"And lastly, that's Madison, or Mads, my little sister who is also trying to climb up the broken lifeguard tower. We're only a year apart. When she's not doing some odd job for extra cash she is on the HMS Pogue with the rest of us. Most loyal perso...
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JJ laid on his bed, his hat covering his face to block out the sunlight that was seeping through the broken blinds. The Chateau had become more of a home to him over the years but there was something about being in his own room. The faint smell of weed that always lingered, the faded red stain on the back of his door from when him and Madison had gotten into a food fight and her peanut butter and jelly sandwich stuck to it like glue, and his bed sheets that even if he didn't stay there Madison would sneak in at least once every two weeks to wash. Even in his own room, in the house he begged her to stay away from, her presence was still all around him.
It had felt comforting, the nights he actually went home, feeling that she was still with him even when she was tucked safely in her own bed. It was that same comfort he was longing for as he walked through the front door but his eyes landed on the coffee table that was littered with pills and powders and it instantly crushed that hope. He made his way through the living room, his anger increasing with every breath he took, and slammed his bedroom door hard enough that his old grinder fell from his dresser and onto the floor.
Alone, in his room, with no one around, he was finally able to take off the mask. He didn't need to be the protector, or the comedic relief, or even master of plans. He could simply be the broken little boy from the wrong side of the tracks that always came second. The lonely soul stuck between wanting someone to notice he was drowning and wanting to make sure no one ever truly knew what he kept hidden in the shadows of his mind.
He desperately tried to get the image of Madison snorting cocaine out of his head but every time he closed his eyes, even to blink, he saw it. He saw the second it washed over her, bringing her a calm he had never even come close to, an empowerment that she, in her mind, was untouchable. It was a feeling that wouldn't be able to be replicated without that deceptive powder and if he couldn't offer her that same high then how was he supposed to help her?
And then came the scariest thought of all, what if he couldn't?
His phone buzzed in his pocket and he almost ignored it, already imagining Pope's voice in his head. Hey...uh...you good?...I mean I know you're not good...but after the bonfire...and then I know Maddie wasn't...and uh... he'd stumble over his words, wanting to check on his friend without coming straight out and say that he was worried. At the last second before it could go to voicemail JJ answered the phone without looking at the caller ID, expecting it to be the Heyward boy and wanting to get the conversation over with before he blew up his phone all day, or worse came looking for him. "Hey."
"I...uh...really, really, messed up. Can you come get me?"
He sat up in bed, letting the hat fall from his face as he let out a deep sigh, a mix of shock and confusion that after the events of the bonfire she would have even reached out at all. "Maddie..."
