Chasing Sunshine | JJ Maybank

44 // The Bell Tower

If I thought going missing on Rosie and my brother was bad, I was wholly unprepared for the chaotic shit-show that was my voicemail the following morning. I had rolled over at my usual early hour, having not truly fallen asleep for more than a couple hours despite the feather-stuffed mattress that made it feel like I was laying on a cloud. My thoughts were too cluttered and anxieties too high-strung for my body to rest; every time a car drove by the house, sirens blasting or not, my eyes shot open.

I tried to make the bedroom look presentable after waking up, hopefully so Matthew's parents didn't think anything was amiss, and grabbed my phone off the nightstand before trying to find my way back downstairs where I saw the kitchen last night. I flicked through my voicemail's inbox, groaning when I was greeted with two missed calls from Kie, one from Pope, and twelve from JJ. Kie and Pope had each left a message apiece, the latter's being rather full of nonsense seeing as how he was still wasted but Kie's proved to be a little more informative:

"Meg I'm sorry we bailed! John B is the cops' prime suspect for the shooting and we had to bolt. Please answer your phone, I'm freaking out over here...Pope's high and John B's in shock still. Okay...hold on, JJ's telling me to hang up, he's going to try calling you again. Answer him!"

Every single one of JJ's calls were followed by a voicemail, each growing more and more frantic than the last. After listening through the first three, I skipped to the last one, hoping it would provide some illumination as to where they were camped out for the night:

"(no, it's her voicemail again)...oh hey Sunshine. Just me again...no biggie just wondering WHERE THE HELL YOU ARE. I just backtracked to the station and you weren't there so next time you're planning on setting off on your own, do a guy a solid and fucking ANSWER YOUR PHONE (Relax Kie, I'm not yelling, I'm just...talking passionately). Anyways, I'm about to lose the signal from Figure Eight so when you get this, meet us at the old lean-to off Coral Street? Got that? Coral Str-"

I rolled my eyes at the abrupt conclusion to the message, finally stumbling onto the kitchen by what I'm sure was sheer luck alone. I was surprised to see Matthew already up and eating breakfast. He looked up from his oatmeal and smiled, pushing a chocolate-chip muffin wrapped in a napkin towards me. "Good morning."

I quickly held a finger up, pointing towards my phone where I just clicked the callback option under JJ's name and he nodded in acknowledgment before going back to his food. I hadn't really thought I was going to be able to connect his call but was most certainly proven wrong when the line picked up before the first ring had even finished. JJ's indignant voice filtered through immediately, a little staticky but understandble, and he started spouting off before I even got the chance to say hello.

"-the fuck have you been?! I called you like twenty 'effin times and did you pick up on any of them? NO!"

"JJ..."

"You said you'd be at the station, Kie did she not say she'd be at the station? Why weren't you at the station?"

"JJ-"

"The cops could have picked you up, some fuckin' creeper could have kidnapped you, the-the square groupers could have come back from the goddamn dead to murder you and I wouldn't have been none the wiser because you decided to go AWOL-"

"JJ!" I near shouted, making Matthew jump and drop his spoon. I winced a little with an apologetic expression but continued to talk into the speaker. "Would you calm down, I'm fine."