Together

52. Out

Suddenly the clouds have opened up
And I'm being seen in all of my glory
The time has come for fate to decide
If a part of me is even worthy
-Jacob Banks

JJ walked up the Carrera's front porch after climbing off his motorbike. He wants to grab Kie and hang out at the chateau to celebrate a successful week of school. Alright he just wants to have a good time with his friends drinking, smoking, and chilling around the fire. But you couldn't say that to her parents so a much more innocent excuse is needed.

Just as he's about to knock he hears muffled voices followed by a frustrated sigh from inside and then the door is flying open before he can blink. Anna Carrera stops short of running into him after glancing up at her surroundings as she makes her exit.

"JJ," she acknowledges. She's got her jacket in one hand, purse and keys in another, clearly in a hurry to get where she's going, probably the Wreck.

"Hey Mrs. Carrera, is Kie home?" he asks, taking a step back.

Anna lets out a sarcastic chuckle. "Oh yes, she's in there," she says, shutting the door and walking down the steps of the porch, not giving him a second thought.

JJ watches her get in her car. Once she's backed out of the driveway, narrowly missing his bike by the way, he hesitantly looks back at the front door. He nods in realization that he won't be getting explicit permission but never the less aware she didn't directly tell him to leave either.

He knocks on the door but there isn't an answer. Kie was in there, right? He knocks again but still nothing. Not a peep from within the immaculate home. He makes his way around the back of the house to where Kie's room is, and starts to climb up the siding, following to his original and well-known foot placements at various broken edges and gaps to reach her window.

The first time he climbed up to her room he was fourteen. She'd gotten her phone taken away for a bad grade and no one knew where she was. So, he took it upon himself to seek her out, climbing his scrawny ass up the siding and almost falling like four times before reaching the top. Scared the shit out of her when he knocked on the glass too.

He looks in her window now, having gotten his footing solidly on the one of the larger edges. Shit. He sees her laying on the bed, back turned to him but he can tell she's crying. Her feet are tucked into her middle and her shoulders are hunched like she's trying to make herself small.

He pushes the crack in the window open enough to slide his body through. He was clumsy by nature, but years of practice gave his body perfect muscle memory of how to enter her room. He could probably sneak in here blindfolded at this point.

Kie doesn't react when he drops in, combat boots hitting the wooden floor with a familiar thud, but he knows she knows he's there. She's stopped being surprised by his random entrances a long time ago.

He strides over to her bed, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder as he climbs in behind her. She grabs his hands as they wrap around her. His head resting lightly over hers as he kisses her cheek. She sniffles, wiping the tear tracks from her eyes.

"What happened?" he asks softly. It's not like he couldn't guess, not the first time he's snuck up on her crying in her room. Anna's quick exit a good clue.

"Well," she says, letting out a shaky breath. "I got my mom to let me change my classes."

"And that's bad?"

Kie turns to face him, new tears appearing immediately after she wiped the old ones. It made his heart sink, to see her so upset over something that didn't need to be a thing in the first place.