𝐛𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐭𝐞- 𝐣𝐣 𝐦𝐚𝐲𝐛𝐚𝐧𝐤

8.

🦋☀ 🌊 - 8

"i mean it's obvious, right?" pope begins, swinging the compass back and forth.

"a family compass? i mean he had to know it would come back to me, right?" john b looks between the road and kiara who's sitting in the passengers seat.

"yeah. it's possible." kiara agrees.

"it's also possible that you're concocting wild theories to help with- you know, help with your sad feels." pope suggests.

"well you know how i deal with my sad feels." jj says, earning a hit to the knee from olivia sitting at his side.

"i'm not concocting, okay? my dad is trying to give me a message." john b looks around at his friends. he wouldn't drop this at all even when everyone told him to.

"if it helps you believe-"

"look, i don't need a therapy session, okay? i'm not tripping out." john b chuckles under his breath, adjusting himself in his seat.

"it's okay to trip bro-"

"my dad is missing!" john b whips his head back at jj. "okay? missing. you don't know what it's like to have the person closest to you vanish. and then have no idea what happened. just wake up every morning wondering."

olivia almost felt bad for saying anything in the first place. even thoughts she had made herself feel bad for john b. she didn't know what it felt like. even if her parents favored her brother or when she would get left behind in certain things, she would always be able to come back to a house filled with people.

"it's been almost a year." kiara looks at john b with a soft face. she didn't want to hurt him, but she wanted to let him know that this might not even be the way john b pictured.

"hey, he could have been kidnapped." jj suggests to lighten the mood.

"he could be in a soviet sob getting interrogated." pope adds.

"absolutely. or atlantis." jj starts to joke about the many possibilities.

"jj." olivia scolds the boy for even saying that out loud in a serious situation. "john b, i'm sure wherever he may be, he is fine."

"look, what do you think the message is?" kiara lightens john b's mood by going along with his plan.

"redfield. redfield lighthouse." john b says, pulling up to the lighthouse entrance.

everyone gets out of the van to look up at the lighthouse standing in front of them. not once had olivia been here, but it was pretty cool.

"okay, here's what's going to happen, you're going to stay here and look out." john b points at the blonde boy.

"wait, why me?" jj asks in obvious confusion.

"look jj, there are independent and there are dependent variables and you are an independent variable. we don't know what you're going to do." pope argues with jj.

"okay just shut up!" jj shouts.

"pope, you stay here and look out with jj. okay?" john b looks between the two boys.

"i'll stay too." olivia looks at the lighthouse. "i don't feel like climbing all those stairs."

"okay cool. if we split up, we meet back at jj's house." john b confirms the plan, leaving with kiara to the lighthouse.

"okay well i'm going to work on my scholarship essay." pope heads back for the van. "i'm trying to keep felonies down to a minimum."

"okay, will you just shut up already?" jj picks up a rock and starts kicking it with his foot.

olivia catches the rock jj kicks up and sits down in the van with pope. "will both of you be quiet?" she sighs, laying down and playing with the rock in her hand.

"hey! toss it here!" jj stands a few feet away and holds out his hand to catch the rock olivia threw back.

the three of them soon did their own thing. olivia eventually got bored tossing a rock back and forth with jj who basically played soccer with it half the time.

pope started his essay like he said he would, until sirens were heard from a short distance. "shit!"

jj rushes back to the van with pope. "should we go?"

"i don't want to get caught." pope hops into the front seat beside jj.

"by the time we wait for them then we're going to be caught." olivia would never leave her friends behind, but with popes scholarship issues and her own family issues, she shuts the door and tells jj to leave.

the ride to jj's house was silent. they all hoped their two friends wouldn't get caught and end up in jail or else that would be bad. at least here they know where to meet up.

"you think they're okay?" pope sits down in jj's backyard to continue writing his essay.

"yeah, they'll be okay." olivia nods her head. "they always are. kiara's there to keep john b out of less trouble. keep him in a good mind set, you know?"

"they will." jj agrees, sliding down the wall of the house.

olivia pulls out her cigarettes and takes on for herself and hands one to jj. "pope you want one?"

"god no." pope shakes his head. "i'm writing an essay right now, got it?"

"uh huh. write about cigarettes." jj lights his followed by olivia's.

"should i write about my druggy friends?" pope jokes with a roll of his eyes.

"write about olivia and i. we do drugs and grow up old. our lungs will be perfectly fine." jj brings up another option pope will definitely not allow.

"see, i knew you love me." olivia nudges the boy next to her.

"of course he does." a knew voice was heard beside them. it was all too familiar to jj.

olivia looks at the source of the comment, meeting the eyes of jj's father. he looked just as bad as he has before.

"d-dad. you're home early." jj throws his cigarette to the side.

"school got out early for you kids?" his father stutters on his words. "how are your grades?"

pope looks confused, but he doesn't say anything while olivia knew exactly what was going on. his father couldn't tell the difference between summer or the school year anymore.

"they're a... they're good." jj clarifies, going along with his dad.

"you sure? last time i checked they were shit."

jj rubs his nose and scratches his head. "they're good."

"i'm keeping him in check." olivia speaks up. "i'm helping him with his grades. he's doing really good, mr. maybank."

his dad looks between his fearful son and the girl next to him. jj's body tenses up more when his dad makes eye contact with him. "alright. keep it up." his dad says before leaving.

jj looks down at the lighter in his hand. he didn't want anyone to see the hurt in his eyes, but olivia knew. she didn't have to look at him when his body relaxed once his father left.

pulling jj closer to her, she wraps her arms around him and lets him lay against her shoulder. "you'll be okay."

"can you tell me the happy ending again?" jj looks up at olivia.

this is the jj olivia knew. the jj without his gun and all the violence and mischief. the jj who asked her to repeat the happy ending to their lives over and over when he would come over whenever his dad got to be too much to handle.

"yeah, of course." she smiles.

pope watches olivia tell jj the story. now would be the time he would make fun of them, but he stayed out of it and blocked out their whole story thing to focus on his essay.

olivia tells jj the story she told him multiple times. jj became more and more relaxed as she carried on. if only pogue on pogue macking wasn't a thing, and rafe wasn't her date, he would totally call her his.