going to be, but she was trying her best to stay positive before she completely broke down.

Pope pulled the van into the driveway, and Amelia frowned at the sight of the house looking empty. From what she could see, there was no one there.

"I'm gonna go knock and see if anyone answers." She said, standing out of her seat, reaching to open the door, but was instantly pulled back by Pope.

"Amelia, no. You're not going up there. He's not here. But if Luke is, that's not going to end well for you." He spoke. "No matter how mad JJ is at you, I know for a fact that he would want me to still protect you from his dad. And you know he would murder you if he found out that you came to talk to his dad when he wasn't there to protect you from him."