Jett

48

Something about this chapter doesn't feel quite right to me (I'll probably figure it out when I go through the editing process). Regardless, I hope you enjoy it. 

Jett didn't come.

Deep down he had known she wouldn't. Not after that kiss or the way Jinx and Naziah had looked at him. It had all been too much like a farewell while at the same time not being enough. He felt as if there needed to be more, of what he wasn't quite sure, but he just couldn't believe that he'd never see them again. That he'd never hear Jinx make another bad pun or listen to Jett tell him off for doing something stupid. He'd even miss Naziah.

Maybe he just needed to tell them that.

Or, perhaps, he was hoping that if they got more time together, they would tell him something similar. Being around them it always felt as if they meant more to him than he ever did to them. It was something he was unaccustomed to, he typically always knew where he stood with the people he chose to surround himself with. It wasn't often that he felt so... lacking but being around Jett and her friends made him feel so inadequate it was almost laughable.

So, he let himself hope that maybe Jett would appear one last time.

He waited for a full ten minutes— the fact that she wasn't waiting for him already should have been the giveaway considering that she was a stickler for punctuality— before he realised that there was a letter stuck to the tree's trunk.

He felt his heart drop when he saw it. Even though he saw it coming, he couldn't help his disappointment.

'A letter is better than nothing, though.'

The more he stared at the paper the more relieved he was that it existed. He reached out and pulled the envelope off of the bark, feeling his racing pulse in his palms as he tried to imagine what it was that she felt she had to tell him. In a way, she hadn't lied to him, she had come, just not at the time he had specified. For a second he couldn't help but wonder what it would have been like if he had just glanced at his window some time earlier. If he had managed to catch her.

He tried to shake himself out of it as he trudged back to his room, the paper seemingly too heavy in his hands. No good would come from obsessing over the 'what ifs.' Besides, even though it didn't give him the closure he wanted, it felt right for them. Jett didn't seem like the type to get emotional over those things. It was definitely more her style to just let things go.

When he got to his room, he turned on the bed side lamp before seating himself on his bed, the envelope lying in front of him. The bright white paper was both tempting and daunting. There, sitting in front of him, were the last words Jett would ever say to him.

He took a deep breath before pulling out the paper inside, instantly recognising the handwriting from nights spent doing maths homework together.

Kayden,

I lied.

He couldn't help but snort at that, trust Jett to start a letter with 'I lied.'

We leave tonight.[In fact, by the time you read this, we'll probably be long gone.]

I actually wasn't going to write this but I've been thinking a lot about what you said today, about not knowing what to do with yourself when you're not helping us. It's been bothering me, mainly because it's one of the dumbest things I've ever heard.

Don't scowl, let me explain.

Kayden refused to admit that he had, in fact, been scowling indignantly at the words.

I wanted to introduce you to Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, a long dead Spanish guy my mum used to be obsessed with. She quoted him around the house all the time; it had gotten to the point where, if I had a problem, she attempted to solve it with some of Cervantes' words.

Kayden couldn't stop himself from smiling at that, Jett rarely spoke about her parents unprompted and the fact that she had decided to give him that bit of information made something warm blossom in his chest.

In Don Quixote he wrote 'Hastala muerte, todo es vida.'

Until death it is all life.

This is your life Kayden and you are nothing like us. You never will be like us. We are not the answer to your existential crisis. Your purpose lies elsewhere and I'm certain that you'll find it if you stop trying to mould yourself into something you're not because otherwise you're just wasting time. You're just wasting life.

Everything you do before you die counts, Kayden. You can't keep hoping that another person will one day appear and give you your purpose.

Hastala muerte, todo es vida, Kayden.

Nuncareugues por aquello que tienes el poder de ganar por ti mismo.

Never stand begging for that which you have the power to earn.

P.S this paper was specially designed by Jinx to disintegrate half an hour after it comes into contact with the oils on the human skin. Just a heads up.

For a farewell letter, it was a mess.

But for a letter written by Jett, it was perfect.

Her writing, which was typically quite neat, was sloping too far to the right and at one point she had even poked a hole through the page. He could just imagine her sitting in the bus, balancing the paper on her knee as she just scribbled down whatever it was she needed to say.

'Only Jett would have her final words to me being instructions on how to fix up my life.'

He put the letter on his bedside table and turned off the light.

For a long time he just stared up at his ceiling, his mind swimming as he thought about all of them. Jett. Jazz. Jinx. Even Naziah.

'Hastala muerte, todo es vida, Jett.'

He thought.

'And I'm glad a small part of that was with you.'