how could a heart like yours, ever love a heart like mine?

sleep sound, sleep tight, here in my mind

She can see the waves crashing into the boat. John B and Sarah are panicking, trying to steady it, but failing, and rocking side to side violently. She's on the boat, watching them. They're shouting at her to do something but she can't move. She can't help them. She watches as a monster of a wave approaches them, and just like that, the boat is flipped and she's in the water. She's lost sight of John B and Sarah but she can move now, and she's spinning, swimming frantically. Her head breaks the surface, but she still can't see them. She goes under again to see them being dragged further and further into the black water. Being pulled away from her. They're reaching for her. She's swimming after them but they're too far away, and they're going so fast. She can't get to them, and just as the ocean swallows them up-

"NO!" Kiara shouted, shooting up to a sitting position, gasping for air. Her cheeks were wet with tears and her hair was stuck to the back of her neck with sweat.

She tried to calm her breathing while taking in her surroundings. She was in one of the booths at the Wreck.

Right. This is where you're supposed to be. This is where you came to sleep. This is where you've been coming to sleep almost every night for the past two months.

She tried to use her thoughts to ground herself, come back to reality.

She looked around her dad's restaurant to see JJ and Pope in their respective beds (booths), sound asleep.

"Lucky bastards" she muttered to herself.

Kiara hadn't slept a proper night since John B and Sarah went missing. That was two months ago. Every time she tried to sleep, she had horrible dreams, always ending the same way. John B and Sarah missing from view. No matter the scenario, no matter what she tried, it always ended with them gone, and her alone.

Of course she knew she wasn't alone. She still had the two boys who had been glued to her side ever since their friends had gone off in that boat. Every night they would come help her close up the Wreck and then they would spend the night there, none of them able to sleep at the Chateau anymore. She's was grateful for them but they were having a hard time too. They'd changed after that fateful day.

Pope seemingly lost all hope.

It looked like he would be alright, that day on the dock, when they watched John B leave on The Phantom. She had been so glad to see Pope's usual self, someone on whom she could depend. So happy in fact she had kissed him.

But once they found out that Sarah and John B had gone into the storm (and might not come out) and that even their last resort, grasping at straws, be all and end all plan had failed, he broke.

She had expected him to emote the way he always had. By throwing himself into his studies and burying himself in books. But boy was she wrong.

He started drinking. A lot. He stopped helping his father with deliveries and started running off on his own. And he developed a habit of smoking weed. Smoking and drinking were both totally cool with Kie, they were just so not Pope.

She went off on him after about two weeks. He had refused to talk to her about the two of them, but still treated her like he had some claim over her, just because she had kissed him. She made it very clear that they were just friends, hinting at the fact that it was mainly because of the way he had been acting, and he accepted it, putting in place his new "I don't give a fuck" attitude.

JJ on the other hand had stepped up, so to speak.

He blew up that night, after leaving the police station. He got angry, broke things like lawn chairs and the porch at the Chateau and baseball bats and his hand after punching a tree a couple times; and then he disappeared for a couple days.